#like 'ask for josh the supervisor josh' how am i supposed to ask for a specific fake cop when they're interrogating me SELLEN

[snarp]

Last night I dreamed I got held up at airport security in Nagoya for like 3 hours because my backpack was full of 1) raw meat, 2) Poke Balls containing Pokemon specifically banned from boarding airplanes including Onix and Electrode, and 3) kratom.

Also, I was Ranni the Witch, and, as such, my ID was obviously fake, but they never actually noticed that.

[the-hunchback-of-notre-dame]

‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ at 25: An Oral History of Disney’s Darkest Animated Classic

Posted on Slashfilm on Monday, June 21st, 2021 by Josh Spiegel

“This Is Going to Change Your Life”

The future directors of The Hunchback of Notre Dame were riding high from the success of Beauty and the Beast. Or, at least, they were happy to be finished.

Gary Trousdale, director: After Beauty and the Beast, I was exhausted. Plus, Kirk and I were not entirely trusted at first, because we were novices. I was looking forward to going back to drawing.

Kirk Wise, director: It was this crazy, wonderful roller-coaster ride. I had all this vacation time and I took a couple months off.

Gary Trousdale: A little later, it was suggested: “If you want to get back into directing, start looking for a project. You can’t sit around doing nothing.”

Kirk Wise: [Songwriters] Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty had a pitch called Song of the Sea, a loose retelling of the Orpheus myth with humpback whales. I thought it was very strong.

Gary Trousdale: We were a few months in, and there was artwork and a rough draft. There were a couple tentative songs, and we were getting a head of steam.

Kirk Wise: The phone rang. It was Jeffrey [Katzenberg, then-chairman of Walt Disney Studios], saying, “Drop everything. I got your next picture: The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

Gary Trousdale: “I’ve already got Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz. You’re going to do this.” It wasn’t like we were given a choice. It was, “Here’s the project. You’re on.”

Kirk Wise: I was pleased that [Jeffrey] was so excited about it. I think the success of Beauty and the Beast had a lot to do with him pushing it our way. It would’ve been crazy to say no.

Gary Trousdale: What [Kirk and I] didn’t know is that Alan and Stephen were being used as bait for us. And Jeffrey was playing us as bait for Alan and Stephen.

Alan Menken, composer: Jeffrey made reference to it being Michael Eisner’s passion project, which implied he was less enthused about it as a story source for an animated picture.

Stephen Schwartz, lyricist: They had two ideas. One was an adaptation of Hunchback and the other was about whales. We chose Hunchback. I’d seen the [Charles Laughton] movie. Then I read the novel and really liked it.

Peter Schneider, president of Disney Feature Animation (1985-99): I think what attracted Stephen was the darkness. One’s lust for something and one’s power and vengeance, and this poor, helpless fellow, Quasimodo.

Roy Conli, co-producer: I was working at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, doing new play development. I was asked if I’d thought about producing animation. I said, “Yeah, sure.”

Don Hahn, producer: The goose had laid lots of golden eggs. The studio was trying to create two units so they could have multiple films come out. Roy was tasked with something hard, to build a crew out of whole cloth.

Kirk Wise: The idea appealed to me because [of] the setting and main character. I worked with an elder story man, Joe Grant, [who] goes back to Snow White. He said, “Some of the best animation ideas are about a little guy with a big problem.” Hunchback fit that bill.

Gary Trousdale: It’s a story I always liked. When Jeffrey said, “This is going to change your life,” Kirk and I said, “Cool.” When I was a kid, I [had an] Aurora Monster Model of Quasimodo lashed to the wheel. I thought, “He’s not a monster.”

Don Hahn: It’s a great piece of literature and it had a lot of elements I liked. The underdog hero. [He] was not a handsome prince. I loved the potential.

Gary Trousdale: We thought, “What are we going to do to make this dark piece of literature into a Disney cartoon without screwing it up?”

Peter Schneider: The subject matter is very difficult. The conflict was how far to go with it or not go with it. This is basically [about] a pederast who says “Fuck me or you’ll die.” Right?

“We Were Able to Take More Chances”

Wise and Trousdale recruited a group of disparate artists from the States and beyond to bring the story of Quasimodo the bell-ringer to animated life.

Paul Brizzi, sequence director: We were freshly arrived from Paris.

Gaëtan Brizzi, sequence director: [The filmmakers] were looking for a great dramatic prologue, and they couldn’t figure [it] out. Paul and I spent the better part of the night conceiving this prologue. They said, “You have to storyboard it. We love it.”

Roy Conli: We had two amazing artists in Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi who became spiritual leaders in the production. They were so incredible.

Gaëtan Brizzi: [“The Bells of Notre Dame”] was not supposed to be a song first.

Paul Brizzi: The prologue was traditional in the Disney way. Gaëtan and I were thinking of German expressionism to emphasize the drama. I’m not sure we could do that today.

Paul Kandel, voice of Clopin: They were toying with Clopin being the narrator. So they wrote “The Bells of Notre Dame” to open the movie.

Stephen Schwartz: [Alan and I] got called into a presentation, and on all these boards [was] laid out “The Bells of Notre Dame.” We musicalized the story they put up there. We used the pieces of dialogue they invented for Frollo and the other characters. I wrote lyrics that described the narrative. It was very exciting. I had never written a song like that.

Kirk Wise: Early on, we [took] a research trip with the core creative team to Paris. We spent two weeks all over Notre Dame. They gave us unrestricted access, going down into the catacombs. That was a huge inspiration.

Don Hahn: To crawl up in the bell towers and imagine Quasimodo there, to see the bells and the timbers, the scale of it all is unbelievable.

Kirk Wise: One morning, I was listening to this pipe organ in this shadowy cathedral, with light filtering through the stained-glass windows. The sound was so powerful, I could feel it thudding in my chest. I thought, “This is what the movie needs to feel like.”

Brenda Chapman, story: It was fun to sit in a room and draw and think up stuff. I liked the idea of this lonely character up in a bell tower and how we could portray his imagination.

Kathy Zielinski, supervising animator, Frollo: It was the earliest I’ve ever started on a production. I was doing character designs for months. I did a lot of design work for the gargoyles, as a springboard for the other supervisors.

James Baxter, supervising animator, Quasimodo: Kirk and Gary said, “We’d like you to do Quasimodo.” [I thought] that would be such a cool, amazing thing to do. They wanted this innocent vibe to him. Part of the design process was getting that part of his character to read.

Will Finn, head of story/supervising animator, Laverne: Kirk and Gary wanted me on the project. Kirk, Gary, and Don Hahn gave me opportunities no one else would have, and I am forever grateful.

Kathy Zielinski: I spent several months doing 50 or 60 designs [for Frollo]. I looked at villainous actors. Actually, one was Peter Schneider. [laughing] Not to say he’s a villain, but a lot of the mannerisms and poses. “Oh, that looks a little like Peter.”

James Baxter: I was doing design work on the characters with Tony Fucile, the animator on Esmerelda. I think Kirk and Gary felt Beauty and the Beast had been disparate and the characters weren’t as unified as they wanted.

Kathy Zielinski: Frollo stemmed from Hans Conried [the voice of Disney’s Captain Hook]. He had a longish nose and a very stern-looking face. Frollo was modeled a little bit after him.

Will Finn: The team they put together was a powerhouse group – Brenda Chapman, Kevin Harkey, Ed Gombert, and veterans like Burny Mattinson and Vance Gerry. I felt funny being their “supervisor.”

Kathy Zielinski: Half my crew was in France, eight hours ahead. We were able to do phone calls. But because of the time difference, our end of the day was their beginning of the morning. I was working a lot of late hours, because [Frollo] was challenging to draw.

Kirk Wise: Our secret weapon was James Baxter, who animated the ballroom sequence [in Beauty and the Beast] on his own. He had a unique gift of rotating characters in three-dimensional space perfectly.

Gary Trousdale: James Baxter is, to my mind, one of the greatest living animators in the world.

James Baxter: I’ve always enjoyed doing things that were quite elaborate in terms of camera movement and three-dimensional space. I’m a glutton for punishment, because those shots are very hard to do.

Gary Trousdale: In the scene with Quasimodo carrying Esmeralda over his shoulder, climbing up the cathedral, he looks back under his arms, snarling at the crowd below. James called that his King Kong moment.

As production continued, Roy Conli’s position shifted, as Don Hahn joined the project, and Jeffrey Katzenberg left Disney in heated fashion in 1994.

Roy Conli: Jeffrey was going to create his own animation studio. Peter Schneider was interested in maintaining a relationship with Don Hahn. We were into animation, ahead of schedule. They asked Don if he would produce and if I would run the studio in Paris.

Don Hahn: Roy hadn’t done an animated film before. I was able to be a more senior presence. I’d worked with Kirk and Gary before, which I enjoy. They’re unsung heroes of these movies.

Kirk Wise: The [production] pace was more leisurely. As leisurely as these things can be. We had more breathing room to develop the storyboards and the script and the songs.

Gary Trousdale: Jeffrey never liked characters to have facial hair. No beards, no mustaches, nothing. There’s original designs of Gaston [with] a little Errol Flynn mustache. Jeffrey hated it. “I don’t want any facial hair.” Once he left, we were like, “We could give [Phoebus] a beard now.”

Kirk Wise: The ballroom sequence [in Beauty] gave us confidence to incorporate more computer graphics into Hunchback. We [had] to create the illusion of a throng of thousands of cheering people. To do it by hand would have been prohibitive, and look cheap.

Stephen Schwartz: Michael Eisner started being more hands-on. Michael was annoyed at me for a while, because when Jeffrey left, I accepted the job of doing the score for Prince of Egypt. I got fired from Mulan because of it. But once he fired me, Michael couldn’t have been a more supportive, positive colleague on Hunchback.

Kirk Wise: [The executives] were distracted. We were able to take more chances than we would have under the circumstances that we made Beauty and the Beast.

Don Hahn: Hunchback was in a league of its own, feeling like we [could] step out and take some creative risks. We could have done princess movies forever, and been reasonably successful. Our long-term survival relied on trying those risks.

One sticking point revolved around Notre Dame’s gargoyles, three of whom interact with Quasimodo, but feel more lighthearted than the rest of the dark story.

Gary Trousdale: In the book and several of the movies, Quasimodo talks to the gargoyles. We thought, “This is Disney, we’re doing a cartoon. The gargoyles can talk back.” One thing led to another and we’ve got “A Guy Like You.”

Kirk Wise: “A Guy Like You” was literally created so we could lighten the mood so the audience wasn’t sitting in this trough of despair for so long.

Stephen Schwartz: Out of context, the number is pretty good. I think I wrote some funny lyrics. But ultimately it was a step too far tonally for the movie and it has been dropped from the stage version.

Gary Trousdale: People have been asking for a long time: are they real? Are they part of Quasimodo’s personality? There were discussions that maybe Quasimodo is schizophrenic. We never definitively answered it, and can argue convincingly both ways.

Jason Alexander, voice of Hugo: I wouldn’t dream of interfering with anyone’s choice on that. It’s ambiguous for a reason and part of that reason is the viewers’ participation in the answer. Whatever you believe about it, I’m going to say you’re right.

Brenda Chapman: I left before they landed on how [to play] the gargoyles. My concern was, what are the rules? Are they real? Are they in his imagination? What can they do? Can they do stuff or is it all Quasi? I looked at it a little askance in the finished film. I wasn’t sure if I liked how it ended up…[Laverne] with the boa on the piano.

Kirk Wise: There was a component of the audience that felt the gargoyles were incompatible with Hunchback. But all of Disney’s movies, including the darkest ones, have comic-relief characters. And Disney was the last person to treat the written word as gospel.

“A Fantastic Opportunity”

After a successful collaboration on Pocahontas, Menken and Schwartz worked on turning Victor Hugo’s tragic story into a musical.

Alan Menken: The world of the story was very appealing, and it had so much social relevance and cultural nuance.

Stephen Schwartz: The story lent itself quite well to musicalization because of the extremity of the characters and the emotions. There was a lot to sing about. There was a great milieu.

Alan Menken: To embed the liturgy of the Catholic Church into a piece of music that’s operatic and also classical and pop-oriented enriches it in a very original way. Stephen was amazing. He would take the theme from the story and specifically set it in Latin to that music.

Stephen Schwartz: The fact that we were doing a piece set in a church allowed us to use all those elements of the Catholic mass, and for Alan to do all that wonderful choral music.

Alan Menken: The first creative impulse was “Out There.” I’m a craftsman. I’m working towards a specific assignment, but that was a rare instance where that piece of music existed.

Stephen Schwartz: I would come in with a title, maybe a couple of lines for Alan to be inspired by. We would talk about the whole unit, its job from a storytelling point of view. He would write some music. I could say, “I liked that. Let’s follow that.” He’d push a button and there would be a sloppy printout, enough that I could play it as I was starting the lyrics.

Roy Conli: Stephen’s lyrics are absolutely phenomenal. With that as a guiding light, we were in really good shape.

Stephen Schwartz: Alan played [the “Out There” theme] for me, and I really liked it. I asked for one change in the original chorus. Other than that, the music was exactly as he gave it to me.

Gary Trousdale: Talking with these guys about music is always intimidating. There was one [lyric] Don and I both questioned in “Out There,” when Frollo is singing, “Why invite their calumny and consternation?” Don and I went, “Calumny?” Kirk said, “Nope, it’s OK, I saw it in an X-Men comic book.” I went, “All right! It’s in a comic book! It’s good.”

Stephen Schwartz: Disney made it possible for me to get into Notre Dame before it opened to the public. I’d climb up the steps to the bell tower. I’d sit there with my yellow pad and pencil. I’d have the tune for “Out There” in my head, and I would look out at Paris, and be Quasimodo. By the time we left Paris, the song was written.

Kirk Wise: Stephen’s lyrics are really smart and literate. I don’t think the comical stuff was necessarily [his] strongest area. But this movie was a perfect fit, because the power of the emotions were so strong. Stephen just has a natural ability to connect with that.

Will Finn: The directors wanted a funny song for the gargoyles and Stephen was not eager to write it. He came to me and Irene Mecchi and asked us to help him think of comedy ideas for “A Guy Like You,” and we pitched a bunch of gags.

Jason Alexander: Singing with an orchestra the likes of which Alan and Stephen and Disney can assemble is nirvana. It’s electrifying and gives you the boost to sing over and over. Fortunately, everyone was open to discovery. I love nuance and intention in interpretation. I was given wonderful freedom to find both.

Stephen Schwartz: “Topsy Turvy,” it’s one of those numbers of musical theater where you can accomplish an enormous amount of storytelling. If you didn’t have that, you’d feel you were drowning in exposition. When you put it in the context of the celebration of the Feast of Fools, you could get a lot of work done.

Paul Kandel: The first time I sang [“Topsy Turvy”] through, I got a little applause from the orchestra. That was a very nice thing to happen and calm me down a little bit.

Brenda Chapman: Poor Kevin Harkey must’ve worked on “Topsy Turvy” for over a year. Just hearing [singing] “Topsy turvy!” I thought, “I would shoot myself.” It’s a fun song, but to listen to that, that many times. I don’t know if he ever got to work on anything else.

Paul Kandel: There were places where I thought the music was squarer than it needed to be. I wanted to round it out because Clopin is unpredictable. Is he good? Is he bad? That’s what I was trying to edge in there.

Kirk Wise: “God Help the Outcasts” made Jeffrey restless. I think he wanted “Memory” from Cats. Alan and Stephen wrote “Someday.” Jeffrey said, “This is good, but it needs to be bigger!” Alan was sitting at his piano bench, and Jeffrey was next to him. Jeffrey said, “When I want it bigger, I’ll nudge you.” Alan started playing and Jeffrey was jabbing him in the ribs. “Bigger, bigger!”

Don Hahn: In terms of what told the story better, one song was poetic, but the other was specific. “Outcasts” was very specific about Quasimodo. “Someday” was “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

Kirk Wise: When Don watched the movie, he said, “It’s working pretty well. But ‘Someday,’ I don’t know. It feels like she’s yelling at God.” We played “God Help the Outcasts” for him and Don said, “Oh, this is perfect.” That song is the signature of the entire movie.

Don Hahn: “Someday” was lovely. But I had come off of working with Howard Ashman, and I felt, “This doesn’t move the plot forward much, does it?” We ended up with “Someday” as an end-credits song, which was fortunate. ‘Cause they’re both good songs.

Kirk Wise: It was all about what conveys the emotion of the scene and the central theme of the movie best. “God Help the Outcasts” did that.

Everyone agrees on one point.

Stephen Schwartz: Hunchback is Alan’s best score. And that’s saying a lot, because he’s written a whole bunch of really good ones.

Gary Trousdale: With Hunchback, there were a couple of people that said, “This is why I chose music as a career.” Alan and Stephen’s songs are so amazing, so that’s really something.

Paul Kandel: It has a beautiful score.

Jason Alexander: It has the singularly most sophisticated score of most of the animated films of that era.

Roy Conli: The score of Hunchback is one of the greatest we’ve done.

Don Hahn: This is Alan’s most brilliant score. The amount of gravitas Alan put in the score is amazing.

Alan Menken: It’s the most ambitious score I’ve ever written. It has emotional depth. It’s a different assignment. And it was the project where awards stopped happening. It’s almost like, “OK, now you’ve gone too far.”

Stephen Schwartz: It’s astonishing that Alan has won about 173 Academy Awards, and the one score he did not win for is his best score.

The film featured marquee performers singing covers of “God Help the Outcasts” and “Someday”. But one of the most famous performers ever nearly brought those songs to life.

Alan Menken: I met Michael Jackson when we were looking for someone to sing “A Whole New World” for Aladdin. Michael wanted to co-write the song. I could get a sense of who Michael was. He was a very unique, interesting individual…in his own world.

I get a call out of nowhere from Michael’s assistant, when Michael was at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York. He had to [deal with] allegations about inappropriate behavior with underage kids, and the breakup with Lisa Marie Presley. He’s looking to change the subject. And he obviously loves Disney so much. So I mentioned Hunchback. He said he’d love to come to my studio, watch the movie and talk about it. So we got in touch with Disney Animation. They said, “Meet with him! If he likes it…well, see what he says.” [laughing]

There’s three songs. One was “Out There,” one was “God Help the Outcasts,” one was “Someday.” Michael said, “I would like to produce the songs and record some of them.” Wow. Okay. What do we do now? Michael left. We got in touch with Disney. It was like somebody dropped a hot poker into a fragile bowl with explosives. “Uh, we’ll get back to you about that.”

Finally, predictably, the word came back, “Disney doesn’t want to do this with Michael Jackson.” I go, “OK, could someone tell him this?” You can hear a pin drop, no response, and nobody did [tell him]. It fell to my late manager, Scott Shukat, to tell Michael or Michael’s attorney.

In retrospect, it was the right decision. [But] Quasimodo is a character���if you look at his relationships with his family and his father, I would think there’s a lot of identification there.

“They’re Never Going to Do This Kind of Character Again”

The film is known for the way it grapples with the hypocrisy and lust typified by the villainous Judge Frollo, whose terrifying song “Hellfire” remains a high point of Disney animation.

Gary Trousdale: Somebody asked me recently: “How the hell did you get ‘Hellfire’ past Disney?” It’s a good question.

Alan Menken: When Stephen and I wrote “Hellfire,” I was so excited by what we accomplished. It really raised the bar for Disney animation. It raised the bar for Stephen’s and my collaboration.

Stephen Schwartz: I thought the would never let me get away with [“Hellfire”]. And they never asked for a single change.

Alan Menken: Lust and religious conflict. Now more than ever, these are very thorny issues to put in front of the Disney audience. We wanted to go at it as truthfully as possible.

Stephen Schwartz: When Alan and I tackled “Hellfire,” I did what I usually did: write what I thought it should be and assume that [Disney would] tell me what I couldn’t get away with. But they accepted exactly what we wrote.

Don Hahn: Every good song score needs a villain’s moment. Stephen and Alan approached it with “Hellfire.”

Alan Menken: It was very clear, we’d thrown the gauntlet pretty far. It was also clear within our creative team that everybody was excited about going there.

Don Hahn: You use all the tools in your toolkit, and one of the most powerful ones was Alan and Stephen. Stephen can be dark, but he’s also very funny. He’s brilliant.

Gary Trousdale: The [MPAA] said, “When Frollo says ‘This burning desire is turning me to sin,’ we don’t like the word ‘sin.’” We can’t change the lyrics now. It’s all recorded. Kinda tough. “What if we just dip the volume of the word ‘sin’ and increase the sound effects?” They said, “Good.”

Stephen Schwartz: It’s one of the most admirable things [laughs] I have ever seen Disney Animation do. It was very supportive and adventurous, which is a spirit that…let’s just say, I don’t think [the company would] make this movie today.

Don Hahn: It’s funny. Violence is far more accepted than sex in a family movie. You can go see a Star Wars movie and the body count’s pretty huge, but there’s rarely any sexual innuendo.

Kathy Zielinski: I got to watch [Tony Jay] record “Hellfire” with another actor. I was sweating watching him record, because it was unbelievably intense. Afterwards, he asked me, “Did you learn anything from my performance?” I said, “Yeah, I never want to be a singer.” [laughing]

Paul Kandel: Tony Jay knocked that out of the park. He [was] an incredible guy. Very sweet. He was terrified to record “Hellfire.” He was at a couple of my sessions. He went, “Oh my God, what’s going to happen when it’s my turn? I don’t sing. I’m not a singer. I never pretended to be a singer.” I said, “Look, I’m not a singer. I’m an actor who figured out that they could hold a tune.”

Kathy Zielinski: I listened to Tony sing “Hellfire” tons. I knew I had gone too far when, one morning, we were sitting at the breakfast table and my daughter, who was two or three at the time, started singing the song and doing the mannerisms. [laughs]

Don Hahn: We didn’t literally want to show [Frollo’s lust]. It turns into a Fantasia sequence, almost. A lot of the imagery is something you could see coming out of Frollo’s imagination. It’s very impressionistic. It does stretch the boundaries of what had been done before at Disney.

Kirk Wise: We stylized it like “Night on Bald Mountain.” The best of Walt’s films balanced very dark and light elements. Instead of making it explicit, we tried to make it more visual and use symbolic imagery.

Gaëtan Brizzi: We were totally free. We could show symbolically how sick Frollo is between his hate and his carnal desire.

Kathy Zielinski: The storyboards had a tremendous influence. Everybody was incredibly admiring of the work that [Paul and Gaëtan] had done.

Don Hahn: They brought the storyboarded sequence to life in a way that is exactly what the movie looks like. The strength of it is that we didn’t have to show anything as much as we did suggest things to the audience. Give the audience credit for filling in the blanks.

Gary Trousdale: It was absolutely gorgeous. Their draftsmanship and their cinematography. They are the top. They pitched it with a cassette recording of Stephen singing “Hellfire”, and we were all in the story room watching it, going “Oh shit!”

Paul Brizzi: When Frollo is at the fireplace with Esmeralda’s scarf, his face is hypnotized. From the smoke, there’s the silhouette of Esmeralda coming to him. She’s naked in our drawings.

Gary Trousdale: We joked, maybe because they’re French, Esmeralda was in the nude when she was in the fire. Roy Disney put his foot down and said, “That’s not going to happen.” Chris Jenkins, the head of effects, and I went over every drawing to make sure she was appropriately attired. That was the one concession we made to the studio.

Gaëtan Brizzi: It’s the role of storyboard artists to go far, and then you scale it down. Her body was meant to be suggestive. It was more poetic than provocative.

Brenda Chapman: I thought what the Brizzis did with “Hellfire” was just stunning.

Roy Conli: We make films for people from four to 104, and we’re trying to ensure that the thematic material engages adults and engages children. We had a lot of conversations on “Hellfire,” [which] was groundbreaking. You saw the torment, but you didn’t necessarily, if you were a kid, read it as sexual. And if you were an adult, you picked it up pretty well.

Will Finn: “Hellfire” was uncomfortable to watch with a family audience. I’m not a prude, but what are small kids to make of such a scene?

Kathy Zielinski: When I was working on “Hellfire,” I thought, “Wow. They’re never going to do this kind of character again.” And I’m pretty much right.

“Straight for the Heart”

“Hellfire” may be the apex of the maturity of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but the entire film is the most complex and adult Disney animated feature of the modern era.

Gary Trousdale: We went straight for the heart and then pulled back.

Kirk Wise: I was comfortable with moments of broad comedy contrasted with moments that were dark or scary or violent. All of the Disney movies did that, particularly in Walt’s time.

Don Hahn: A lot of it is gut level, where [the story group would] sit around and talk to ourselves and pitch it to executives. But Walt Disney’s original animated films were really dark. We wanted to create something that had the impact of what animation can do.

Will Finn: Eisner insisted we follow the book to the letter, but he said the villain could not be a priest, and we had to have a happy ending. The book is an epic tragedy – everybody dies!

Kathy Zielinski: It’s a little scary that I felt comfortable with [Frollo]. [laughing] I don’t know what that means. Maybe I need to go to therapy. I’ve always had a desire to do villains. I just love evil.

Don Hahn: Kathy Zielinski is brilliant. She works on The Simpsons now, which is hilarious. She’s very intense, very aware of what [Frollo] had to do.

One specific choice in the relationship between Frollo and Esmeralda caused problems.

Stephen Schwartz: I remember there was great controversy over Frollo sniffing Esmeralda’s hair.

Kirk Wise: The scene that caused the most consternation was in the cathedral where Frollo grabs Esmeralda, whispers in her ear and sniffs her hair. The sniffing made people ask, “Is this too far?” We got a lot of support from Peter Schneider, Tom Schumacher, and Michael Eisner.

Kathy Zielinski: Brenda Chapman came up with that idea and the storyboard. I animated it. It’s interesting, because two females were responsible for that. That scene was problematic, so they had to cut it down. It used to be a lot longer.

Brenda Chapman: I know I’m probably pushing it too far, but let’s give it a go, you know?

Kirk Wise: We agreed it was going to be a matter of execution and our collective gut would tell us whether we were crossing the line. We learned that the difference between a G and PG is the loudness of a sniff. Ultimately, that’s what it came down to.

Brenda Chapman: I never knew that! [laughing]

Don Hahn: Is it rated G? That’s surprising.

Gary Trousdale: I’m sure there was backroom bargaining done that Kirk and I didn’t know about.

Don Hahn: It’s negotiation. The same was true of The Lion King. We had intensity notes on the fight at the end. You either say, we’re going to live with that and it’s PG, or we’re not and it’s G.

Brenda Chapman: I heard stories of little kids going, “Ewww, he’s rubbing his boogers in her hair!” [laughing] If that’s what they want to think, that’s fine. But there are plenty of adults that went, “Whoa!”

Don Hahn: You make the movies for yourselves, [but] we all have families, and you try to make something that’s appropriate for that audience. So we made some changes. Frollo isn’t a member of the clergy to take out any politicizing.

Gaëtan Brizzi: We developed the idea of Frollo’s racism against the gypsies. To feel that he desires Esmeralda and he wants to kill her. It was ambiguity that was interesting to develop. In the storyboards, Paul made [Frollo] handsome with a big jaw, a guy with class. They said he was too handsome. We had to break that formula.

Stephen Schwartz: I [and others] said, “It doesn’t make any sense for him to not be the Archdeacon, because what’s he doing with Quasimodo? What possible relationship could they have?” Which is what led to the backstory that became “The Bells of Notre Dame.”

Don Hahn: The things Frollo represents are alive and well in the world. Bigotry and prejudice are human traits and always have been. One of his traits was lust. How do you portray that in a Disney movie? We tried to portray that in a way that might be over kids’ heads and may not give them nightmares necessarily, but it’s not going to pull its punches. So it was a fine line.

Stephen Schwartz: Hugo’s novel is not critical of the church the way a lot of French literature is. It creates this character of Frollo, who’s a deeply hypocritical person and tormented by his hypocrisy.

Peter Schneider: I am going to be controversial. I think it failed. The fundamental basis is problematic, if you’re going to try and do a Disney movie. In [light of] the #MeToo movement, you couldn’t still do the movie and try what we tried to do. As much as we tried to soften it, you couldn’t get away from the fundamental darkness.

Don Hahn: Yeah, that sounds like Peter. He’s always the contrarian.

Peter Schneider: I’m not sure we should have made the movie, in retrospect. I mean, it did well, Kirk and Gary did a beautiful job. The voices are beautiful. The songs are lovely, but I’m not sure we should have made the movie.

Gaëtan Brizzi: The hardest part was to stick to the commercial side of the movie…to make sure we were still addressing kids.

Kirk Wise: We knew it was going to be a challenge to honor the source material while delivering a movie that would fit comfortably on the shelf with the other Disney musicals. We embraced it.

Roy Conli: I don’t think it was too mature. I do find it at times slightly provocative, but not in a judgmental or negative way. I stand by the film 100 percent in sending a message of hope.

Peter Schneider: It never settled its tone. If you look at the gargoyles and bringing in Jason Alexander to try and give comedy to this rather bleak story of a judge keeping a deformed young man in the tower…there’s so many icky factors for a Disney movie.

Jason Alexander: Some children might be frightened by Quasi’s look or not be able to understand the complexity. But what we see is an honest, innocent and capable underdog confront his obstacles and naysayers and emerge triumphant, seen and accepted. I think young people rally to those stories. They can handle the fearsome and celebrate the good.

Brenda Chapman: There was a scene where Frollo was locking Quasimodo in the tower, and Quasi was quite upset. I had to pull back from how cruel Frollo was in that moment, if I’m remembering correctly. I wanted to make him a very human monster, which can be scarier than a real monster.

Roy Conli: We walked such a tight line and we were on the edge and the fact that Disney allowed us to be on the edge was a huge tribute to them.

“Hear the Voice”

The story was set, the songs were ready. All that was left was getting a cast together to bring the characters’ voices to life.

Jason Alexander: Disney, Alan Menken, Stephen Schwartz, Victor Hugo – you had me at hello.

Paul Kandel: I was in Tommy, on Broadway. I was also a Tony nominee. So I had those prerequisites. Then I got a call from my agent that Jeffrey Katzenberg decided he wanted a star. I was out of a job I already had. I said, “I want to go back in and audition again.” I wanted to let them choose between me and whoever had a name that would help sell the film. So that series of auditions went on and I got the job back.

Kirk Wise: Everybody auditioned, with the exception of Kevin Kline and Demi Moore. We went to them with an offer. But we had a few people come in for Quasimodo, including Meat Loaf.

Will Finn: Katzenberg saw Meat Loaf and Cher playing Quasimodo and Esmeralda – more of a rock opera. He also wanted Leno, Letterman, and Arsenio as the gargoyles at one point.

Kirk Wise: Meat Loaf sat with Alan and rehearsed the song. It was very different than what we ended up with, because Meat Loaf has a very distinct sound. Ultimately, I think his record company and Disney couldn’t play nice together, and the deal fell apart.

Gary Trousdale: We all had the drawings of the characters we were currently casting for in front of us. Instead of watching the actor, we’d be looking down at the piece of paper, trying to hear that voice come out of the drawing. And it was, we learned, a little disconcerting for some of the actors and actresses, who would put on hair and makeup and clothes and they’ve got their body language and expressions. We just want to hear the voice.

Kirk Wise: We cast Cyndi Lauper as one of the gargoyles. We thought she was hilarious and sweet. The little fat obnoxious gargoyle had a different name, and was going to be played by Sam McMurray. We had Cyndi and Sam record, and Roy Disney hated it. The quality of Cyndi’s voice and Sam’s voice were extremely grating to his ear. This is no disrespect to them – Cyndi Lauper is amazing. And Sam McMurray is very funny. But it was not working for the people in the room on that day.

Jason Alexander: The authors cast you for a reason – they think they’ve heard a voice in you that fits their character. I always try to look at the image of the character – his shape, his size, his energy and start to allow sounds, pitches, vocal tics to emerge. Then everyone kicks that around, nudging here, tweaking there and within a few minutes you have the approach to the vocalization. It’s not usually a long process, but it is fun.

Kirk Wise: We decided to reconceive the gargoyles. We always knew we wanted three of them. We wanted a Laurel and Hardy pair. The third gargoyle, the female gargoyle, was up in the air. I think it was Will Finn who said, “Why don’t we make her older?” As the wisdom-keeper. That led us to Mary Wickes, who was absolutely terrific. We thoroughly enjoyed working with Mary, and 98% of the dialogue is her. But she sadly passed away before we were finished.

Will Finn: We brought in a ton of voice-over actresses and none sounded like Mary. One night, I woke up thinking about Jane Withers, who had been a character actress in the golden age of Hollywood. She had a similar twang in her voice, and very luckily, she was alive and well.

Kirk Wise: Our first session with Kevin Kline went OK, but something was missing. It just didn’t feel like there was enough of a twinkle in his voice. Roy Conli said, “Guys, he’s an actor. Give him a prop.” For the next session, the supervising animator for Phoebus brought in a medieval broadsword. Before the session started, we said “Kevin, we’ve got a present for you.” We brought out this sword, and he lit up like a kid at Christmas. He would gesture with it and lean on it. Roy found the key there.

Gary Trousdale: Kevin Kline is naturally funny, so we may have [written] some funnier lines for him. When he’s sparring with Esmeralda in the cathedral and he gets hit by the goat. “I didn’t know you had a kid,” which is the worst line ever. But he pulls it off. He had good comic timing.

Kirk Wise: Tom Hulce had a terrific body of work, including Amadeus. But the performance that stuck with me was in Dominic and Eugene. There was a sensitivity and emotional reality to that performance that made us lean in and think he might make a good Quasimodo.

Gary Trousdale: [His voice] had a nice mix of youthful and adult. He had a maturity, but he had an innocence as well. We’re picturing Quasimodo as a guy who’s basically an innocent. It was a quality of his voice that we could hear.

Don Hahn: He’s one of those actors who could perform and act while he sang. Solo songs, especially for Quasimodo, are monologues set to music. So you’re looking for someone who can portray all the emotion of the scene. It’s about performance and storytelling, and creating a character while you’re singing. That’s why Tom rose to the top.

Stephen Schwartz: I thought Tom did great. I had known Tom a little bit beforehand, as an actor in New York. I’d seen him do Equus and I was sort of surprised. I just knew him as an actor in straight plays. I didn’t know that he sang at all, and then it turned out that he really sang.

Paul Kandel: [Tom] didn’t think of himself as a singer. He’s an actor who can sing. “Out There,” his big number – whether he’s going to admit it to you or not – that was scary for him. But a beautiful job.

Brenda Chapman: Quasimodo was the key to make it family-friendly. Tom Hulce did such a great job making him appealing.

Kirk Wise: Gary came back with the audiotape of Tom’s first session. And his first appearance with the little bird, where he asks if the bird is ready to fly…that whole scene was his rehearsal tape. His instincts were so good. He just nailed it. I think he was surprised that we went with that take. It was the least overworked and the most spontaneous, and felt emotionally real to us.

Kathy Zielinski: Early on, they wanted Anthony Hopkins to do the voice [of Frollo]. [We] did an animation test with a line of his from Silence of the Lambs.

Kirk Wise: We were thinking of Hannibal Lecter in the earliest iterations of Frollo. They made an offer, but Hopkins passed. We came full circle to Tony, because it had been such a good experience working with him on Beauty and the Beast. It was the combination of the quality of his voice, the familiarity of working with him, and knowing how professional and sharp he was.

Though the role of Quasimodo went to Tom Hulce (who did not respond to multiple requests for comment), there was one audition those involved haven’t forgotten.

Kirk Wise: We had a few people come in for Quasimodo, including Mandy Patinkin.

Stephen Schwartz: That was a difficult day. [laughing]

Kirk Wise: Mandy informed Alan and Stephen that he brought his own accompanist, which was unexpected because we had one in the room. He had taken a few liberties with [“Out There”]. He had done a little rearranging. You could see Alan’s and Stephen’s spines stiffen. It was not the feel that Alan and Stephen were going for. Stephen pretty much said so in the room. I think his words were a little sharper and more pointed than mine.

Stephen Schwartz: I’ve never worked with Mandy Patinkin. But I admired Evita and Sunday in the Park with George. He came in to audition for Quasimodo. When I came in, Ben Vereen was sitting in the hallway. Ben is a friend of mine and kind of a giant star. I felt we should be polite in terms of bringing him in relatively close to the time for which he was called.

Mandy took a long time with his audition, and asked to do it over and over again. If you’re Mandy Patinkin, you should have enough time scheduled to feel you were able to show what you wanted to show. However, that amount of time was not scheduled. At a certain point, I became a bit agitated because I knew Ben was sitting there, cooling his heels. I remember asking [to] move along or something. That created a huge contretemps.

Kirk Wise: Gary and I stepped outside to work on a dialogue scene with Mandy. As we were explaining the scene and our take on the character, Mandy threw up his hands and said, “Guys, I’m really sorry. I can’t do this.” He turned on his heel and went into the rehearsal hall and shut the door. We started hearing an intense argument. He basically went in and read Alan and Stephen the riot act. The door opens, smoke issuing from the crater that he left inside. Mandy storms out, and he’s gone. We step back in the room, asking, “What the hell happened?”

Gary Trousdale: I did a drawing of it afterwards. The Patinkin Incident.

Stephen Schwartz: Battleship Patinkin!

“Join the Party”

The darkness in the film made it difficult to market. Even some involved acknowledged the issue. In the run-up to release, Jason Alexander said to Entertainment Weekly, “Disney would have us believe this movie’s like the Ringling Bros., for children of all ages. But I won’t be taking my 4-year old. I wouldn’t expose him to it, not for another year.”

Alan Menken: There was all the outrage about Jason Alexander referring to it as a dark story that’s not for kids. Probably Disney wasn’t happy he said that.

Jason Alexander: Most Disney animated films are entertaining and engaging for any child with an attention span. All of them have elements that are frightening. But people are abused in Hunchback. These are people, not cute animals. Some children could be overwhelmed by some of it at a very young age. My son at the time could not tolerate any sense of dread in movies so it would have been hard for him. However, that is certainly not all children.

Don Hahn: I don’t think Jason was wrong. People have to decide for themselves. It probably wasn’t a movie for four-year olds. You as a parent know your kid better than I do.

If everyone agrees the score is excellent, they also agree on something that was not.

Alan Menken: God knows we couldn’t control how Disney marketing dealt with the movie, which was a parade with Quasimodo on everybody’s shoulders going, “Join the party.” [laughing]

Roy Conli: I always thought “Animation comes of age” would be a great [tagline]. I think the marketing ended up, “Join the party.”

Brenda Chapman: Marketing had it as this big party. And then you get into the story and there’s all this darkness. I think audiences were not expecting that, if they didn’t know the original story.

Kathy Zielinski: It was a hard movie for Disney to merchandise and sell to the public.

Gaëtan Brizzi: People must have been totally surprised by the dramatic sequences. The advertising was not reflecting what the movie was about.

Stephen Schwartz: To this day, they just don’t know how to market “Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame.” I understand what their quandary is. They have developed a brand that says, “If you see the word Disney on something, it means you can take your 6-year old.” You probably shouldn’t even take your 8-year old, unless he or she is very mature, to Hunchback.

Alan Menken: We [Disney] had such a run of successful projects. It was inevitable there was going to be a time where people said, “I’ve seen all those, but what else is out there?” I had that experience sitting at a diner with my family, overhearing a family talk about Hunchback and say, “Oh yeah, we saw Beauty and Aladdin, but this one…let’s see something else.”

Stephen Schwartz: I did have a sense that some in the critical community didn’t know how to reconcile animation and an adult approach. They have the same attitude some critics have about musicals. “It’s fine if it’s tap-dancing and about silly subjects. But if it’s something that has intellectual import, you can’t do that.” Obviously we have Hamilton and Sweeney Todd and Wicked. Over the years, that’s changed to some extent, but not for everybody.

Roy Conli: Every film is not a Lion King. [But] if that story has legs and will touch people, then you’ve succeeded.

Kirk Wise: We were a little disappointed in its initial weekend. It didn’t do as well as we hoped. We were also disappointed in the critical reaction. It was well-reviewed, but more mixed. Roger Ebert loved us. The New York Times hated us! I felt whipsawed. It was the same critic [Janet Maslin] who praised Beauty and the Beast to the high heavens. She utterly shat on Hunchback.

Don Hahn: We had really good previews, but we also knew it was out of the box creatively. We were also worried about the French and we were worried about the handicapped community and those were the two communities that supported the movie the most.

Will Finn: I knew we were in trouble when the first trailers played and audiences laughed at Quasimodo singing “Out There” on the roof.

Kirk Wise: All of us were proud of the movie on an artistic level. In terms of animation and backgrounds and music and the use of the camera and the performances. It’s the entire studio operating at its peak level of performance, as far as I’m concerned.

Gary Trousdale: I didn’t think people were going to have such a negative reaction to the gargoyles. They’re a little silly. And they do undercut the gravity. But speaking with friends who were kids at the time, they have nothing but fond memories. There were adults, high school age and older when they saw it, they were turned off. We thought it was going to do really great. We thought, “We’re topping ourselves.” It’s a sophisticated story and the music is amazing.

Kirk Wise: The 2D animated movies used to be released before Christmas [or] Thanksgiving. The Lion King changed that. Now everything was a summer release. I always questioned the wisdom of releasing Hunchback in the summertime, in competition with other blockbusters.

Paul Kandel: It made $300 million and it cost $80 million to make. So they were not hurting as far as profits were concerned. But I thought it was groundbreaking in so many ways that I was surprised at the mixed reviews.

Kirk Wise: By most measures, it was a hit. I think The Lion King spoiled everybody, because [it] was such a phenomenon, a bolt from the blue, not-to-be-repeated kind of event.

Gary Trousdale: We were getting mixed reviews. Some of them were really good. “This is a stunning masterpiece.” And other people were saying, “This is a travesty.” And the box office was coming in, not as well as hoped.

Don Hahn: I was in Argentina doing South American press. I got a call from Peter Schneider, who said, “It’s performing OK, but it’s probably going to hit 100 million.” Which, for any other moviemaker, would be a goldmine. But we’d been used to huge successes. I was disappointed.

Peter Schneider: I think it was a hit, right? It just wasn’t the same. As they say in the theater, you don’t set out to make a failure.

Don Hahn: If you’re the New York Yankees, and you’ve had a winning season where you could not lose, and then people hit standup singles instead of home runs…that’s OK. But it has this aura of disappointment. That’s the feeling that’s awful to have, because it’s selfish. Animation is an art, and the arts are meant to be without a price tag hanging off of them all the time.

Paul Brizzi: We are still grateful to Kirk and Gary and Don. We worked on [Hunchback] for maybe a year or a year and a half. Every sequence, we did with passion.

Gaëtan Brizzi: Our work on Hunchback was a triumph of our career.

Kathy Zielinski: There are certainly a whole crowd of people who wish we had not [done] the comedy, because that wasn’t faithful. That’s the main complaint I heard – we should’ve gone for this total dramatic piece and not worried about the kiddies.

Gaetan Brizzi: The only concern we had was the lack of homogeneity. The drama was really strong, and the [comedy] was sometimes a little bit goofy. It was a paradox. When you go from “Hellfire” to a big joke, the transition was not working well. Otherwise, we were very proud.

James Baxter: We were happy with what we did, but we understood it was going to be a slightly harder sell. The Hunchback of Notre Dame usually doesn’t engender connotations like, “Oh, that’s going to be a Disney classic.” I was very happy that it did as well as it did.

Jason Alexander: I thought it was even more mature and emotional on screen. It was an exciting maturation of what a Disney animated feature could be. I was impressed and touched.

“An Undersung Hero”

25 years later, The Hunchback of Notre Dame endures. The animated film inspired an even darker stage show that played both domestically and overseas, and in recent years, there have been rumors that Josh Gad would star as Quasimodo in a live-action remake.

Alan Menken: I think it’s a project that with every passing year will more and more become recognized as a really important part of my career.

Stephen Schwartz: This will be immodest, but I think it’s a really fine adaptation. I think it’s the best musical adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel, and there have been a lot. I think the music is just unbelievably good. I think, as a lyricist, I was working at pretty much the top of my form. I have so many people telling me it’s their favorite Disney film.

Alan Menken: During the pandemic, there was this hundred-piece choir doing “The Bells of Notre Dame.” People are picking up on it. It’s the combination of the storytelling and how well the score is constructed that gets it to longevity. If something is good enough, it gets found.

Paul Kandel: I think people were more sensitive. There was an expectation that a new Disney animated film would not push boundaries at all, which it did. For critics, it pushed a little too hard and I don’t think they would think that now. It’s a work of art.

Gaëtan Brizzi: Hunchback is poetic, because of its dark romanticism. We have tons of animated movies, but I think they all look alike because of the computer technique. This movie is very important in making people understand that hate has no place in our society, between a culture or people or a country. That’s the message of the movie, and of Victor Hugo himself.

Jason Alexander: I think it’s an undersung hero. It’s one of the most beautiful and moving animated films. But it is not the title that lives on everyone’s tongue. I think more people haven’t seen this one than any of the others. I adore it.

Peter Schneider: What Disney did around this period [is] we stopped making musicals. I think that was probably a mistake on some level, but the animators were bored with it.

Don Hahn: You know people reacted to Beauty and the Beast or The Lion King. They were successful movies in their day. You don’t know the reaction to anything else. So when [I] go to Comic-Con or do press on other movies, people started talking about Hunchback. “My favorite Alan Menken score is Hunchback.” It’s always surprising and delightful.

Kirk Wise: I’ve had so many people come up to me and say, “This is my absolute favorite movie. I adored this movie as a kid. I wore out my VHS.” That makes all the difference in the world.

Paul Kandel: Sitting on my desk right now are four long letters and requests for autographs. I get 20 of those a week. People are still seeing that film and being moved by it.

Alan Menken: Now there’s a discussion about a live-action film with Hunchback. And that’s [sighs] exciting and problematic. We have to, once again, wade into the troubled waters of “What is Disney’s movie version of Hunchback?” Especially now.

Jason Alexander: Live action could work because the vast majority of characters are human. The story of an actual human who is in some ways less abled and who is defined by how he looks, rather than his heart and character, is timely and important, to say the least.

Kirk Wise: I imagine if there were a live-action adaptation, it would skew more towards the stage version. That’s just my guess.

Stephen Schwartz: I think it would lend itself extremely well to a live-action movie, particularly if they use the stage show as the basis. I think the stage show is fantastic.

Kirk Wise: It’s gratifying to be involved in movies like Beauty and the Beast and Hunchback that have created so much affection. But animation is as legitimate a form of storytelling as live-action is. It might be different, but I don’t think it’s better. I feel like [saying], “Just put on the old one. It’s still good!”

Gary Trousdale: There were enough versions before. Somebody wants to make another version? Okay. Most people can tell the difference between the animated version and a live-action reboot. Mostly I’m not a fan of those. But if that’s what Disney wants to do, great.

Don Hahn: It’s very visual. It’s got huge potential because of its setting and the drama, and the music. It’s pretty powerful, so it makes sense to remake that movie. I think we will someday.

Brenda Chapman: It’s a history lesson. Now that Notre Dame is in such dire straits, after having burned so badly, hopefully [this] will increase interest in all that history.

James Baxter: It meant two children. I met my wife on that movie. [laughs] In a wider sense, the legacy is another step of broadening the scope of what Disney feature animation could be.

Kirk Wise: Hunchback is the movie where the final product turned out closest to the original vision. There was such terrific passion by the crew that carried throughout the process.

Roy Conli: It’s one of the most beautiful films we’ve made. 25 years later, I’d say “Join the party.” [laughs]

[blindedbythedarkness]

Josh,

Sometimes it's really fucking difficult to not believe that the universe is personally biased against me. And I know that's kind of rich coming from the one of us that didn't get driven to suicide. But I just, I know you of all people would understand. I wish I had you to really talk to right now.

I'm gonna ramble because I just need someone to listen. But where to fucking start? Life right now is just spinning plates. On one day this week I found out a critical hospital referral I was relying on had never been made; I was rejected by yet another landlord for a house next year that I'd really been betting on; my supervisor met with and bullied me for a solid two hours and my one social event of the week got cancelled. So, that's about when it all started to get too much.

The doctor I've been seeing has been incompetent from the start and made so much work for me in the 6 months I've been in her care. Despite diagnosing my Potentially Life Threatening connective tissue disease, she never even named it in our appointments, leaving me to discover the true horrors of my body through playing detective with my blood results. Long story short, to be confident that I can go on a treatment for it without bleeding out, I need to see a geneticist. But despite agreeing that I should see one, she's refusing to refer me to one directly. Instead, she's referring me to a pain rehab clinic at a separate hospital and saying they can internally refer me to genetics. The wait on the pain rehab clinic? At least two years. Plus, of course none of this information was forthcoming and required weeks of emailing back and forth. So now I'm angry, anxious and stressed about my health. I want to make a formal complaint but I don't know when I'll find the time.

That wasn't even the worst thing, though. The worst thing was uni reminding me just one last time that it truly doesn't give a shit about its students and why I hate it to its very core. The final piece of work I have left to hand in is a research project that I've been working on all year. However, my supervisor is an utter cunt, and I don't say that lightly. He's incredibly narcissistic and rude for a start. For a presentation I had to do, he forced me to use his own slides without ever looking at mine. He once ended an online meeting because I misspoke when explaining a figure, telling me to call him back when I knew what I was on about because he "never forgets what he sees and doesn't want his brain soiled with incorrect information." Given he never remembers what we've spoken about from one meeting to the next, I call bullshit. Oh and this week? He asked me to explain a figure to him and when he said he didn't understand I asked him if he was looking at my screen share. He said no. I just despair!

To make matters worse, he's never fucking happy with me. He's made me start my work from scratch 3 times now and had a different problem each time. We're rapidly approaching the deadline now, so to get all the work done for the 3rd time I've been working 9am-5pm 6 days a week. Not that he cares. The results don't fit his hypothesis, so I must simply be incompetent. He even once had the audacity to suggest that I "didn't want to do the work" while looking through a 70 page document of my results, because I couldn't explain the findings of a figure I'd made a month ago off the top of my head.

In this weeks meeting, he again gave me an extortionate list of new tasks to do, while berating me at every turn. With a month left submit my thesis and my write up not started, I tried to explain to him that I wouldn't have time to complete the list. He just shrugged and said, "Well I think you should do it." And yes, this man is aware that I have been struggling physically and mentally recently.

I didn't know what else to do to make him listen, so I contacted the course supervisor (who I'd already briefly made aware of my issues with him). She told me to "quit" and "just get on with writing my thesis"... until four hours later after she had spoken to my supervisor and completely changed her mind. She video called me to tell me to do the work and I just broke down. I don't make a habit of ugly sobbing in front of people I've only ever met twice over Microsoft Teams, but this was a particularly bad day.

"Trying to do this work is going to destroy my physical and mental health."

"I can't do this anymore."

"He never listens to me."

"I've been working 6 days a week and it's killing me."

She didn't care. She told me that since my supervisor is an experienced professional, he must know how much he's asking of me and since he insists it's quick and easy stuff, it must be. This man has never done this analysis himself. He doesn't even know how; half the stuff one of his lab workers taught me and the rest I taught myself.

"Chill out" and "calm down" she told me, "do the work and if you have any problems ask John (the lab worker)"

By the time I pressed the leave button, I could barely breathe, let alone talk. I was just choking and sobbing and had snot pouring down my face. I was just so tired. So stressed. So... ignored. I didn't know where I would find the hours in the day, but I started by cancelling the trip to see my parents this weekend. To them I am not a student, and a student with health problems at that. I am simply a machine to use for free research.

I just wanted the stress to give me a break. I just wanted a break. I was genuinely afraid that my heart was going to stop from the stress alone. I didn't know where else to turn. The counseling service put me on a waiting list. My tutor told me to "just keep trying my best". My mentor told me to talk to my course supervisor. My course supervisor told me to work. A was busy revising for an exam the next day and I didn't want to bother him. So, I turned to my unhealthy coping mechanisms instead.

I didn't mean to do it as badly as I did. I just wanted to scratch my skin enough to feel it burn and give me something else to feel instead of the huge mass in my chest. But the scissors were sharper than I thought and when I looked down there were four long cuts that had gone through the skin and fat. I knew immediately I'd fucked up. There was no way those edges were coming together on their own. Honestly, I was just mad I'd given myself something else to do. So, I covered them with gauze and tape and kept on working. Because I needed to work. I needed to get it done. I would deal with going to the hospital later but I couldn't lose these working hours.

Once the blood was dripping from the gauze I finally, begrudgingly, went to the hospital. Honestly? They were surprisingly nice. They were understanding and they listened. I was so worried that they'd think I was some cringy emo kid looking for attention. I honestly felt like a total knob going there, but I didn't have a choice. I never felt judged or like they thought I was wasting their time or that it was all my fault. Of course, I know that it was my fault and I felt like a fool. But I also don't blame myself for becoming so desperate. At one point a doctor came in with a medical student who was visibly shy and embarrassed when examining me. I told her I had a place at medical school, so not to worry as I'd be in her place soon. And again, I was shocked because they didn't once tell me not to go. I thought they were going to say "if you can't cope right now, starting medical school isn't for you!" But they never said anything like that. Instead they were shocked I'd gotten in to such a good uni and seemed incredibly genuine when they wished me well.

Oh, and the wounds? Thankfully I didn't need stitches so I got them pulled together again with steri-strips. And in case you didn't believe me that I didn't intend them to be so bad, I nearly passed out three times after looking at them. So, I truly am a fucking idiot, Josh. Lesson learnt, I suppose. Though I'm still afraid what will happen next time I run out of options.

It's finally the end of the week now, but the universe still hasn't given me a break. My mum called earlier and told me my rabbit will be crossing the rainbow bridge tomorrow as he seems to have had a stroke. I mean, it's a small mercy that he's an old bunny and he's been unwell for a long time, so it's not a shock. But it's still so sad and I'll miss him so much. What really tops it all off is that I was going to see him this weekend until I had to cancel my trip home due to the workload.

Man, I just. Why does shit stuff seem to come so easily to me? It's difficult not to feel personally victimized when shit news after shit news lines up so well. I wish good things came as thick and fast. I hope to fuck my luck changes soon because honestly I'm terrified that it's taking years off my life.

Thanks for listening, Josh,

C

[despressolattes]

AFTERMATH | CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN | LEGACIES

book masterlist » book one masterlist

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———

Night of the full-moon, the werewolves were turning for the night. It was an emotional night for all of them, of course. Not every transformation felt freeing as it did for Hope. Some of them were still working out the kinks of it.

Upon arriving home from her weekend trip to New Orleans, Lilah went down to the transformation cells with Hope, who was looking for her boyfriend. Lilah wanted to be down there with Rafael, just in case he needed her to be.

"Have you seen Landon?" Hope asked as Alaric came into view. "I thought he might be down here with Raf for moral support."

"Raf's not here," Alaric said.

"What, he's... what?" Lilah asked, the Mikaelson girls giving Alaric a confused expression. There was a pit in her stomach. She knew she shouldn't have left after they babysat the Salvatore kids.

"The supervisors said he didn't check in," replied Alaric. "And now MG's missing, too."

"But it's a full moon," Hope said, fear laced in her words.

Werewolf bites could kill a vampire.

Lilah was starting to get scared, too. They heard howling in the distance, all of them tensing up from the sound. Rafael. Her insides were basically mush at that point, she didn't know how the heck she would be able to fix any of this.

"Oh, God," Hope mumbled.

—

Walking through the woods aimlessly with a flashlight, the three of them walked in panicked manners. They were speed walking so fast that Lilah could feel her calves getting stronger as they moved. Not a fun feeling, but nice to look at with leggings on.

"I don't know why my locator spell didn't work," Hope said in distress.

"If you can't find them, it means someone's cloaking them or-" Alaric started.

"Or they're-" Hope cut him off, only to be cut off herself.

"Don't even go there," Lilah interjected, her voice stern though it was evident she was holding back her own worst thoughts. "They're both going to be just fine."

"What would possess them to leave campus?" asked Alaric, baffled at the idiotic decisions of the teenage boys. "Why would they be so irresponsible."

Lilah remembered telling Landon and Rafael to watch over MG while they were gone, especially with the tip from Dorian that it was possible he could end up being a ripper.

Sorry guys, the only ripper allowed to attend this school is named Lilah Mikaelson, Lilah thought to herself, a shiver flowing down her spine at the thought of innocent, lovable MG hurting people, dozens, hundreds, the way she did in her earlier days.

"They wouldn't. Something must have happened," the Mikaelson girls said together, earning a creeped out stare from the Headmaster.

Alaric shone the light, and they found Rafael on the floor against the fence, half unconscious and in pain.

"Lilah! Hope," Alaric said, their heads snapping in that direction.

"Raf? Raf!" exclaimed Lilah, all of them running towards him.

Lilah crouched down in front of him, placing her hands on his face. "Hey, are you okay?"

The first sight of blood she saw was on his shirt, and she worried that he may be hurt. All he could say, in a pained voice, was, "MG... Landon..."

He was a bit bloody, and all he could say was "MG... Landon..."

"Hey, what's going on? Where's Landon?" Hope asked him, trying to scan his face for any possible clues.

There was blood on his face, and Lilah's guts twisted on the inside some more. He bit someone. Whether it was Landon or MG, one of them was about to end up dead. Landon was human and MG was a vampire. Landon had higher chances of surviving a werewolf bite, but if they didn't get to MG in time...

She didn't even want to finish the thought.

Painfully, Rafael said, "I can't remember."

—

They brought Rafael back to the school, sitting him down on his hed as Emma examined him. His heartbeat wasn't slowing down, he seemed in a panicked state. Even Lilah couldn't get close to him anymore, he'd flinch every time she approached.

"Lunar psychosis?" wondered Alaric, Emma trying to evaluate Rafael.

"That's a thing?" Hope and Lilah asked in unison.

"Quit talking," Rafael mumbled through gritted teeth. "Making noise."

He groaned and growled, standing up and lunching at them.

As Alaric and Hope stepped back, Lilah stepped forward, but Emma chanted a spell.

"Tardus pulsatio."

Rafael stopped, and Lilah heard his heartbeat calm down, and his breaths were reduced to a slow pant.

"It's a thing," Emma answered the Mikaelsons' question.

"What did you do to him?" both girls asked in unison, again.

"It's okay, I'm just slowing down his heart," Emma said, putting a hand in front of Lilah as she took a step forward. "It will calm him."

The Mikaelson girl rolled her eyes, staring at Emma with a 'come on' expression.

"With all due respect, Emma, I'm the only one in this room who Rafael is not a threat to, you don't have to try to protect me like I'm on of the teenagers on campus."

Maybe it was because of the high emotional state of the situation, but Emma was getting on Lilah's nerves. She never did before. Emma was always the calm, the counsel, but at that moment, her words were doing nothing to alleviate the fear in the Mikaelson's blood.

"You act like one," Emma replied, and Lilah growled.

"Hey!" Alaric scolded both of them. "Lilah, I know you're worried about Rafael, but witch things aren't your expertise, and it's beyond Hope's knowledge right now, so please, let Emma help him."

With the advice of Alaric, Lilah shook off her irritation.

"What's happening to me?" Rafael asked in a small voice. "I keep... losing time."

"As I said: lunar psychosis," replied Emma, grabbing onto Rafael's wrists and trying to get him to sit back down. "It means that your mind is in a flux, trapped between your wolf and human states, making it harder to bridge the gap and access your memories like you normally would."

Directing the next part of her explanation at the Mikaelsons and Alaric, she said, "It's very rare. It only happens after a premature reversion."

Lilah went to sit next to Rafael, despite Emma's frown. She put her hand on his knee reassuringly, and he reacted well this time. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer. Hearing his heartbeat and panting up close still had her worried, and she tried to rub his back, wanting to be more helpful than Emma.

"So, something caused your body to shift back," Hope said. "Because the full moon was over, leaving you like this."

"What kind of something?" Rafael asked, panicked.

"Usually trauma," Hope said in a monotone voice, and Lilah knew where he mind was going. "Something bad happened."

"We don't know that," Emma and Lilah said together.

Lilah felt Rafael's heartbeat picking up again, probably scared of what it was he did. She put her head onto one of his broad shoulders, trying to nuzzle herself into him, the way Roman used to for her to calm her down.

"Three of them left, and only one came back," replied Hope in a stressed voice, trying to hold back tears. "Something. Bad. Happened."

Emma stood up, "Hope, why don't you give us a minute? Lilah, you, too. Go and check on the other wolves."

"I'm worried about this one," both girls said together.

"Jesus Christ, can you two stop speaking at the same time," mumbled Alaric. "It's getting creepy."

"Girls... please," Emma said sternly.

"I'm not leaving," Lilah said, hoping to sound more stern. She gave Emma an irritated look as Rafael's grip on her tightened. "I don't think he wants me to."

Hope scoffed and left, looking at Alaric and Lilah like it was ridiculous that she had to leave. Lilah felt bad, but she had to be there for Rafael. Emma looked at Lilah.

"Don't try to boss me around, Emma. I've got a thousand years on you," Lilah warned.

Emma opened her mouth to respond, but Alaric beat her to it.

"What's the danger of him turning into a wolf again?" Alaric asked, ignoring the statement from the ancient vampire. He knew who had the upper hand, and he knew to just leave her be. Mikaelson witches, Mikaelson vampires, Mikaelson hybrids—they were stubborn once putting their mind to something. "This whole wing is filled with sleeping vampires."

"Don't worry, I'll keep him sealed in. What his mind needs now is to be surrounded by all the things that are familiar to him, that connect him to his humanity, not his lycanthropy. Corum spiritus," Emma said. "And if Lilah really decides on being the overly clingy old girlfriend, then they can both be here."

"Not his girlfriend," Lilah rolled her eyes.

Alaric knelt in front of them, next to Emma.

"Rafael," he said softly. "We'll do everything we can to help you, but you need to tell us exactly what happened."

Rafael explained that it was the last three days of Spring Break. Lilah had left after they babysat the Salvatore kids for New Orleans, deciding that she did want to see family, hang out with Josh. She warned the boys about being at the school before the full moon.

"Please tell me you didn't take MG home," Alaric sighed with disappointment.

"We didn't think it was that big of a deal, Dr. Saltzman. They're just right over the state line in Maryland. I wanted to keep my word to Kaleb, but we were supposed to make it back before the full moon, so I could keep the word to you," Rafael explained, looking at Lilah at the end of his sentence.

"But you didn't," Alaric and Lilah said. "And now we're here."

"Ric," Emma said softly, standing up to face the Headmaster. "Discipline can come after everyone is healthy and safe."

"Rafael, I am sorry. I am not mad at you," Alaric told him. "I'm mad at myself."

Rafael had one hand on his forehead, disappointed in himself, the other still holding onto Lilah.

The door opened, Hope coming back inside, asking, "For what?"

"I got to go. I've got a big mess I need to clean up. Mikaelson girls, stay with Emma," Alaric said, giving out directions. "Keep me posted on what you learn, okay? I'll have the school phone on me."

When Alaric left, Lilah got up. Rafael looked up in alert, a bit of panic.

"Are you leaving?" he asked.

"You're in good hands. I'm going to try to be help with Alaric. Werewolves and magic... it's just not my specialty, like Alaric said," she told him.

He meekly nodded, not looking reassured. She grabbed his face in her hands, smiling at him. "Everything'll be okay."

—

She didn't go to help Alaric, however. She went back to her dorm room with Hope, throwing herself headfirst onto her bed. She wrapped her arms around her head pillow, holding it close as tears formed in her eyes. Her chest hurt, her stomach was turning.

She was helpless. She couldn't do magic to try to find MG and Landon, she was absolutely no help with whatever the heck lunar psychosis was. She was angry at herself because she left the school during spring break to go to parties with Josh and forget about the Salvatore School and Lorelle for a few days. She wanted to see Freya, the woman who was her mom for even just a day.

Hopeless spirals seemed to be a Mikaelson trait. There was anger and rage in her, there was the fear of losing any of those three boys. Almost every single person she had loved in all her years died. No one was ever permanent.

Miss Invincible sure as hell didn't feel like she was, and she had no idea how to fix anything.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

[suicidalcatz]

DOG DAYS ARE OVER : CHAP 9

Pairing : Jake Kiszka x reader

Genre : College AU

Previous parts : Prologue ; Chap 1 ; Chap 2 ; Chap 3 ; Chap 4 ; Chap 5 ; Chap 6 ; Chap 7 ; Chap 8

Masterlist : here

AN : Hello reader ! How we feelin today ? Yeah me too, I guess it’s time for a party then ! But pay extra attention to the title, I warned you. I’ll be waiting at the end, I have some things I’d like to discuss, see you in a few!

Chapter 9 : Be careful, okay ?

Unsurprisingly, it turned out that we were the only ones invited, for some reason I couldn't quite decipher. It was only December so maybe the boys didn't make friends with their other classmates yet, but still I found it odd. They were funny, nice, and really, really skilled. But their friends, or lack of for instance, wasn't a topic I could bring just like that, so I'll have to wait for now and ask any of the twins when we were alone, I guess. Couldn't say I was surprised by their dorms, too, as they were pretty much the same as ours, maybe a little bit more messier. The four of them slept there, in two different rooms, on two different floors, from what I understood.

Josh of course lead the way, while Mandy was whispering questions she couldn't keep in her head but was too shy to say out loud for everybody to hear.

- Who's the long haired bassist ?

- That would be Sam, my little brother, he replied in the same quiet tone. Why ? Interested ?

Mandy poked him in the ribs when he smirked at her in a suggestive way, and I let out a chuckle. The boys were all in favor of going inside to get warm and drink together while getting to know each other. It seemed like a good program. We helped them bring all of their stuff back inside either to the Music Dept building (drums and mic) or their dorm (guitar, bass and amps). And as Jake wouldn't let me lift anything that he deemed heavy, they declared me tambourine supervisor, making a show of putting it in my hands like a holy relic and insisting that this job meant a lot of responsibilities. Not gonna lie I was feeling kind of stupid seeing them carrying gigantic amps in their arms while the tambourine I got kept ringing with every step I took as if to remind me how useless I was.

- Oh that's him you were talking about last time, I said while sneaking a peek at him behind my shoulder. You guys really look alike. And the drummer is your childhood friend Danny, right ?

Josh looked positively surprised for a moment before acquiescing, asking me how I knew this info.

- Jake told me one time, when you were rehearsing.

The thought of that night made me smile to myself, remembering the awful pictures and odd war metaphors with poor Danny trying to calm everybody down. However, my smile disappeared quickly when I caught Josh's unamused expression. It didn't last long, hardly a second, before he found his usual cheerful self, but it was enough to make me uneasy. Something in his eyes told me there was something wrong. And I knew it was linked to Jake, I just ignored why. A piece of the puzzle was missing and it was slowly upsetting me since nobody cared to tell me. He was weird when he saw the both of us hanging out together, and flipped when he discovered we texted, but I thought we were over that now. So was he still upset about the whole thing ? Should I avoid talking about it even though I have his phone number too now ? Or am I being totally paranoid ?

The singer abruptly stopping still in the middle of the hallway got me out of my thoughts, though, painfully so since I face-planted on the back of his head and shoulder blades, making the tambourine ring in the process.

- Please stay with us mama, we're here.

Rubbing my nose, I heard Sam snort loudly and probably at me but had already been warned that he was a sass master, so took no offense in it. Danny, on the other hand, seemed like the sweetest dude alive. Always smiling and asking if we needed help with anything, with a quiet charm and a soothing aura. What a great guy. Now that I knew a bit more about the Kiszkas, I felt sympathy for his poor soul.

Jake came by my side, and I suddenly got surrounded by the twins, one of them waiting impatiently at my left, and the other filling the empty space between the wall and I. Gently dropping his amp on the ground, he searched in his jeans pockets for the key to their room, lightly brushing my face with his hair in the process, before bending over a little to unlock the door. He moved aside just enough so that Josh could have the honor of introducing us to their room by violently slamming the door open while posing and screaming « TADA ! ». Shaking his head, Jake got in first, seemingly not in the mood to wait for his brother, switching on the lights and putting his guitar and amp at their place in a corner of the room. Josh motionned us to go first, and Mandy pushed me by the shoulders.

It looked... just like them. And smelled like them, too. The ground was covered by gigantic berber carpets, bunk beds were on the side of a wall, cornered by guitars, amps, and boxes of vinyles piled up in a tower. Some rock legends posters were displayed here and there next to their respective beds, and facing their single wardrobe, which I supposed they all had 2 drawers of it. On top of it was a turntable, and facing the door a window and a messy, messy desk. Orange leathered fatboys were sitting on the floor, an ashtray was hiding in a corner beside the wardrobe, and a door next to the desk was leading the way to their kitchen. Raising my head, I saw they had decorated their celling with colorful fabrics in red, maroon and orange, keeping one of them at the window as a curtain. Numerous mobiles hung by the celling, some of them with agate and quartz stones of every color, others in the shape of animals crafted by hand, and the whole room smelled of masculine perfume and incense. It was so them I was suddenly aware of where I stood and every nervousness I had lost came rushing back again.

- Welcome to our humble home, greeted Josh as Sam had already climbed barefoot on the top bunk.

- Please make yourself comfortable, added Jake.

The brunette removed his shoes and went around the room to get a towel in order to scrub his sweaty face, letting it stay around his neck. Danny asked Mandy if he could take the beer keg to get us all drinks and she thanked him, standing by my side frozen in their doormat.

- Oh please don't stay here ladies, have a seat, anywhere you want.

Josh didn't even have to turn around from his vinyle collection to know we didn't move an inch, it was honestly scary how well he knew us already. That piqued Jake's interest who raised his head and gestured for us to come.

- This is my bed, he said while straightening the covers a bit, feel free to sit on it if you want to.

Jake then sat down on the bottom bunk and gave a heavy pat on the mat, and that's the moment Mandy chose to shake out of it and push me on the bed in the less discreet way possible to make sure I couldn't sit anywhere else but besides Jake. I swear to God.

The death glare I gave her when she made herself comfortable on a fatboy was so intense that she felt it and smirked at me. Unbearable.

- Be careful not to bump your head, okay ?

Jake's raspy voice came to my ears and when I turned my head he was smiling at me, hand on the back of the top bed. We were cramped in here, not having much space to ourselves and almost hitting our heads with every movement we made, but it came with a strange sense of security and intimacy. You could put a curtain around us, and it'd be like we were all alone.

- If you're uncomfortable you can always sit on the ground or take the desk chair, interrupted Josh without looking away from his vinyles.

Both his brother and I shot a glance at him but he wasn't returning the favor, instead he kept his face burried in his boxes, trying to find something to listen to. His behavior was beginning to concern me more than I thought it would. And even Jake raised a questionning brow at his intervention. For some reason he looked really serious, with a closed expression. Not someone you'd like to ask the hour on the street. I shrugged it off for now, like the others did, telling myself it'll pass eventually, and that we were all gonna have a fun night together. Once Josh finally found something worth listening to, Sam let out a loud sigh of relief before relaxing into the bed cracking under him, letting his long legs hang into the nothingness between the mattress and the ground.

- Oh, you must be reading my mind, he groaned. Finally some fucking good music. All those pop and rap concerts today nearly made my head explode.

We all snickered at that comment and a smiley Danny put a goblet of beer in all of our hands before settling down next to Mandy. Once Josh was absolutely sure of his choice of music and nodded along in the rythmn of the first few seconds, he climbed on the desk and clapped his hands in his little brother's direction, something that surprised me for a second before Sam threw a little box his way, and I understood. They had a weed box, that Josh opened and began to roll a joint for us to smoke together.

As the night went on, my former stiff posture got more relaxed, and Mandy had already befriended every person in the room, requesting for Sam to teach her how to roll a proper joint, and laughing at Danny's witty interventions on the matter. We were pleasantly either drunk or high at this point and Josh got into an unstoppable karaoke mode, blessing us with his singing and exaggerated dance moves, only focused on the music blaring through the turntable's speaker. Jake and I were face to face now, sitting cross-legged while he passionately shared his knowledge on astronomy with me. And I knew for a fact that in this moment all the stars he spoke about were nothing in comparision to the ones he had put into my eyes when he talked with such passion to what he and other people  deemed as nerdy subjects. With the alcohol running in my veins, listening carefully to the words coming out of his mouth was becoming more of a challenge, especially when said mouth looked so delicious, with his voice low and eyelids hooded by the drinks he had.

- I'm sorry that's not interesting, he finally apologized while running his fingers through his hair.

- What, no ! I love listening to you, you know so much stuff, it's impressive.  

On the covers, my hand found his knee in a reassuring manner, too fixed on his smile to care about everything else. The world could catch on fire and I wouldn't even notice, had a feeling he wouldn't either. We were in our own little bubble, not paying attention to anything that wasn't the other. Mandy flirting with Sam, Danny contemplating the ceiling, Josh singing loudly ; everything was just background noise to us. Certainly because he was drunk himself, Jake took my hand in his to give my knuckles a light peck kiss.

- Thank you. If only people were more like you...

He trailed off, taken aback by the sudden music change, and gave me back my hand. My heart was still banging against my ribcage while he was trying to guess what the song was, asking his twin for a confirmation. The sensation of his soft lips against my hand was still very vivid, and my brain was too busy replaying his last sentence again and again to think of anything else. A fluttering sensation I knew too well spread in my stomach when he returned his attention to me, a boyish smile adorning his mouth. I could ear him say how much he loved that band, but my heart was still thumping so loud in my ears that I stood there in silence, replying to his smile with my own and craddling my hand with the other like I just got burned.

Unaware of my internal breakdown, Jake let the joint hang between his lips, and my gaze could only follow his movements before he noticed me.

- My bad, do you want some ?

My whole being was on auto pilot and I only bobbed my head at his question, letting the boy in front of me put the joint between my own lips, getting his zippo to light it for me.

- There ya go, don't inhale too hard or your head'll get dizzy. Try to keep the smoke in for a bit.

Taking a deep breath, I did as I was instructed, his eyes never leaving mine as I did, careful and cautious until he motioned for me to blow. As an art student, it obviously wasn't my first time smoking weed, because all stereotypes were true, people here smoked a lot. More than necessary if you'd ask me. But it felt good nevertheless to be taken care of while I did, even being instructed what do to. I didn't cough, but my face heated up almost instantly as I felt the smoke burn my lungs and my vision getting a bit blurry with the drinks I had before. The whole room reeked of weed and booze Sam had toppled on the carpet, the air filled with a thick cloud of white smoke mixing with those of the incenses Josh had lit up earlier. Jake took the joint between his fingers, considering the few centimeters left before looking at me with a serious expression.

- Do you trust me ?

- Of course I do.

Maybe sober me would've said that it depended on the topic or asked what shenanigans he was up too, but drunk me was on autopilot mode and couldn't get enough of Jake, whether it was his scent, his voice, or his fingers and knees brushing mine because of how close we were sitting. So it really didn't matter right now, I trusted him with anything.

- Come closer, he muttered while putting half of the joint on his mouth.

He gestured for me to get closer to him and swiftly brushed my hair behind my shoulder before framing my face with both of his hands, fingers linking our two heads together as he leaned on me, keeping us merely inches apart. With the joint between us, he began blowing smoke for me to inhale, keeping it from escaping with the barrier his hands formed. It was intense. Both the strong effects and the proximity of our bodies. I don't know which one made my heart rate go wild, too concentrated on his eyes just in front of me, body heat emanating of his body and bathing mine in a warm sensation. I could feel some of his fingers gently tug on my hair as it got tangled in it, and automatically put my hands on his shoulders during the exhange, giving it a firm squeeze when I couldn't take more weed. It hardly lasted more than a few seconds but everything seemed to happen in the painfullest slow imaginable. I coughed, this time, not letting go of Jake's arms as he took me in his arms, rubbing circles on my back.

- Are you crazy ?

Tiny tears had gathered at the corner of my eyes because of the smoke but I could still clearly ear Josh's humorless voice next to us. My back was facing him so I missed the exchange but Jake's body tensed and his hand left my back as he shrugged, probably silently asking his brother what was up. Wanting to calm my breathing to listen to them only made my body betray me as a violent coughing fit got over me, causing me to shake and Jake to reaffirm his hold on me.

- Can't you tell she's not used to it ? Good job, Jake.

- I'll get her some water.

His voice resonnated in my ear before I felt him slowly detach himself from me to get up. I could tell part of him was upset his brother kept nagging him, but the other one probably felt too guilty to retort and he just got to the sink with an empty glass in hand. Scrubbing my eyes, I met Josh's sympathetic gaze before he patted me on the hand, and even though I'd usually appreciate his concern, his whole bizarre behavior had me more upset than anything at this point so I shook his hand off to follow Jake in the next room, slaloming between Danny's large sleepy body and Mandy and Sam's spot. I found him in the dark, standing back to the door, checking the water with his index finger to make sure it was cold enough.

- Hey.

When the brunette looked at me, his concerned eyes made me instantly feel guilty. Maybe I should've been more responsible, but I was okay, more than okay, I didn't drink too much or anything, just enough to feel light-headed, and there really wasn't anything to get worried about.

- I'm sorry I made you smoke too much, he started while filling the red cup.

- You didn't do anything wrong, I just had a coughing fit. You know, I said while getting closer, I used to do this with friends so you don't have to feel bad or anything.

A small smile spread at the corner of his lips and he turned off the water, only looking at me when he handed me the cup. And after all the booze, weed, and smoke, I must admit it felt pretty nice to have cold water running down my throat.

- I know, but I should've been more cautious, y'know ? One time I got carried away and my girlfriend got sick so I should've known better s'all.

My heart stopped at his words. I didn't hear correctly what he just said. It wasn't possible. Maybe I was too drunk after all, imagining things that nobody said, ever. A painful lump grew in my throat, making it impossible for me to drink anymore. My stomach was in knots, overcoming my whole body with a nauseous feeling. My voice was small and strangled as I spoke.

- Your girlfriend ?

- Yeah, Mina. She lives in our hometown so it's kinda hard, but I feel like you two would get along so fine. You kinda remind me of her sometimes, you know ?

A fond and nostalgic smile danced on his lips as he said that, making me want to vomit for real now. Not because I was disgusted, but because my stomach kept turning on itself, and my breath was stuck in my lungs. I put the cup back in the sink when I noticed my fingers were shaking. How could've been so stupid ? Of course he had a girlfriend. I wanted to cry and then laugh at myself for being so dumb. Of course there was no way this perfect boy was single, what was I even thinking ? Anger started rising within me, at myself, for being this delusional. I was feeling downright pathetic to have ever thought he could love me the way I loved him, and what pained me the most was that I was the only one I could blame.

- Everything alright here ?

That's when Josh's head peaked through the open door and I sucked in a breath, feeling tears clouding my vision. Unable to bear it much longer, I faked a headache and waved everyone goodbye, only letting myself cry in the comfort of my dorm.

-----------------------------------------------

AN : Not gonna lie I’m so stressed about this chapter, please don’t hate me, I had this idea in mind for a while now. The Angst Days Are Not Over unfortunately, but it’ll get better in a few chapters. Please let me know what you think, feel free to message me or review, see you on Saturday for Part 10 ! (And I’m currently writing Part 13 atm) As always, thanks for the love and support, I know this is a slow burn so you might get impatient but we’ll get to it soon now.

[blurry-fics]

Wednesday

Warnings: None

Word Count: 2034

Author’s Note: Sorry for the inconsistent post times this week! I’ve finally had a chance to sleep in and, well, I like to sleep in. I’ll try and keep it a bit more consistent going forward! Enjoy day four :)

*     *     *     *     *

You were in the middle of taking a long drink of orange juice when someone tapped you on the shoulder, scaring you so bad that you almost spit it all over the table. The girls at the table began to laugh at you, but you simply wiped your mouth with the back of your hand and turned to see who it was.

“Finished it,” Tyler grinned, holding his hand out to you.

Sure enough, in his hand was a red and yellow bracelet. It wasn’t the prettiest bracelet that you had seen, but being a camp counselor had also created a pretty high standard in your mind. All that mattered to you was the fact that Tyler had actually spent time outside of your activity to finish it.

“I love it,” you smiled. “Do you mind?”

You held out your arm and Tyler carefully tied the bracelet around your wrist. His fingers brushed lightly against your skin, sending tingles up your arm.

“That better be on your arm every time I see you until the end of this week,” he said, pointing a finger at you.

“We made a deal!” you said.

“Good, now I have a table of rowdy boys and a less-than-pleased cabin partner to get back to,” he laughed.

“Later, Vulture.”

He lightly traced a hand along your shoulder as he walked away from your table, making you smile like an idiot. The girls were all watching your reaction.

“I told you! Vulture is the one she likes!” one of the girls said.

“No, no, no. You didn’t hear the rumor that I did.”

“And what was that?”

“That yesterday during arts and crafts, her and DJ Spooky chased each other around with paint. He even grabbed her arm.”

“Yeah, but did he make her a bracelet?”

“You can still see the blue paint on her arm! Does it matter?”

“Girls,” you cut them off and slid your arm under the table. “I’m right here.”

Jenna chimed in too, “And what did we say about discussing other people’s relationships?”

“Not allowed,” the one who had started it all sighed, slumping back into her seat.

“Exactly, so let’s talk about something else.”

“What’s our activity today?” Poppy asked.

Jenna pulled out her neat little folder and whipped out the weekly schedule, glancing over it quickly.

“This afternoon we have a hike with the leaders of the blue cabin and then purple cabin is in charge of the activity tonight.”

“Blue cabin?” you asked.

“Yes, your favorite,” Jenna laughed, shooting you a look.

“DJ Spooky,” one of the kids gasped.

“Girls, make sure to fill up your water bottles before we leave the cafeteria, ok?” you said. “I don’t want any of you getting dehydrated on the hike today.”

“Aye, aye, captain,” a couple of the girls cheered.

You and Jenna shared a look; both of your eyes were open wide.

“Where did you learn that?” Jenna asked.

“The boys were saying it during the activity last night,” one of the girls answered.

“Yeah, they said it every time DJ Spooky asked them to do something.”

Jenna sighed and shot another look at you, causing you to giggle. You should have known it would only be so long before Josh’s joke caught on.

*     *     *

“This right here,” Josh said, pointing to a yellow flower growing on the side of the path, “is called Goatsbeard.”

“Goats don’t have beards!” one of the little girls holding your hand said. “That’s a stupid name.”

“We didn’t come up with it,” Brad said. “We’re just supposed to teach you about it.”

“It’s native to this area,” Josh explained. “Does anyone want to get a closer look?”

Most of the girls stepped forward and examined the plant, poking at the little flowers or drawing pictures of it on their sketchpads. Josh wandered over to where you and Jenna were standing.

“How do you think it’s going so far?” he asked.

“Really well,” you answered. “The girls seem to be enjoying themselves.”

“And what about you?”

“Yeah, I’m having fun,” you shrugged.

“Come on, Y/C/N,” Josh joked, giving you a light elbow in the ribs. “Show some enthusiasm.”

“Woo, plants!” You threw your hands up and moved them around a little bit in some form of happy dance. Jenna looked at you, trying her hardest not to laugh.

“I’m going to go see if Brad needs any help,” Jenna said, giving you a light tap on the shoulder.

“Ok, good luck.”

“Are you actually enjoying yourself?” Josh asked, dropping his over-the-top camp persona for a moment.

“Of course I am! Hiking has always been one of my favorite activities. I’m jealous you’re in charge of it this year.”

“You don’t get tired of walking the same trail over and over again?”

“Not at all, especially if you’re with the right people,” you smiled, bumping him with your arm.

Josh was about to say something in return when two little girls came skipping over to you, each holding a couple brightly colored flowers in their hands.

“DJ Spooky! I got you some flowers,” the first girl said.

“Yeah, and I got you prettier ones,” the second said, stepping in front of her friend.

“Both of these are equally beautiful,” Josh grinned. “Thank you.”

He turned to you and raised his eyebrows. You reached out and took the flowers from his hand, tucking them neatly behind his ear.

“Perfect,” you giggled.

“You’re so pretty!” the girls laughed, temporarily forgetting their feud.

“Am I?” Josh asked, turning to you.

“Gorgeous.”

The girls ran off, whispering excitedly to one another. Josh always seemed to attract the most attention from the little girls, mostly because he was such a good sport about it. He always wound up with a fan club by the end of the week.

Josh leaned a little closer to you so that he could whisper in your ear, “You think this is a good time to mention that I’m allergic to flowers?”

You couldn’t help but crack up at his comment, although you did feel a little bad for putting the plants so close to his face.

“Alright, let’s keep moving! There’s a lot more plants to see,” he announced.

“Aye, aye, captain!” the girls called, falling into line behind Brad and linking up with their buddies.

With Brad and Jenna at the lead, you and Josh were able to hang back behind the group and look out for stragglers. He pointed out a couple spots to you that he claimed were exceptional for stargazing, if you could manage to sneak past the supervisors that roamed the camp late at night.

You were in the middle of telling a story about a kid that had run off during the hike last year when you felt something brush against your hand. Josh was walking pretty close to you, so you figured you had bumped into him on accident. But then it happened again. And again.

This was definitely intentional.

“And then what happened?” Josh asked. You hadn’t even realized you had stopped talking.

“Oh, we found him down in the creek with his shoes off. He had to finish the hike with a counselor for a buddy.”

“Wow,” Josh laughed. “Yeah, nothing like that has happened today. Yet.”

“That’s good.”

“You feeling alright, Y/C/N? Your face is kinda pink.”

“Yeah, it’s just… warm,” you said, waving a hand around.

“Warm, yeah,” Josh laughed.

“Hey, DJ Spooky!” Brad called. “Get your butt up here.”

The kids all started to laugh at Brad’s use of a “bad” word.

“That’s my cue,” Josh said, giving your arm a light tap.

“Have fun,” you smiled, watching as he walked to the front of the group.

Jenna joined you at the back of the group, but you were too distracted by Josh catching your eye every now and again to pay much attention.

*     *     *

You and Jenna were sitting at the edge of the hill, watching as the cabins played a large game of Red Rover. Tyler had just been captured by the other team after unsuccessfully trying to break their chain. Most of the kids - and a few of the rowdier counselors - were yelling excitedly and bouncing around.

“Y/C/N! Daisy! Come join the game!” one of the girls from your cabin called.

“Yes! Please!” another chimed in.

You looked to Jenna, who simply shrugged. Together, you ran down the hill and joined opposite teams, just to keep things fair. Poppy happily offered up a spot next to her in the line.

“Whose turn is it?” you asked.

“Theirs,” Poppy answered plainly.

The other team spent some time deciding who they would call over before Josh led the chant.

“Red Rover, Red Rover, send Y/C/N right over!”

You should have seen that one coming. After a bit of convincing to get Poppy to let go of your hand, you went running over to the other side and attempted to break through their link. Unfortunately for you, Josh was straight across from you, making your task nearly impossible. They eventually called it a fail and you joined the opposing team.

“Nice try,” Josh smiled as he unlinked his hand so that you could take a place next to him.

“You’re just too strong.”

You linked your fingers with Josh’s and tried not to move your hand around too much. After all, this was just a game. Still, it was hard to ignore the way he would give your hand a light squeeze every now and again.

The game went on for another twenty minutes until your team captured all the other team’s members and emerged victorious. Josh went around, giving everyone high fives and congratulating them on the win. Eventually, he made his way over to you and pulled you into a sweaty hug.

“You may not have been on our team to begin with, but you were essential to our win,” he laughed.

“Thanks, Spooky,” you said, giving him a couple pats on the back.

You were about to start up a conversation with him when a couple girls from your cabin came running over, demanding your attention. Instead, you settled for a wave and followed them across the field.

*     *     *

You stripped off your sweaty t-shirt from the day and pulled on your nice pajama shirt. All of the girls were sitting around the cabin, enjoying their downtime before lights out. Most of them were playing card games or telling stories and you were happy to finally have some time to rest after the long day.

“How much time until lights out?” you asked Jenna.

“About ten minutes.”

“Good. I’m ready to pass out right now.”

“Me too,” she laughed. “It’s been a long day.”

“I know, and we’re just over halfway through the week.”

Poppy came running over to your bunk, practically throwing herself on top of you. You managed to catch her and avoid her completely landing on your stomach, but you still ended up with an elbow straight to the gut.

“How about we make a new rule about not jumping on counselors?” you wheezed.

“But that was so fun!” she squealed.

“Too bad. What do you need, Poppy?”

“I need help settling a debate.”

“What’s the debate?”

“Amy said that Vulture is her boyfriend, but obviously he’s mine!”

“Is that so?” you asked, sharing a look with Jenna.

“Yes! And she’s saying the she called dibs on him first, but I called dibs on the first day!”

“Well, have either of you actually talked to Vulture about him being your boyfriend?”

“Um… no.”

“Then I don’t think he’s anybody’s boyfriend.”

Poppy leaned really close to you and cupped a hand around your ear before dramatically whispering, “Except for yours.”

“Vulture isn’t my boyfriend, but if he was, then you shouldn’t be debating about him in the first place,” you said, tickling her stomach.

Poppy squealed and went running back to her small group of friends. You looked to Jenna, who was shaking her head and smiling.

“Girls, make sure all your things are put away nicely! Lights out is in seven minutes.”

“Ok, Daisy!” a few of them called back.

Four days down, three to go.

*     *     *     *     *

Taglist

@faceofcontvsions @ohprettyweeper @addictwithaheavydirtycheetah @addictoftwentyone @svintsandghosts @patdsinner33 @gaiatheroyalrabbit @coolcxt

[calliecat93]

RvB Season 16 Commentary Masterpost

This post details the commentary from the RvB16 DvD. I tried to add as much and be as detailed as possible and I apologize if I misconstrued anything. This was 12 pages long BTW... I hope you all enjoy!

Commentators

All Episodes: Joe Nicolosi (writer/director)

Episodes 1-5: Kyle Taylor (machinima director), Josh Ornelas (senior machinimator)

Episodes 6-10: Jason Weight (co-writer), Greg Slagel (show producer), Billy Burson (Visual Supervisor/Lighter)

Episodes 11-15: Phillip Sparn (Audio Mixer/Sound Designer), Ian Sheppard (Lead Animator), David Levy (Audio/Music Composer)

Episode 1

The intro scene with the knights involved zero machinima (Kyle very much appreciated that), IDK if this was a joke, but Joe said that he wrote the intro three years ago and sent it to Miles, who was confused by it. He thought this would be a good place to finally use it.

The Grif knight is now Sir Gryffandor and the Simmons one Simmtarian XD

Joe use to be in a time traveled-theme band and many of the unused ideas it's where he got several of his ideas for this season.

Joe felt that it took far too long to get into the action in S15, so he tried to have it go faster this time around. Hence why he sped through the setup in this and Season 2.

Kyle and Joe talk about how there was a joke in S11 where Caboose responded to his echo in a cave. Joe wanted the echo to have been time travel Caboose, but when they decided on the slideshow format he couldn't. Miles confirmed at RTX that it is now canon so yay!

Joe had gone back through the show and made notes about where the characters could mess with their past. He also has a fan theory that Two Coffee Mug Guy from the Freelancer Saga is the cause of everything bad that happened since if he didn't show up, North wouldn't have gotten caught, the mission would have gone fine, etc. I am on board with this theory!

In one shot, they forgot to put Huggins and Muggins in as the headlights and it was too late to fix when the time came to air it. Oops. Kyle jokes that they have to blink off every one in a while due to their anatomy XD

The scene where Donut has... broke I guess was apparently a pain in the ass to do. For example when there's like eight of him in a row, they had to time the shot exactly right to machinimate it properly. It involved a LOT of coordination. They all agree that the bit where Donut glitches/contorts is the stuff of nightmares.

Speaking of that bit, you'd think that would be easy since it's essentially glitched out animation. But doing it apparently broke all the rendering machines and they had long talks with the tech department to get it rendered properly. It got to the point where it actually went up to Gray Haddock, the Head of Animation. Daaamn.

Joe's original vision for Episode 1 was to have a long conversation about food that triggered a series of horrific events as it was going on. Kind of like a one act play. Only the Caboose bit with Donut made it through however.

Grif's love of Sammie Raphaello's is based on Joe's feelings about a similarly named place in New York, including eating it for 100 days straight. It had been worth it.

Starseat, the Cosmic Gods base. Is one of the only maps that they hadn't used form Halo 5. They used the majority in S15 so they needed to use some of the alien locations for this one. Since S16 has the Cosmic Powers, it worked out for them.

Episode 2

The forest area was a custom map made by Josh. They used several custom maps this season.

Josh calls layering trees the 'Bob Ross effect' XD

There's this lightning effect in this map that had to me timed perfectly to not mess up the shot. Lets just say that they had to redo several shots because they got the timing wrong or it was too distracting.

When there is a joke that has an awkward pause or silence in it, Joe likes to add a bird effect to it. In the bit with Caboose's 'Your Mama' joke, he used an owl effect

It is canon that Caboose has shy tinkle and can't do his business with others around XD

Because the Halo 5 models have this bad tendency with their coloring (ie, Simmons sometimes looks too much like Sarge), they hired a colorist for the first time in the series history. So every Simmons scene (IDK if they mean just this one or every single one) had to be hand colored to keep him as maroon as possible.

Kyle asked about what was going in on Chorus. Joe says that this is NOT canon, but in his mind Locus got arrested when he brought Wash back to Chorus. They want to try Locus as a war criminal where he COUDL escape, but since he swore off killing people he cna't without doing so. Apparently his ship has an AI ready to split the planet with him Locus gone so Kimball, whose in the middle of an election, has the choice to either let Locus go and save the planet, or not and not get re-elected. This is strictly headcanon, but Joe considered using it as a subplot but since it had nothing to do with the time travel, he opted against it.

Donut is now God Jesus Donut. Something that Joe was very excited to do.

Kyle had no idea how they were going to have Donut walk across water. Apparently Halo 5 has these invisible blocks that they were able to use to pull off the effect.

The music used in this scene is a genre called 'monk-step', which is like Gregorian chanting mixed with ETM (from what I can gather, it's some kind of electro music). Apparently this is a real genre.

The city and destroyed Sammie Raphaello's was made by Austin Clark and Kyle Moran.

Conner, one fo the editors, edited the scene pretty tightly as with most RvB scenes. Joe then made him go back and add a punch of long. pauses

The cop was indeed voiced by Jeremy Dooley. Joe's direction to him was that he thought he was the main character of the story and to just go off with it. He did so for several minutes and Joe had to cut it down, but you can see the full thing in the blooper reel.

Joe didn't want to lock onto a specific place aside form 'somewhere in America' for the city location. But since Grif said he went to Harvard in a PSA, he guesses that it's somewhere in Massachusetts.

Joe has this pet peeve about a truck in the shot as the exact same model was also there when we the place again in Episode 4. Kyle makes a backstory for it about being driven by a dump truck driver who cheated on his wife and was caught, left the truck there, and went on to become president. The truck is now a monument. I am all for this!

They storyboarded Donut putting the guns on the ground... and Joe decided at the last second to just have them flash and appear to not waste time just having him lay down guns for 20 seconds.

Kyle calls Grif a coward for not taking the bullet for Sammie's. That's not nice Kyle!

“Donut uses his shield powers that... never come up again” Thanks Joe...

To get Sarge and Simmons properly on the ground when they land in Egypt, Kyle simply had Josh kill them in-game. They landed perfectly XD

Episode 3

The snow scene with Grif and Doc apparently shows the horizon for the first time in the series due to using very boxed in multiplayer maps. It is also a custom map with the horizon point, which was green-screened, blending into the snow.

Sister and Tucker were green-screened into Halo 3. Apparently it wasn't too bad here, but it was MUCH harder for Halo 2. They VERY much appreciated having a green-screen within Halo 5.

The desert scene with Sarge and Simmons apparently had a shadow in it, so they had to color correct it to make it look more desert-like. Simmons color apparently overlapped with Sarge's a lot.

The storylines were supposed to be about the characters all trying to fix their past mistakes, but only make it worst. This was meant to tie into the season's theme on how fucking up is a part of life. Them not learning it, of course, causes what happens in the end. Joe does mention that it doesn't seem like it worked for everyone watching, however but Kyle mentions how rewatching it can get people to pick up on it more.

The map they used for The Battle of Broken Ridge went through several iterations. They went with one they called White Dwarf which was very detailed tot he point where they fuzzied it up to make it look less so. The rock formations are underwater rocks and have coral textures to them to make them look more alien.

Present!Sarge is wielding a sniper rifle in this scene, not his shot gun. They imply that he shot the previous CO so that his past self would be given the position. GDI Sarge.

Apparently Halo characters do NOT like rough terrain, so recording the soldiers running across it was difficult to make it look natural.

For the PoV shot with Caboose, apparently you can't move the camera much in Halo 5 but you CAN have the character walk closer into it. So Austin and Kyle Moran did so to get the shot and was one of the first they did on their own.

Lopez couldn't be color corrected apparently. They had to go with a shade nearly identical to Grif's because otherwise he looked onto much like Master Chief. As such he looks different in every scene. Thanks Halo 5.

Episode 4

Joe wanted to use all the main locations (Blood Gulch, Valhalla) at least once. He was able to use Halos 2 and 3, but didn't get around to using Halo 4, so we didn't get Chorus aside form the one we saw last season.

The Tucker and Sister storyline was the most changed. Originally, it was going to be about Tucker trying to stop himself from getting laid with all the women that got him a lawsuit last season. He succeeded... but his present self got seduced anyways. This however created a bit of a paradox (I assume since it was clear that Tucker remembered it last season) so he decided he wanted to do something more personal between Tucker and Sister.

Joe wanted this, Episode 5, and Episode 6 to feel more episodic. Hence why he get a major focus on Tucker and Sister here, Sarge and Simmons in 5, and Grif and Doc in 6.

Joe apparently cockblocked himself once. Oops.

Kyle wants to use a time machine to go back and mess with himself when past!him was working in a check out line. Joe would use it to go see old movies and bands when they opened up.

The Broken Ridge map made all the visors green.

Hammerspace exists in the RvB verse due to all the weapon shifts.

The machinima team used the PC version of Halo 2 (the same one used for the Blood Gulch remaster) due to technical reasons. The problem is all the servers, services, etc that were available when doing the remaster no longer exist in 2018. While they have copies of the game, to do what they need they had to use fan hacks, a laptop, and Joe's home computer to make the scenes properly.

Lindsay Jones (VA for Kimball) plays one of the three kids using her Space Kid voice form Camp Camp. Kyle thought one of the actors was the VA for Qrow in RWBY (Vic Mignogna) but it wasn't.

They had a lot of fun macinimating Grif's freakout and Joe outright called Geoff's performance Oscar worthy. They considered submitting it XD

The guy left the truck (form Episode 2) on this very day XD

Tucker asking Sister if she turned off her radio was a reference to O'Malley since at this time, he was still around and going through different people's heads. It was important to make sure that he paid attention to continuity in the time he was going to mess with. Since he felt that this was a memorable event in Blood Gulch, he wanted to go back to it and make sure that he wasn't accidentally messing up anything.

This is the third time they've gone back to this in RvB's history as Josh previously directed a S14 episode written by Barbara Dunkleman (VA for Jensen) about O'Malley in different headspaces. Wow, they must love this scene XD

Joe made Nico (one of the composers and part of Trocadero) make porno music for the cave pond scene. He said “On it Joe!”

Joe liked making Tucker dense when it comes to sex, especially in this scene.

There were talks about if Tucker and Sister should still be in Halo 5 armor when time travleing or if it should change. They ultimately decided to stick to the Halo 5 armor, which Joe felt was the right choice since he was no real reason to have them in the game's default. RvB14 had a similar philosophy where whatever time period the story is taking place, ti had to match that version of Halo.

Episode 5

The map used at the very beginning was a user-made map that's meant to be reminiscent of a Halo 3 map.

Using John Wayne was apparently a pain in the ass. They couldn't refer to him as John Wayne and several other names like The Duke due to legal reasons. It was at the point where they had to have Gus and Matt frequently come in to do re-recordings due to all the changes. They finally settled on Private John... and they hope that they don't get sued for saying it in the commentary.

To remake Desert Gulch, they had to use all the characters at the same time and do several different shots for several reasons.

George Washington was voiced by Todd Womack, a Creative Producer for Broadcast at RT. He also voiced the Simmons knight in Episode 1.

Chris Kokkinos, a Lead Audio Engineer for RT Animation, played Alexander the Great. They did ten minutes of Google searches to put together a voice that sounded accurate enough to what Ancient Masadonian (I think) would sound like.

There's a radio effect in the movie filming scenes where, if you listen close enough, you can hear someone trying to find the bestboy. When I rewatch this with commentary off, I am ging to listen HARD to find those lines.

Kohan Wooter, the producer Jax torments, was voiced by RT's 3D Animation producer Koan Wooten. Joe jokes that he's a 'pathetic ball of anxiety' so he based the character on him. Don't worry, he actually loves Koen XD Koen produced Seasons 13, 14, and 15, but 16 has a new producer, Greg who we'll hear in Episodes 6-10 commentary.

Apparently in Halo 5 (Kyle isn't sure if this was an update or he just never saw it there's an option to max character speeds. So when Jax, Simmons, and Sarge are walking through the set, they were able to set all three to the same speed without it looking like they're sprinting, something that is normally difficult to do in machinima.

In S15, Joe wanted Jax to get successful at some point... and then fall back down off his horse due to his ego. So he did it here!

They wish that they showed Jax's version of S15, though we do get a sample in Episode 12.

Austin and Kyle Moran worked on the scene where Sarge and Private John are doing lines.

For this scene, Matt was late for a CEO meeting so he had to do all of his lines in one take in quick succession. He nailed every single one of them.

I think most know this, but just in case, Atlus is voiced by SungWon Cho aka ProZD. Joe was a big fan of him and was really excited to cast him.

All the Gods we see who aren't Atlus, Kali, Genkins, and Burnstorm are Minor Gods and this is the only time we get to see them all. Kyle says one is the God of Anxiety XD

Kyle made Atlus' throne and used spaceship parts to make it. It was also a chore to decide on all the Gods guns.

Episode 6

Jason wrote Episodes 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, and 14 (Joe confirmed the latter four on Twitter).

Joe says that Grif and Doc are somewhere in Calabria, Ancient Italy. It is known as 'The Boot of Italy'.

Greg previously on a 2D show at another company (I couldn't make out what he said it was) before arriving at RT and being put on RvB. Since machinima is treated more like live action when filming, it was a very different experience along with storyboarding the animation. He had to learn a lot about what can and can't be done in machinima.

Billy previously worked on a live action RvB short (I assume the RvB14 finale but they didn't specify) and before this worked on RWBY and RWBY Chibi. He works on both lighting and composition.

Billy really liked working on the lens flare shots XD Which are also apparently hard to render despite how easy it looked at first.

Jason wrote most of Sister's dialogue, which had to be cut down a bit. Apparently one line he wrote was Sister saying “I want Lancelot to slay my p***y like a Dragon”. This once got cut because Microsoft told them to, which is a VERY rare occurrence.

Genkins was the one going crazy with the airhorn during Atlus' intro. They used up all their airhorn budget for that one XD

Joe credited Jason for Atlus' portrayal. Jason feels that Atlus is very human and fragile on the inside and the kind of characters that he likes to write.

They all laughed at Tucker and Sister being blown up, which they tried to reuse form other stuff, but Joe refused. They joke that they just got it off the internet.

Joe feels that he could have done this episode better as he didn't feel anything for Doc at the end like he had intended.

They have an animator specifically for O'Malley's finger motions. He'll be in the 11-15 commentary and is reffered to as 'The Fingerer'

Episode 7

Since this is an episode that mixes live action, they started working on this even before Episode 1. They were excited at first... until they finally started doing it.

Gus Sorola (VA for Simmons) played the Cyclops as well as his wife.

Joe knows that some people weren't happy with this episode, but he still liked it cause Tucker and Sister got to fight a giant cyclops. They do admit it is one of the stupidest thing they've ever done though XD

They went over budget doing the scene and had to go all the way up to Matt to get more. At RTX, Matt said that he allowed it when they said that Gus was going to be uncomfortable for several hours. Best CEO XD Joe brought in Koen to convince help him.

Huggins had several different animators, but most of the credit goes to an animator named Owen for giving a glowing sphere so much energy with the animation.

Gus' scenes were shot in one day, but because they had to change the lighting so much to correspond with Halo, it took a LOOOOOT of hours.

When the cyclops bit into the Tucker armor, Joe had it in the script that Gus just pulled the head off. Gus asked if he could eat it, which Joe allowed. Joe had to paint it the day before the shoot after Greg went and got it. They used a toy since animating Tucker in Gus' hand would have been too much work to get right.

Joe did a lot of the work on the scenes while listening to an audiobook, so now he just hears it whenever watching the episode. Fortunately, he has a lot of work with green-screen XD

David Levy composed the music for the scene and Joe had him listen to stuff from Jason and the Arganots and such things to give him an idea of what to do.

Tucker jumping to hit the Cyclops'... privates...w as a reference to Independence Day apparently.

Joe wished that, when we see the location again in the finale, he just showed the Cyclops' corpse rotting away... so I guess that confirms that he's dead. He thought of it after the fact however so he couldn't.

Joe deliberately told the Art Department about the female cyclops at the last second so that they would buy a shitty costume for Gus to put on. Greg was confused. The shot later for Episode 15 was a surprise shot Joe did since he was writing the finale around this time, so he wanted it just in case he wanted to use it... which he did XD

Episode 8

The map with the Chorus towers were a Live Map. IDK what that means, but apparently they can't use. So the machinimators had to go around it and take various shots of the towers to put them in the opening scene. It got several accounts banned as a result XD

After the last episode used so many different things (animation, machinima, live action), the fact that they were able to get an animation sequence into this one had Joe feeling good about the production flow for the season since the previous one would normally go over deadlines. Fortunately, the production went through seemlessly.

The animation team is mostly from RWBY Chibi.

Originally Carolina and Dr. Grey's talk was in Grey's office. Miles said that it wasn't weird enough to fit Grey though, so Joe change the setting to a morgue. The dialogue stayed the same though! The feet of the body were apparently hard to render XD

Joe wished that Carolina was holding some guy's intestines to further show how creepy it is.

With the cyclops, Joe apparently wanted him to have a giant, hanging dong cause he things it would be Tucker's worst nightmare. Greg immediately shot that down since no amount if pixilation would be able to hide it.

Joe wanted to give Grif a magic fairy companion, ehnce why we got Huggins and the two would learn form each other.

Huggins is based off of her actress, Ashley Spillers, in terms of personality.

Apparently doing shots showing tall buildings like in Chorus is much easier than getting a dead guy's feet in properly. Huh...

Joe got obsessed with doing different shots to make shots of a character just talking interesting and he felt he went a little too crazy.

Joe felt bad that he couldn't use more of Dylan, but he learned last season that RvB has a TON of characters and he needs to break them up when it's necessary. This is part of why the Reds and Blues were split up this season.

Billy did a lot of work on the wrestling scene in the finale due to how much lighting was needed. It also involved a lot of comp due to the amount of shots.

Wash's cat, Loki, is based off a cat Joe had in RL. Many of the same things happened to it and lived for over 20 years. Wow...

Episode 9

Joe makes it clear that he loves Koen and he only made fun of him because he loves him. Greg felt much of Kohan's portrayal hit too close to home XD

Since they used most of the maps in S15, Joe knew that they were going to have to reuse some of them and the filmset plotline was done in order to do so. Considering Wash's state, he felt that it worked well for character.

The Female Frozen Freelancer was voiced by Minni Clark, their Animation Coordinator.

Joe considered what Wash and Carolina would do with a time machine. For a while, he considered having Carolina use it to go to the future, but he felt that could botch future storylines so he decided to not use the future at all.

They liked the campfire map and giving Huggins sparkles. The sparkles got added late into production. Luckily they emphasized that no one was harmed in the making of this production XD

Huggins will only swear when quoting Die Hard. The lens flare in the movie was also Joe's favorite lens flare in film XD

Joe was originally going to have Grif come across Lopez's head after he sank in the titanic. But since Grif was in Ancient Italy, that would not work so it was cut.

Joe also intended for Grif to use a boat to get over the English Channel, but since it would have been a hard set-piece to make and they already had an underwater map, they went with that instead.

The effect to make past!Simmons portal appear/green-screen was apparently fun XD Joe also liked having Sarge stab Achilles in the foot.

This season has the most green-screen used in any season.

Apparently there are a LOT of time travel stories out there with very complicated rules. Joe went with the ones that he felt were the most common.

Joe got very mad because The Covlerfield Paradox came out sometimes before the season starts. He also gets mad in the finale cause Infinity War did what he did essentially XD

Joe found using time travel to test free will interesting as he doesn't recall anyone doing it before.

Matt improved his lines regarding the back and forth on deciding to open the door. He does that a lot XD

They didn't want to add a shot of Simmons pressing the keypad, so they just showed the door opening.

Episode 10

To make Caboose's vacation easier, they decided to go with the slideshow and just use stills. Most were easy to comp, but some like the monkeys were more difficult. It was orignally going to be animated.

With the shot of the RT Founders, they originally had a Halo helmet in the photo. Joe changed it to a bowling ball.

Joe was counting down the days of production and told no one. Greg was very confused when he saw '100 Days' on Joe's calendar.

Jason wrote Camelto and voiced Lancelot/Sir Gryffandor. Joe used all of his first takes XD

Jason writes long scripts, so Joe had to cut them down and he felt bad about it. Jason said that he got rid of the garbage bits XD

There is some kind of cannon by Tucker's shoulder when he meets with Grif. Joe headcanosn that Tucker just demanded that they make a cannon.

Even Joe points out that Grif's trying to push the plot forward now. They joke that it's just so it an end faster.

The reason why Tucker started the war with France they decided was because they ate snails, hence his line “Those fancy f***s eat snails!”

Joe clarifies on what turning into a shisno means. I wrote about this already, but I'll do so again here. It is not a form of corruption or mind control, but people like Tucker giving more and more into temptation and as such, the worst part of them comes out. He felt that them trying to make the past better is a big convenience in time travel and decided that them screwing it up and therefore still trying was an effect of Chrovos. It's not direct mind control however, it just makes your darker impulses stronger.

Joe confirms that Genkins was the PA who lead Wash to the scene recreating where he got shot solely to make him worst and keep the plan going in the right direction.

Joe, having grown up on films like Evil Dead, really likes bloody shots and thinks that his seasons have had the most blood effects XD

They checked over Donut and O'Malley's scene a LOT due to a lot of screw ups and using a large white void.

Billy's favorite thing to have lighted was Chrovos. They were very happy with the gears design.

Joe really liked Chrovos' VA

Episode 11

Phillip played one of the guards that got crushed by the horse in the finale. It is his proudest moment.

Doing work for Huggins was painful since she required several swooshing effects and her animation turned out to be much more work due to Ian deciding to make her more energetic to not make it boring.

Muggins is less energetic due to being older

Joe had to get special permission from Miles and Kerry to use the RWBY moon and now calls it canon... which he honestly isn't all that wrong if you've watched RWBY V6...

Audio liked adding the effects to Atlus' voice, something that ProZD apparently does in his videos.

When he decided to use God sin RvB, Joe had wanted to have a wish granting scene and the one we got is one of his favorites. He also mentions how most Gods go to places, mess with younger races, so he felt like this fit.

The music for this was challenging for David as Joe instructed him to base it on Danny Elfman-esque scores. The guitar rift when Grif makes the sword wish was treated like a sound effect.

Apparently they used a laughing seagull effect to laugh at Tucker. I need to listen for these things more.

They used a sunset map for Tucker and Sister's talk, and while lighting is often difficult in RvB, Joe felt that this worked very well. Using Halo 5 in general was hard, but after last year they had a good grasp on what they could and couldn't do. They'll be us9ig a new Halo next year, which since Halo 6 isn't out I assume is referring to Halo 2 Anniversary

Okay... so this bit is probably gonna be the biggest part. So the whole scene with Tucker and Sister's talk? Originally in the outline, Joe simply had Sister go 'And I don't care!' when she and Tucker realize that their s*xventures were coming to an end. Then he sent it off to Jason, who expanded on it in the script to have Sister's verbal beatdown to Tucker. Joe let it stick, and we got what we got.

Episode 12

This is the first episode of RvB shot in 4K

You know the opening shot where Actor!Wash dips Actress!Carolina? The scene was mo-caped by Joe as Wash an an animator named Harley (she works primarily on RWBY) as Carolina. When they acted it out, Joe tried to catch Harley when she fell back... except that he had recently dislocated his arm. So he ended up just dropping her and he fell over and hit his head. The mocap for it looked really funny though XD

The reason why Joe used 4K for this episode was in order to do wide shots so that After Effects could put in the shaky cam. He did it in one weekend. He's not a fan of 4K however due to feeling it adds too much production time, so he used it for only this episode.

They joke about making an RvB Soap Opera where Church has a twina nd Sarge goes into a coma. I WANT THIS!

Joe had not seen The Office when he went with the interviews idea.

This, and the later episodes, were written during the production.

This episode was the RvB equivalent of a Beach Episode like you see in anime. But because of armor and stuff, he couldn't go all the way. Also apparently if Halo characters hit the water unless it's an underwater map, they die. Huh...

Joe continues to make it clear that he loves working with Koen. Good job on making sure you don't piss your boss off dude!

The Chinese Finger Trap gag with Caboose was improved by Joel. The trap was composed in and they used the Huggins rigs to help with the stretching.

Joe felt he went a little too strong with the color correction in this episode and that the colors came off too strong, especially with Donut.

Joe liked the audio cue used for when Wash has one of his memory blocks.

There was a lot of improve done with the actors for Jax's movie. Phillip also didn't get the Rodney Dangerfield reference. Joe put that specific one in because the Private John actor did one for funsies in his session.

According to Joe, after he gets hit by Atlus' hammer, he forgets all of his movie ideas and is now in the next stage of his life in trying to figure them out. They ask if this is autobiographical for Joe XD

The gold club is an actual weapon in Halo 5 (some kind of multiplayer mode), huh...

In the original take where everyone is saying titles, Joel had Caboose curse. Joe found it funny... but since Caboose doesn't swear to that level (I think in another interview Joe said he used the F word), he decided two days prior to cut it and edit several takes together to get what we got. They added it back in for the Blooper Reel, and I can confirm that it is hilarious.

Episode 13

David used wall to wall music for this episode.

The first drafts for the final three episodes were over 70 pages long. The average is around 12-18 pages, so... yeah... he had to cut it down to 54 within about three days.

Joe didn't get to work a lot with Genkins' VA (Ricco Fajardo since he forgot the name in the commentary) since Genkins had very few lines. He really enjoyed working with him and the other professional voice actors since he can really push them and they love going along with it.

Jason did the script for this episode.

This episode, along with 13, had very little animation due to the finale going crazy with it. So they cut down on it in these two to make up for that time.

Joe's not a fan of exposition scenes, but since Starseat was a unique set design, he felt like it was a good place to do it.

The Cosmic Powers are always green-screened so that they can look much larger.

David wanted to listen to his master work XD

Joe hadn't told mahcinima what swords to give everyone and is happy with the options that they went with.

Burnstorm's VA is a theater actor in Dallas

Joe regretted that he wasn't able to have the Gods in action much and wishes that he was able to fit in one God fight at least. But he had gone over the animation budget, so even if he wanted to he couldn't.

The Neanderthals hair in Caboose's slideshow apparently didn't work at all, so they photoshoped it in.

Joe really enjoyed doing Carolina and Wash's scene, especially with how well Jen and Shannon performed it. He felt so much regret for what he did to these characters XD

Joe did research on brain injuries to make sure that he portrayed Wash's condition as accurately as possible.

Machinima built the room that the Reds and Blues were teleported to. It was originally a hallway apparently.

Episode 14

The intention of the episode was to be a runway into the finale and to be a bit of a cool down after the last one.

Jason once more did the script for this one.

Halo 5 armor in multiplayer apparently can't be black, so in shadows it just glows. Huh, weird.

No one aside from Joe saw the shot of the Fates. Ian never saw them as he handed them to someone else while doing 15, and they did them all without him having to check them.

Joe wrote the demo for The Fates song to give to the singers who auditioned.

Joe thought a lot about Carolina time traveling prior to this, but felt that she was too responsible and smart to use it the same way the Reds and Blues did.

Phillip was kind of glad that Huggins got 'killed' (I'm still denying it) since it meant no more swoosh sounds

The buildup to the... death scene... dropped the ambiance to build up the creepiness factor.

Joe did the black hole effect and went on until it made him too sad and he kicked his computer. You have only yourself to blame.

They like how the Cosmic Powers just become more and more normal acting as time goes on XD

Joe had been very nervous about The Fates and considers it the weirdest sequence in the season. He suggested the orchestral tuning build-up.

Joe explains how The Fates work. The Cosmic Powers are AI/computers, and that includes The Fates. They are like a series of quantum supercomputers who scan the atoms around them to determine the outcome of the future. Their prophecies are mere projections.

Episode 15 (Season Finale)

They call this 'The Beast Episode'

David added 15 minutes of music with no stop. It continues to accelerate as it continues on.

The episode was done more like a music video. All the animation was done first, and then David composed it to the animation instead of before it. He used bits of previous cues and themes as well. It took him two weeks to do.

The room that Carolina and the others hid in had been very bright, so they had to darken it.

This was very tightly edited in order to stay matched up to the music.

The strategy for the Donut vs O'Malley was to treat the finale as two episodes. The fight was done by one team and all the other stuff was done by another.

They like the 'Use what you learned' advice.

Audio used a program called Vocaline to dot he effects for Chrovos' voice and the gear ticking effects.

The edit for the episode was very different from the script as Joe did a lot of re-arranging of scenes to improve the flow. He got advice form Connor, one of the editors, to pace them better.

The pizza is a photoshopped Home Slice Pizzal

If you watch the scene where Caboose hits the Red with his golf club in slow mo, the body flies off but his soul stays put in an extra frame. If you watch it frame by frame, you can see the soul dissolve. Will make a note to do so later.

David wrote three separate tracks for each storyline in the episode (Donut vs O'Malley, Grif vs Genkins, and the others saving Wash) which all blend together as they go on.

The cue playing when Genkins goes on his boredom rant is Joe and David's favorite cue.

Genkin's rant was also much longer and was pretty much Genkins breaking up with the universe. Joe felt that it was losing momentum as it went on however, so he cut it down.

Phillip had a ringing bell sound effect play when Donut hit the plane on the commentary track. All of them lost it XD

The longest scene to animate was Donut jumping after The Hammer.

Each bit of the fight went to different animators. Ian worked on the Blood Gulch part and reference show he's known for being good at finger animation. Hence why we got O'Malley's evil finger wiggling XD They were bummed that they didn't have more time, but with so much going on, they had no choice. Everything was mo-caped and hand framed due to the uniqueness of all the scenes, all of which used no machinima, which normally has to be in a specific view. Joe was happy since he could move the camera around more.

The city for the final part of the fight was stolen taken from Gen:Lock. It's meant to be New York.

Joe has no regrets regarding the fight scene and was very happy with how it all came together.

There's a ticking effect during the episode that accelerates, but during the final part where Grif is running and stuff, the ticking significantly slowed down.

Grif's running was machinimated and they used an after effects plugin to slow him down properly.

Again, Joe was very mad that Infinity War came out during this time XD This happened a lot this season apparently, such as Legion.

The final scene is done in Halo 2 Anniversary. Joe chose this because it looks familiar, yet is different. He did this specifically to not make people think that they were rebooting it... which happened anyways XD

Again, they confirm that they are NOT doing a reboot. Joe tried to put in as many clues as he could (like Church not being voiced by Burnie) to demonstrate that. There is a reason for why things are like this and why the final three shots are in reverse order from the events in Blood Gulch.

Joe watched all of Deep Space 9 while editing the season. All 6 seasons! Two he watched during the cyclops episode!

Apparently the Security part of the credits (which lists pets) hjust gets added onto without chances, so many of them are probably dead... ending on a morbid note then!

This took like... five hours to type up. But I always like listening to behind-the-scenes stuff and I had a lot of fun doing this! To all of those who actually made it through the entire post, thanks for reading! Looking forward to S17!

[dzxoxian]

Classic Josh: The Best Thank-You Note EVER

Originally posted in December 2003

Small note - So, I had I few problems with an order at work.  I actually wrote this and sent this in to the supervisor of the three poor, unsuspecting service representatives that were force to deal with me.  I'm told it had been passed around the whole office within three days of sending it, and was printed out on a poster and mounted on the wall of their customer service center.

To Whom it May Concern:

My name is Josh, and I'm the Purchasing Agent at the <Workplace>.

Almost a month ago, I purchased your 46" Lane Bi-fold Executive desk and hanging Keyboard tray from Staples National Business Advantage.  When it arrived, I had a tray.  I had the top of the Desk.  I was missing four legs for said table.

No problem, I thought...these things happen.  I alerted their Customer Service, explained my problem, and they agreed to pick up the limbless desk and bring me a new one.

I waited, again, and soon enough, the new desk arrived.   Guess what? Still no legs.

After what I felt was an extremely warranted session of cursing, I got back on the phone with Staples and attempted to reason with them without crying, whining, or otherwise throwing a hissy fit.  I was successful with controlling my behavior, but not with finding any kind of solution...they told me they had done all they could, gave me your company's phone number, and told me I would have to take it up with your people.

So, I called on July 17th, timid and fearful, hoping that I would meet with kind and useful souls who could help me with my tragic lack of desk legs.  I talked with Brandon, who, in a matter of minutes, had everything in hand, told me that an order had been placed, and that I would see my new legs in 5 business days.

I was relieved, and proceeded to move on with my life, which is usually far less wrapped up in concern over table legs.

Cut forward to yesterday. Author's note - Monday was 7 business days later.

I start receiving calls from the Director of our Marketing department, curious as to why her people have no legs for the desk of their brand-new multimedia center.  She expressed even louder curiosity in what my proposed response would be to this dilemma.  This distressed me greatly, as I am a simple, peaceful soul, who goes to great lengths to keep such exalted individuals such as Department Directors from taking personal interests in his affairs.

Once again, I flew to the phone and spoke to your representative Justin.  He agreed that the delay did seem a bit odd, and promptly supplied me with the UPS tracking number for the package containing to legs.

Filled with gratitude, I thanked him, and flew to the UPS website to find the package's location.   I then discovered UPS had no idea where the package was.  They knew who they were supposed to bill for the package, and had already done so, but they didn't seem to see how taking money to deliver something in any way obliged them to know the item's location, or, indeed, even deliver it.

At this point, panic began to bloom at the root of my soul.  I called your people back immediately and spoke to Nate.  He was as surprised as I was in hearing of UPS's Zen-like "non-delivery" deliver policy, promised me that he would attempt to get to the bottom of the issue, and would call me back.

Somewhat pacified, I left for the day, feeling confident that my problems were over, that Nate would call me back, assuaging all my worries by telling me the package did, indeed, exist somewhere, and was not stuck in some forgotten delivery Limbo.

I came in today to a phone message from Nate, informing me that UPS had never picked up the package, and that it was looking like he would have to order me a new one.

This was a regrettable situation.

What made the situation MORE regrettable was the selfsame Director of Marketing from earlier in this Saga calling me roughly 43 seconds after I had finished listening to this message, demanding an update.  I (reluctantly) informed her of all the current facts of the situation.

What followed was an inelegant and barbaric dance of bureaucracy, finger-pointing, and generally throwing me under the bus.  My call sheet now included not just said Director, but my boss, my boss's boss, the Vice President of Marketing, and our General Manager.  Apparently, they all felt that the most vital thing they could do to speed up the process of my acquisition of their needed table legs was requesting explanations, full reports, and status updates for two hours.

At this point, the aforementioned panic in my soul was in full blossom, and I was seriously considering taking holy orders in a quiet, remote monastery where people take oaths of silence, and vow to never trouble themselves with earthly matters, such as wealth and desk legs.

Now, my soul wounded and my heart heavy, I could only pick up the phone and once again cast my voice, weak and tremulous, across the digital divide of phone cable and electrical pulse to your operatives' waiting ears.  The ears waiting this time belonged to Nate again, who listened with what I felt was saint-like patience and angelic compassion to my heavy tale of sorrow, Vice Presidents, and woe.

I, in unmanly fashion, actually broke down and implored Nate to show mercy on my wretched self, and send the legs as swiftly as he could, whether by plane, costumed superhero, cartoon Roadrunner, or possibly even sub-atomic light speed transmission, if he had it available.

"Damn the expense," I proclaimed, "I'll pay it and more to conclude this matter."

Nate not only agreed to expedite the shipping, but he even volunteered to investigate your warehouse and see if he could lay physical hand upon the accursed legs in question, so he could verify with his own two eyes that they were packed up, picked up, and shipped, ensuring I would get them with no further delays.  He told me he would call me back as soon as he had it all set.

Confident at last, I hung up the phone a new man...relieved, calm, at peace.  Your representative had proven to be a balm to my soul.

"Surely," I thought to myself, "this must conclude this matter...he seems to be so sure, so dedicated to his goal of the acquisition and shipping of desk legs. Why, it would take an act of God to keep my legs from me now."

Alas... I was proven correct.

I was preparing myself to leave around 5pm (here in Tampa, so around 2pm your time, Author’s Note – the customer service center/table leg repository was in California.) when it suddenly occurred to me that I had not heard back from Nate.  So calmed I had grown that I foolishly went about all the other varied and demanding business of my day, giving the savagely crucial business of the chair legs nary a further thought.

But now... now, doubt had begun to creep in, and I thought to myself, "Why, I'm sure everything fine. But wouldn't it be remiss of me if I didn't check?  Can I endure another day of being the object of attention for such godlike and influential beings as Vice Presidents?  No, no... I am a simple man, and long only for peace and harmony when completing my duties.  Let's give Nate a call, and make sure all is well."

Resolved, I picked up the phone, waited for an answer, certain that all was well and that I would suffer not further disappointment.  My call was answered, and I was once more vocally reunited with Brandon, who informed me that Nate had left for the day.

Now, I will at this point admit, not proudly, mind you, that in my heart of heart, I cursed your employees, wondering what selfish, callow excuse they could offer for not ensuring the safe and speedy delivery of my legs.

"What!?!" I demanded.  "Why?"  I felt keenly that if his reason for leaving early was anything less drastic than the earth itself opening, I would start screaming.

"There's been an earthquake," came Brandon's reply.

Ah.  Well.

At this point, I was devastated.  At this point, despair rushed back into my soul, and I hoped that the earth would crack under ME, and swallow me whole, because I was a cursed man, burdened with a figurative albatross around my neck, and that even God himself was arrayed against the delivery of these desk legs, and thus, arrayed against my salvation.

I sighed, and offered my condolences, and asked Brandon (because, really, at this point, what did I have left to lose?) if Nate had mentioned anything about shipping out my desk legs. Though Staples, UPS, and the Almighty Himself had turned against me, I still obviously held onto the smallest sliver of hope.

At this point, however, a miracle occurred.

Your gentleman told me that no, no mention had been made, but he would check.  What followed, gentle reader, was amazing.  Brandon could find no mention of my order having been shipped, and could not locate the legs.

However, he did not stop there - he went and looked for them personally, and when THAT failed, he even contacted Nate by his cell, and they collaborated to see if any progress could be made.  I begged Brandon not to trouble his co-worker with such trivial business in the wake of such a disaster, but he assured me that there were no fiery homes, deceased relatives, missing pets, or severed limbs at the other end of Nate's phone that he was attempting to deal with, and that I shouldn't worry.

Finally, in the end, no legs could be located, and I thought that my luck had finally run empty...but no. Brandon girded his loins, picked up the phone, and returned to do battle with my original sparring partner in this office furniture train wreck, the Staples National Business Advantage Customer Service Department.  He asked for me to please be patient, and to stay on the line.  As if, by this point, I was even CAPABLE of hanging up with seeing this through to its resolution.

I waited, breathless with anticipation, the minutes seeming like hours as I waited on the phone, with Brandon returning occasionally to ask me for some clarifying point or miscellaneous ordering info.  In the end, he uncovered the gross error the Staples people had made with my initial order, negotiated a price 66% of the original, and arranged for free overnight shipping to ensure that I would not have to wait one second longer for my order.

It was done...Madam (or miss, I intend no disrespect,) your three customer service representatives had, at last, proven successful.

In an order I did not even directly place with your company, they had fixed an error made by several people a continent away, battled through the incompetence and confusion of two major megacorporations, and even overcame obstacles sent by God Himself to get me my desk legs.

They did so while displaying panache, tact, courtesy, patience, and undeserved compassion to a poor, broken man who had been driven beyond reason by what are, essentially, glorified metal sticks.

I sincerely appreciate all there hard work and dedication, and can unreservedly say that I have need had such excellent service, never been treated so well, by any company in the history of my (admittedly young) life.  You are lucky to have them in your employ, and I wish them nothing but success in whatever field they choose to follow.

Thank you, and more importantly, thank them.

All that being said, I hope that for the rest of my (hopefully long) life, I am never forced to become so deeply emotionally and spiritually invested in furniture components ever again.  I think we can all agreed that this would be for the best.

Thank you, and good day.

[theibblog]

How to not stress about CAS

Ah, CAS. Every IB student’s dread. What to do? How do I log it? What are reflections? How do I know I'm doing enough CAS? Really, do I have to do sport?! 

It is very easy to get stressed out about CAS, and for good reason - it’s a slightly abstract concept for IB students, and some of you reading might be thinking why you have one more thing to stress about in an already stressful IB Diploma. Yet, CAS can be a great excuse to go out and find things you’re passionate about or interested in. This post is just to give you a few tips about how not to get stressed out about completing CAS, however daunting it seems at first. 

Firstly, a few facts. 

- Yes, you do have to complete it. It’s part of the core, though I assume you know this already.

- There are is no set number of hours you must complete in order to ‘pass’ CAS, you just need to be in the clear of doing enough of all three strands. Your CAS Co-ordinator gets to decide this initially and will tell you if they don’t think you’re doing enough. 

- The strands can seem a little vague in what it is they’re actually asking you to do. In essence, service activities are one where you’re providing yourself for free to someone else or a community - volunteering essentially. Activity is anything where you’re exerting yourself physically (the key word here is physically), and creativity is anything that requires creative thinking.

I know. I sometimes look and think ‘my goodness, how on earth am I supposed to meet that kind of criteria?’ But relax. Here’s a few tips to help you on your way with CAS!

1. Do reflections little and often. If you use an online system like ManageBac to record CAS, log on perhaps for 10-20 minutes every week and write up a few reflections. You don’t have to do reflections after every time you complete an activity, just when you feel you’ve learned something new and want to record that information. 

2. If you do use ManageBac, make sure you’ve configured your supervisor details correctly. It sounds obvious, but if you have their email address enter it. It will make your life a lot easier when the time comes to get reviews. Even if you don’t use a system like ManageBac, make sure you’re getting your reviews done as you go along. It will save you a lot of hassle when the deadline looms. 

3. Try and strike a balance. It’s very easy if, like me, you like things you do for one of the strands way more than the other two, to get into a habit of just doing activities for that strand. It’ll look good when you review your activities but not so great when it has to be assessed. Try and strike a balance between the three. Crossovers are great for this too - if you’ve found a way of doing service and physical together if you like service, perhaps volunteering as a lifeguard, then this is perfect. Plus, you’re achieving way more in one go too! 

4. Remember, it’s all about quality and not quantity. We all have on fellow IB-er who has completed 50 reflections and 40 activities by the end of Term 1. But you don’t need to eat up all your time with CAS. Speak to your CAS Co-Ordinator within your school if you want an idea of numbers you could set to this idea, but don’t get stressed out about the idea that someone has done more CAS than you. Chances are you’re probably doing fine. 

5. Things you already do are good! Are you already volunteering in a local library? Are you on the local swim team? Are you an exceptional photographer? Use these to your advantage! 

5a. But, in the same vein, try not to do CAS all the time. It’s a good idea not to use everything you already do as CAS activities, otherwise you’ll make everything you do outside of school feel like school, and it won’t be fun for you. 

6. If in doubt, shout! Remember, the people in charge of the IB in your school are not there to just tell you when you’re going wrong. My IB Co-Ordinator is a Diploma graduate herself, and she completely understands what it’s like to do six subjects, ToK, the EE and CAS. It’s a lot, but you can do it so ask for help if you need it.

7. Crucially, have fun with it! CAS shouldn’t be a chore. Use CAS if you like as an excuse to do all the things you never got to do growing up or something you’ve always dreamed about doing. Perhaps you always wanted to learn the guitar? Use CAS as the excuse to do that! 

If nothing else, I recommend starting off with tips 1, 6 and 7 first. Work your way up and don’t let yourself get to the end of Term 5 and realise that you’ve uploaded no reflections or (hopefully not) activities and you’re now madly rushing to get the dates together. I hope some of these tips help you with CAS, and if you really think about it, you can make it one of the best things about the Diploma on the whole. Good luck! 

- Josh 

[unsettlingshortstories]

Dial Tone

Benjamin Percy (2007)

A jogger spotted the body hanging from the cell tower. At first he thought it was a mannequin. That's what he told Z-21, the local NBC affiliate. The way the wind blew it, the way it flopped limply, made it appear insubstantial, maybe stuffed with straw. It couldn't be a body, he thought, not in a place like Redmond, Oregon, a nowhere town on the edge of a great wash of desert. But it was. It was the body of a man. He had a choke chain, the kind you buy at Pet Depot, wrapped around his neck and anchored to the steel ladder that rose twelve hundred feet in the air to the tip of the tower, where a red light blinked a warning.

Word spread quickly. And everyone, the whole town, it seemed, crowded around, some of them with binoculars and cameras, to watch three deputies, joined by a worker from Clark Tower Service, scale the tower and then descend with the body in a sling.

I was there. And from where I stood, the tower looked like a great spear thrust into the hilltop.

* * *

Yesterday—or maybe it was the day before—I went to work, like I always go to work, at West Teleservices Corporation, where, as a marketing associate, I go through the same motions every morning. I hit the power button on my computer and listen to it hum and mumble and blip to life. I settle my weight into my ergonomic chair. I fit the headset around my skull and into my ear and take a deep breath, and, with the pale light of the monitor washing over me, I dial the first number on the screen.

In this low-ceilinged fluorescent-lit room, there are twenty-four rows of cubicles, each ten deep. I am C5. When I take a break and stand up and peer into the cubicle to my right, C6, I find a Greg or a Josh or a Linda—every day a new name to remember, a new hand to shake, or so it seems, with the turnover rate so high. This is why I call everyone you.

"Hey, you," I say. "How's it going?"

A short, toad-like woman in a Looney Toons sweatshirt massages the bridge of her nose and sighs, "You know how it is."

In response I give her a sympathetic smile, before looking away, out over the vast hive of cubicles that surrounds us. The air is filled with so many voices, all of them coming together into one voice that reads the same script, trying to make a sale for AT&T, Visa, Northwest Airlines, Sandals Beach Resorts, among our many clients.

There are always three supervisors on duty, all of them beefy men with mustaches. Their bulging bellies remind me of feed sacks that might split open with one slit of a knife. They wear polo shirts with "West Teleservices" embroidered on the breast. They drink coffee from stainless-steel mugs. They never seem to sit down. Every few minutes I feel a rush of wind at the back of my neck as they hurry by, usually to heckle some associate who hasn't met the hourly quota.

"Back to work, C5," one of them tells me, and I roll my eyes at C6 and settle into my cubicle, where the noise all around me falls away into a vague murmur, like the distant drone of bees.

* * *

I'm having trouble remembering things. Small things, like where I put my keys, for instance. Whether or not I put on deodorant or took my daily vitamin or paid the cable bill. Big things, too. Like, getting up at 6 A.M. and driving to work on a Saturday, not realizing my mistake until I pull into the empty parking lot.

Sometimes I walk into a room or drive to the store and can't remember why. In this way I am like a ghost: someone who can travel through walls and find myself someplace else in the middle of a sentence or thought and not know what brought me there. The other night I woke up to discover I was walking down the driveway in my pajamas, my bare feet blue in the moonlight. I was carrying a shovel.

* * *

Today I'm calling on behalf of Capital One, pitching a mileage card. This is what I'm supposed to say: Hello, is this _______? How are you doing today, sir/ma'am? That's wonderful! I'm calling with a fantastic offer from Capital One. Did you know that with our no-annual-fee No-Hassle Miles Visa Signature Card you can earn 25 percent more than regular mileage cards, with 1.25 miles for every $1 spent on purchases? On top of that, if you make just $3,000 in purchases a year, you'll earn 20,000 bonus miles!

And so on.

The computer tells me what to tell them. The bold sections indicate where I ought to raise my voice for emphasis. If the customer tries to say they aren't interested, I'm supposed to keep talking, to pretend I don't hear. If I stray too far from the script and if one of the supervisors is listening in, I will feel a hand on my shoulder and hear a voice whispering, "Stay on target. Don't lose sight of your primary objective."

* * *

The lights on the tops of cell towers are meant to warn pilots to stay away. But they have become a kind of beacon. Migratory birds mistake them for the stars they use to navigate, so they circle such towers in a trance, sometimes crashing into a structure, its steadying guy wires, or even into other birds. And sometimes they keep circling until they fall to the ground, dead from exhaustion. You can find them all around our cell tower: thousands of them, dotting the hilltop, caught in the sagebrush and pine boughs like ghostly ornaments. Their bones are picked clean by ants. Their feathers are dampened by the rain and bleached by the sun and ruffled and loosened and spread like spores by the wind.

In the sky, so many more circle, screeching their frustration as they try to find their way south. Of course they discovered the body. As he hung there, swinging slightly in the wind, they roosted on his shoulders. They pecked away his eyes, and they pecked away his cheeks, so that we could see all of his teeth when the deputies brought him down. He looked like he was grinning. 

At night, from where I lie in bed, I can see the light of the cell tower—through the window, through the branches of a juniper tree, way off in the distance—like a winking red eye that assures me of the confidentiality of some terrible secret.

* * *

Midmorning, I pop my neck and crack my knuckles and prepare to make maybe my fortieth or sixtieth call of the day. "Pete Johnston" is the name on the screen. I say it aloud—twice—the second time as a question. I feel as though I have heard the name before, but really, that means nothing when you consider the hundreds of thousands of people I have called in my three years working here. I notice that his number, 503-531-1440, is local. Normally I pay no attention to the address listing unless the voice on the other end has a thick accent I can't quite decipher—New Jersey? Texas? Minnesota?—but in this case I look and see that he lives just outside of Redmond, in a new housing development only a few miles away.

"Yeah?" is how he answers the phone.

"Hello. Is this Pete Johnston?"

He clears his throat in a growl. "You a telemarketer?"

"How are you doing today, sir?"

"Bad."

"I'm calling on behalf of—"

"Look, cocksucker. How many times I got to tell you? Take me off your list."

"If you'll just hear me out, I want to tell you about a fantastic offer from—"

"You people are so fucking pathetic."

Now I remember him. He said the same thing before, a week or so ago, when I called him. "If you ever fucking call me again, you fucking worthless piece of shit," he said, "I'll reach through the phone and rip your tongue out."

He goes off on a similar rant now, asking me how can I live with myself, if every time I call someone they answer with hatred?

For a moment I forget about the script and answer him. "I don't know," I say.

"What the—?" he says, his voice somewhere between panicked and incensed. "What the hell are you doing in my house? I thought I told you to—" 

There is a noise—the noise teeth might make biting hurriedly into melon—punctuated by a series of screams. It makes me want to tear the headset away from my ear.

And then I realize I am not alone. Someone is listening. I don't know how—a certain displacement of sound as the phone rises from the floor to an ear—but I can sense it.

"Hello?" I say.

The line goes dead.

* * *

Sometimes, when I go to work for yet another eight-hour shift or when I visit my parents for yet another casserole dinner, I want to be alone more than anything in the world. But once I'm alone, I feel I can't stand another second of it. Everything is mixed up.

This is why I pick up the phone sometimes and listen. There is something reassuring about a dial tone. That simple sound, a low purr, as constant and predictable as the sun's path across the sky. No matter if you are in Istanbul or London or Beijing or Redmond, you can bring your ear to the receiver and hear it.

Sometimes I pick up the phone and bring it to my ear for the same reason people raise their heads to peer at the moon when they're in a strange place. It makes them—it makes me—feel oriented, calmer than I was a moment before.

Perhaps this has something to do with why I drive to the top of the hill and park beneath the cell tower and climb onto the hood of my Neon and lean against the windshield with my hands folded behind my head to watch the red light blinking and the black shapes of birds swirling against the backdrop of an even blacker sky.

I am here to listen. The radio signals emanating from the tower sound like a blade hissing through the air or a glob of spit sizzling on a hot stove: something dangerous, about to draw blood or catch fire. It's nice.

I imagine I hear in it the thousands of voices channeling through the tower at any given moment, and I wonder what terrible things could be happening to these people that they want to tell the person on the other end of the line but don't.

* * *

A conversation overheard:

"Do you live here?"

"Yes."

"Are you Pete Johnston?"

"Yes. Who are you? What do you want?"

"To talk to you. Just to talk."

* * *

Noon, I take my lunch break. I remove my headset and lurch out of my chair with a groan and bring my fists to my back and push until I feel my vertebrae separate and realign with a juicy series of pops. Then I wander along my row, moving past so many cubicles, each with a person hunched over inside it—and for a moment West Teleservices feels almost like a chapel, with everyone bowing their heads and murmuring together, as if exorcising some private pain.

I sign out with one of the managers and enter the break room, a forty-by-forty-foot room with white walls and a white dropped ceiling and a white linoleum floor. There are two sinks, two microwaves, two fridges, a Coke machine and a SNAX machine. In front of the SNAX machine stands C6, the woman stationed in the cubicle next to me. A Looney Toons theme apparently unifies her wardrobe, since today she wears a sweatshirt with Sylvester on it. Below him, blocky black letters read, WITHCONTHIN. She stares with intense concentration at the candy bars and chip bags and gum packs, as if they hold some secret message she has yet to decode.

I go to the nearby water fountain and take a drink and dry my mouth with my sleeve, all the while watching C6, who hardly seems to breathe. "Hey, you," I say, moving to within a few steps of her. "Doing all right there?"

She looks at me, her face creased with puzzlement. Then she shakes her head, and a fog seems to lift, and for the first time she sees me and says, "Been better."

"I know how you feel."

She looks again to the SNAX machine, where her reflection hovers like a ghost. "Nobody knows how I feel."

"No. You're wrong. I know."

At first C6 seems to get angry, her face cragging up, but then I say, "You feel like you would feel if you were hurrying along and smacked your shin against the corner of the coffee table. You feel like you want to yell a lot. The pain hasn't completely arrived, but you can see it coming, and you want to yell at it, scare it off." I go to the fridge labeled A-K and remove from it my sack lunch and sit down at one of the five tables staggered throughout the room. "Something like that, anyway."

An awkward silence follows, in which I eat my ham sandwich and C6 studies me closely, no doubt recognizing in me some common damage, some likeness of herself.

Then C6 says, "Can't seem to figure out what I want," nodding at the vending machine. "I've been staring at all these goodies for twenty minutes, and I'll be darned if I know what I want." She forces a laugh and then says with some curiosity in her voice, "Hey, what's with your eye?"

I cup a hand to my ear like a seashell, like: Say again?

"Your eyeball." She points and then draws her finger back as if she might catch something from me. "It's really red."

"Huh," I say and knuckle the corner of my eye as if to nudge away a loose eyelash. "Maybe I've got pinkeye. Must have picked it up off a doorknob."

"It's not pink. It's red. It's really, really red."

The nearest reflective surface is the SNAX machine. And she's right. My eye is red. The dark luscious red of an apple. I at once want to scream and pluck it out and suck on it.

"I think you should see somebody," C6 says.

"Maybe I should." I comb a hand back through my hair and feel a vaguely pleasant release as several dozen hairs come out by the roots, just like that, with hardly any effort. I hold my hand out before me and study the clump of hairs woven in between the fingers and the fresh scabs jewelling my knuckles and say to no one in particular, "Looks like I'm falling apart."

* * *

Have you ever been on the phone, canceling a credit card or talking to your mother, when all of a sudden—with a pop of static—another conversation bleeds into yours? Probably. It happens a lot, with so many radio signals hissing through the air. What you might not know is, what you're hearing might have been said a minute ago or a day ago or a week ago or a month ago. Years ago.

When you speak into the receiver, your words are compressed into an electronic signal that bounces from phone to tower to satellite to phone, traveling thousands of miles, even if you're talking to your next-door neighbor, Joe. Which means there's plenty of room for a signal to ricochet or duplicate or get lost. Which means there are so many words—the ghosts of old conversations—floating all around us.

Consider this possibility. You pick up your phone and hear a voice—your voice—engaged in some ancient conversation, like that time in high school when you asked Natasha Flatt out for coffee and she made an excuse about her cat being sick. It's like a conversation shouted into a canyon, its words bouncing off walls to eventually come fluttering back to you, warped and soft and sounding like somebody else.

Sometimes this is what my memory feels like. An image or a conversation or a place will rise to the surface of my mind, and I'll recognize it vaguely, not knowing if I experienced it or saw it on television or invented it altogether.

Whenever I try to fix my attention on something, a red light goes on in my head, and I'm like a bird circling in confusion.

* * *

I find myself on the sidewalk of a new hillside development called Bear Brook. Here all the streets have names like Kodiak and Grizzly. All around me are two-story houses of a similar design, with freshly painted gray siding and river-rock entryways and cathedral windows rising above their front doors to reveal chandeliers in the foyer of each. Each home has a sizable lot that runs up against a pine forest. And each costs more than I would make in twenty years with West Teleservices.

A garbage truck rushes past me, raising tiny tornadoes of dust and trash, and I raise my hand to shield my face and notice a number written on the back of it, just below my knuckles—13743—and though I am sure it will occur to me later, for the moment I can't for the life of me remember what it means.

At that moment a bird swoops toward a nearby house. Mistaking the window for a piece of sky, it strikes the glass with a thud and falls into the rose garden beneath it, absently fluttering its wings; soon it goes still. I rush across the lawn and into the garden and bend over to get a better look at it. A bubble of blood grows from its beak and pops. I do not know why, but I reach through the thorns and pick up the bird and stroke its cool, reddish feathers. Its complete lack of weight and its stillness overwhelm me.

When the bird fell, something fell off a shelf inside me—a nice, gold-framed picture of my life, what I dreamed it would be, full of sunshine and ice cream and go-go dancers. It tumbled down and shattered, and my smiling face dissolved into the distressed expression reflected in the living room window before me.

I look alarmingly ugly. My eyes are black-bagged. My skin is yellow. My upper lip is raised to reveal long, thin teeth. Mine is the sort of face that belongs to someone who bites the heads off chickens in a carnival pit, not the sort that belongs to a man who cradles in his hands a tiny red-winged blackbird. The vision of me, coupled with the vision of what I once dreamed I would be—handsome, wealthy, feared by men and cherished by women—assaults me, the ridiculousness of it and also the terror, the realization that I have crept to the edge of a void and am on the verge of falling in, barely balanced. 

And then my eyes refocus, concentrating on a farther distance, where through the window I see a man rising from a couch and approaching me. He is tall and square-shouldered. His hair is the color of dried blood on a bandage. He looks at me with derision, saying through the glass, "The hell do you think you're doing on my property?" without saying a word.

I drop the bird and raise my hand, not quite waving, the gesture more like holding up something dark to the light. He does not move except to narrow his eyes further. There's a stone pagoda at the edge of the garden, and when I take several steps back my heel catches against it. I stumble and then lose my balance entirely, falling hard, sprawling out on the lawn. The gray expanse of the sky fills my vision. Moisture from the grass seeps into my jeans and dampens my underwear. My testicles tighten like a fist.

In the window the man continues to watch me. He has a little red mustache, and he fingers it. Then he disappears from sight, moving away from the window and toward the front door.

Just before I stagger off the lawn and hurry along the sidewalk and retreat from this place, my eyes zero in on the porch, waiting for the man to appear there, and I catch sight of the address: 13743.

And then I am off and running. A siren announces itself nearby. The air seems to vibrate with its noise. It is a police cruiser, I'm certain, though how I can tell the difference between it and an ambulance, I don't know. Either way, someone is in trouble.

* * *

The body was blackened by its lengthy exposure to radio frequency fields. Cooked. Like a marshmallow left too long over flame. This is why the deputies shut off the transmitters, when they climbed the tower.

Z-21 interviewed Jack Millhouse, a professor of radiation biology at Oregon State. He had a beard, and he stroked it thoughtfully. He said that climbing the tower would expose a person to radio frequencies so powerful they would cook the skin. "I'd ask around at the ER," he said. "See if somebody has come in with radiation burns."

Then they interviewed a woman in a yellow, too-large T-shirt and purple stretch pants. She lived nearby and had seen the commotion from her living room window. She thought a man was preparing to jump, she said. So she came running in the hopes of praying him down. She had a blank, round face no one would ever call beautiful. "It's just awful," she said, her lips disappearing as she tightened her mouth. "It's the most horrible thing in the world, and it's right here, and we don't know why."

* * *

I know I am not the only one who has been cut off by a swerving car in traffic or yelled at by a teacher in a classroom or laughed at by a woman in a bar. I am not the only one who has wished someone dead and imagined how it might happen, pleasuring in the goriest details.

Here is how it might happen:

I am in a kitchen with duck-patterned wallpaper. I stand over a man with a Gerber hunting knife in my hand. There is blood dripping off the knife, and there is blood coming out of the man. Gouts of it. It matches the color of his hair. A forked vein rises on his forehead to reveal the panicked beating of his heart. A gray string of saliva webs the corner of his mouth. He holds his hands out, waving me away, and I cut my way through them.

A dog barks from the hallway, and the man screams a repulsive scream, a girlish scream, and all this noise sounds to me far away, like a conversation overheard between pops of static.

I am aware of my muscles and their purpose as never before, using them to place the knife, putting it finally to the man's chest, where it will make the most difference.

At first the blade won't budge, caught on a rib, and then it slips past the bone and into the soft red interior, deeper and then deeper still, with the same feeling you get when you break through that final restraining grip and enter a woman fully. The response is just as cathartic: a shriek, a gasp, a stiffening of the limbs followed by a terrible shivering that eventually gives way to a great, calming release.

There is blood everywhere—on the knife, on the floor, gurgling from the newly rendered wound that looks so much like a mouth—and the man's eyes are open and empty, and his sharp pink tongue lolls out the side of his mouth. I am amazed at the thrill I feel.

When I surprised him, only a few minutes ago, he was on the phone. I spot it now, on the shale floor, with a halo of blood around it. I pick it up and bring it to my ear and hope for the familiar, calming murmur of the dial tone.

Instead I hear a voice. "Hello?" it says.

* * *

One day, I think, maybe I'll write a story about all of this. Something permanent. So that I can trace every sentence and find my way to the end and back to the beginning without worrying about losing my way.

The telling would be complicated.

To write a story like this you would have to talk about what it means to speak into a headset all day, reading from a script you don't believe in, conversing with bodiless voices that snarl with hatred, voices that want to claw out your eyes and scissor off your tongue. And you would have to show what that does to a person, experiencing such a routine day after day, with no relief except for the occasional coffee break where you talk about the television show you watched last night.

And you would have to explain how the man named Pete Johnston sort of leaned and sort of collapsed against the fridge, how a magnet fell to the linoleum with a clack after you flashed the knife in a silvery arc across his face and then his outstretched hand and then into that soft basin behind the collarbone. After that came blood. And screaming. Again you stabbed the body, in the thigh, the belly, your muscles pulsing with a red electricity. Something inside you, some internal switch, had been triggered, filling you with an unthinking adrenaline that made you feel capable of turning over Volkswagens, punching through concrete, tearing phone books in half.

And you would have to end this story by explaining what it felt like to pull the body from the trunk of your car and hoist it to your shoulder and begin to climb the tower—one rung, then another—going slowly. You breathed raggedly. The dampness of your sweat mingled with the dampness of blood. From here—thirty, then forty, then fifty feet off the ground—you could see the chains of light on Route 97 and Highway 100, each bright link belonging to a machine that carried inside it a man who could lose control in an instant, distracted by the radio or startled by a deer or overwhelmed by tiredness, careening off the asphalt and into the surrounding woods. It could happen to anyone.

Your thighs trembled. You were weary, dizzy. Your fillings tingled, and a funny baked taste filled your mouth. The edges of your eyes went white and then crazy with streaks of color. But you continued climbing, with the wind tugging at your body, with the blackness of the night and the black shapes of birds all around you, the birds swirling through the air like ashes thrown from a fire. And let's not forget the sound—the sound of the tower—how it sounded almost like words. The hissing of radio frequencies, the voices of so many others coming together into one voice that coursed through you in dark conversation.

[newyorktheater]

Nikki James and LaChanze, Bubbly in 2000 and 2017, Okierete “Oak” Onaodowan, Mandy Patinkin

On the day I saw Nikki James give a star turn in “Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin,” the Off Center Encores two-day revival of the musical by Kirsten Childs that is in part about the challenges facing a black performer, the producers of “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet” announced that Mandy Patinkin would take over the role of Pierre for three weeks starting August 14, replacing Okierete “Oak” Onaodowan. Oak Smash, as he’s nicknamed, had assumed the role just on July 11th (taking over, after an unexpected delay, from Josh Groban) and was scheduled to perform through September 4. But, in an effort to boost ticket sales, which had declined after Josh Groban’s departure, the producers were ending Oak’s already brief run three weeks early. Most publications hurrahed Patinkin’s return to Broadway after 17 years. But Broadway Black observed: “…the abrupt replacement of [Oak’s} role to boost ticket sales raises questions about how Black actors are valued and supported within Broadway.” Prominent voices agreed on social media

Imagine 2 weeks into your great review in a new show, the producers come to u & “ask” you to step down so a white actor can take your place? pic.twitter.com/QV9Y83bnvi

— RAFAEL CASAL (@RafaelCasal) July 26, 2017

What I know for a fact is that Oak worked extremely hard for this. Which makes this occurrence distasteful and uncouth.

— Cynthia Erivo (@CynthiaEriVo) July 26, 2017

  So to you @OakSmash I offer my sincere apologies for this mishandling. You deserve better, and are worth much more than this.

— Cynthia Erivo (@CynthiaEriVo) July 26, 2017

(Tony nominee for Shuffle Along)

👇🏾This is someone I love and respect dearly. I am an actor of color, who works on Broadway sometimes. This is a familiar feeling. https://t.co/IDMF2DZYy1

— Adrienne Warren (@adriennelwarren) July 26, 2017

  In response to the outcry, Mandy Patinkin announced, in an e-mail to the Times andv series of four Tweets, that he was withdrawing from the role: My understanding of the show’s request that I step into the show is not as it has been portrayed and I would never accept a role knowing it would harm another actor. I hear what members of the community have said and I agree with them. I am a huge fan of Oak and I will, therefore, not be appearing in the show

I am a huge fan of Oak and I will, therefore, not be appearing in the show. (4/4) https://t.co/IYdQn2eQ7M

— Mandy Patinkin (@PatinkinMandy) July 28, 2017

But Oak has announced he’s still leaving August 13.

My last show will be Aug 13th! Peep below for some words… Or not. 😀 pic.twitter.com/cKlgmdBqId

— The Incredible Oak (@OakSmash) July 28, 2017

The controversy gave added resonance to Kirsten Child’s semi-autobiographical musical, making ‘Bubbly Black Girl’ if anything even more relevant now than it was when it debuted at Playwrights Horizons in 2000 starring LaChanze.

Nikki James portrays Viveca Stanton, nicknamed

Bubbly, a sunny middle class black child living in L.A. withdreams of being a dancer – and also of being white, like her favorite doll, blonde, blue-eyed Chitty Chatty. Nearly everything in her world as we see her growing up encourages her in her second dream, if not her first. She learns about the bombing death of four little girls in Birmingham from Gregory (Korey Jackson), the little boy next door, who taunts her that she looks just as ugly as one of the victims. A teacher tells a black classmate, “act your age and not your color.” A police officer accosts her and Gregory for no reason on the street outside her home, singing a chilling refrain:

You have the right to remain silent Remain silent remain silent Remain silent remain silent Hands up against the wall You’re about to take a fall

Even her mother, who talks about black pride, insists she straighten her hair. In dance class, Bubbly gets an early lesson in the racial politics of casting. The teacher, deliciously named Miss Pain, picks the light-skinned Yolanda to dance the princess. Bubbly is cast as the dancing Bramble Bush. Her classmate Emily had warned her in song:

You’re pathetic if you’re figurin’ that darker skin will ever help you win Now you can be the court jester, the scullery maid, or the monster

When she moves to New York to become a dancer – “a place where f—ked-up folks can make their dreams come true” — director Bob (Josh Davis) tells her during an audition “Don’t go white on me, Bubbly.” Bubbly then shares with us her inner monologue: “Okay – don’t panic – black, black, black, black, black, black…lot’s of black people in the South …okay…Southern accent, but not like a slave…’cause If I do get this job, I don’t want to offend the few black people that are gonna be in the audience any more than I have to…”

Her blackened second try brings down the house.

By the end of “Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin,” Bubbly sheds her ever-smiling persona, and her nickname. After another audition in which she is no longer trying so hard to please other people, Director Bob tells her: “For this show, I need you to give me something a little less…dark.”

She replies: “You know, for the longest time, I’ve been trying to do exactly that— be a little less dark. But I can’t run away from who I am anymore. And I don’t want to.”

Viveca winds up opening her own dance studio. Kirsten Childs, who danced for Bob Fosse on Broadway and on tour (Director Bob is an obvious, satirical stand-in for Fosse), has become a composer and playwright, whose latest musical “Bella An American Tall Tale” was at Playwrights Horizon this season,)

One of the most remarkable aspects of Childs’ debut musical is that the racism that Bubbly witnesses and experiences is woven into a show that is full of satire, given hilarious expression in this production by the director, Robert O’Hara, who knows a thing or two about satire (as a playwright of such edgy comedies about race as Bootycandy and Barbecue.) But the satire is folded into an all-around entertainment. Childs melodic songs range from jazz to funk to gospel to Broadway ballads. And though Off-Center Encores is supposed to be a concert version of old Off-Broadway shows, another highlight of this production was Byron Easley’s choreography.

The show at City Center, in another words, was a triumph and a delight in every way. And, like Oak in The Great Comet, it’s a shame it had such a brief run.

Nikki M. James (front) and (L to R back) Lauren E.J. Hamilton, Kenita R. Miller, Penelope Armstead-Williams (behind James) and Tanya Birl Encores! Off-Center The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin Cast & Credits Cast & Credits By Kirsten Childs Choreography by Byron Easley Music Supervisor Chris Fenwick Music Director Annastasia Victory Directed by Robert O’Hara Starring Penelope Armstead-Williams, Tanya Birl, Kaitlyn Davidson, Josh Davis, Yurel Echezarreta, Lauren E.J. Hamilton, Korey Jackson, Nikki M. James, Kingsley Leggs, Jo’Nathan Michael, Kenita R. Miller, Julius Thomas III, Shelley Thomas, and Alex Wong

Nikki M. James (center)

Jo’Nathan Michael, Julius Thomas III, Nikki M. James, Yurel Echezarreta, and Alex Wong

Julius Thomas III and Kenita R. Miller (C) Cast & Credits

Nikki M. James

Bubbly Black Girl, Oak vs. Mandy, and the Continuing Relevance of Race on Broadway (and the World) On the day I saw Nikki James give a star turn in “Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin,” the Off Center Encores two-day revival of the musical by Kirsten Childs that is in part about the challenges facing a black performer, the producers of “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet” announced that Mandy Patinkin would take over the role of Pierre for three weeks starting August 14, replacing Okierete “Oak” Onaodowan.