#the only audience this is for is the people who watched loveless at age 13 and kinned ritsuka. i do NOT want to hear complaints in my house

[gunstellations]

[bellasberrycobbler]

This is my third to last not twilight, hunger games post, bcus i only have two more things to say lmao

THE HUNGER GAMES MOVIES ARE THE MOST FUCKING META THING I HAVE EVER LAID EYES ON AND THE MAKERS HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA THAT THAT IS WHAT THEY’VE CREATED

First of all, by aging all the characters down, it’s not absolutely fucking horrifying anymore. As far as I know (forgive me, I’m bad at math), Amandla Stenberg was 14 when she played Rue, which is a wholeass TWO years older than Rue’s actual 12. You might be wont to say, “two years isn’t that much” but the difference between 12 and 14 is like 6th grade-7th grade to 9th grade-10th grade. It’s middle school vs. high school underclassman.

All the characters being aged up makes it so that when we watch the movie, we are watching grown children/teens kill each other, rather than actual children. That already sanitises the bloodbath and makes the games easier to view as enjoyment.

Second, let’s look at the promotional posters.

Does this look like, “I am a frightened child who is being forced to fight to the death by an authoritarian government” to you? Or does this look like a poster that the Capitol would shoot to show us the hype of the Hunger Games. Does Katniss look like she does not want to be a part of this, or does she look stoic and confident? Cato is the only one in character, and he is brain-washed by the Capitol and ends up dead because the Capitol convinced the districts this was a way to win honour and victory. Even then, in the movie, they took out the way that Cato dies, which I can’t sleep thinking about.

Does this poster say, I have PTSD, and I spent the first two movies locked in a loveless relationship feeling trapped by everything, and moving on to being a sad, traumatised, disposable puppet in the last two by another authoritarian government? Or does it look like a Propo shot by 13.

I think you can figure it out for yourself. I don’t need to explain why the movies are clearly the height of Capitol logic, BUT NEVERTHELESS I SHALL. The story of the Hunger Games is not about RESILIENCE AND POWER. It’s about having no other options. It’s about Gale and all these other teen soldiers realising that they have two options: live as slaves or quite probably die creating a better future. People who go out of their way to break the law in order to survive (Gale’s poaching for ex.) aren’t suicidal. They’re willing to lay down their life because this is the ONLY PATH TOWARDS FREEDOM. Johanna is not walking into the Quarter Quell, axing ppl because she is brave or courageous. She has no other options. The movies aren’t here to give us helplessness turning into a revolution. They’re here to sell us the glamour of what fighting for something can mean. They’re profiting off of these children killing each other, by making them look brave and badass. Height of Capitol once again.

Third, we know how many times they revised the movie to get a lower rating, we know how much they removed and hid. There are so many moments in all the movies where they could show us something clearly, the blood, the guts, the loss of life, but instead they show us weird blurred shots that end as soon as they start. They quite literally sanitised the movie to make more money. They hid the true horror, so that we, the audience, could be the largest demographic possible, and also we could sit there and enjoy it as much as possible. This movie is now, not only aged up, badass-ified, but also nearly completely non-violent.

I have pretty severe anxiety, my friends need to vet the movies I watch because I’m so deeply impacted by violent imagery and scenes, and I’m a Korean American actress who has yet to watch Parasite because all my friends have told me that I’d be crying in therapy for the next year. I am the most delicate piece of garbage in the world and can’t stand to watch human suffering. The Hunger Games was not hard to watch. I never had to look away, bcus there was nothing to look away FROM. They took away all the horrifying bits and just showed us the remainder. It’s a gameshow. Isn’t it exciting! Let’s make bows as memorabilia. Let’s sell posters of each of the tributes looking as cool as possible. HEIGHT OF CAPITOL.

And last, the whole Team Peeta Team Gale thing was REALLY played up by the movie makers. That I feel like is more justifiable, because that has less to do with Capitol directly, but it does reek of star-crossed lovers in the Hunger Games. Just go look at promotional posters for Mockingjay. They’re either of Katniss looking cool as hell, or Katniss looking cool as hell in the middle of Gale and Peeta. Another thing that really bothered me is how they overlayed Finnick talking about being a sex slave since he was 14, and they overlayed that with Gale and Peeta about to die. They took a plot point about pedophilia, and made it the soundtrack to a rescue mission. In the books, Finnick is clearly triggered by presenting all this information, and they have to make sure he’s ok multiple times, but in the movie Sam Claflin looks directly in the camera, sexy as hell, level voice, a little bit of vocal fry, “I’m very sexy and I got sexy information.” It was really gross and disturbing. It genuinely made me very upset. I’m so upset about it, and I’m still processing it, so finding the words to describe why it was so profoundly disturbing is hard, but as a person who has been raped, I was really angered by it. It was a narrative tool for a love triangle rather than a character’s story. It was spectacle, rather than a man who’s been deeply traumatised and abused repeatedly. There is something really fucking slimy and disgusting about how they played that.

At every point in the making of the movies, the movie makers saw the most Capitol option they could take and RAN towards it, arms wide open, ready to embrace ANYTHING if it meant they made more money. There is nothing more deeply indicative of Capitol than that. They made a movie series that could be used as a metaphor itself, and BE the allegory, and they had no fucking idea. Or maybe they did, which would be quite a bit worse.

[haetae]

4/14/2017 COALTAR OF THE DEEPERS @ (東京キネマ倶楽部) Kinema Club (Tokyo, Japan)

COALTAR OF THE DEEPERS' last album, Yukari Telepath, was released in 2007. Their last single, DEAR FUTURE, was released in 2011. Their last concert was in 2015. I was ridiculously happy when I found out that they were doing another concert in April 2017. So I got to see COALTAR OF THE DEEPERS for the first time, during my honeymoon with my husband! Special thanks to one of my COTD FAN internet friends for helping me get the tickets through ePlus!

My husband and I got to hang out with some COTD FANs (from the forums and Facebook) the day before the concert. It was amazing to meet fans from Oregon, Canada, and Finland! I can't believe how quickly we became friends through COTD.

The day of the concert, my husband, friends, and I got to the venue a little early. While waiting, I got to see Akira (guitarist) walk by and some fans gave him gifts. A couple of COTD staff were selling new COTD shirts (The new COTD shirt is a parody of the record label, WARP.) and I got to meet Kurata (manager), Kanno (drummer), and Koji (guitarist)! Not gonna lie, I was such a fan girl... I was surprised that Koji could speak English well! He also gave me a COTD shirt! Though there was mostly a language barrier when speaking with the others, thanks to Google Translate, we were able to talk about COTD FAN and how we came from all over the world just to see them! We got to take a photo with Koji and Kanno too! Special thanks to my husband for going back and forth to our AirBnb and to the venue to grab the gift I brought for COALTAR OF THE DEEPERS and NARASAKI! (We were in a hurry!) I made custom stickers and patches and got tequila as a belated birthday present for NARASAKI. I was able to give the gifts to one of the COTD staff members at the goods table.

GOATBED was the opener and they were pretty fun! I only heard about GOATBED from their My Bloody Valentine - Loomer cover on the Yellow Loveless compilation. They reminded me of the visual  kei/JRock I used to listen to when I was in middle school, so it felt a bit nostalgic. Shuji Ishii of GOATBED is also from cali≠gari (Kenjiro (bassist) is also from cali≠gari). GOATBED said that they invited COALTAR OF THE DEEPERS to do the concert with them. At the end of their performance, GOATBED shared an awesome cover of MY SPEEDY SARAH. Unfortunately, I cannot find a link to it anywhere at the moment. Maybe it will be up on iTunes some day.

NARASAKI(V&G) Kanno(D) KOJI(G) AKIRA(G) 村井研次郎/Murai Kenjiro(B) 諸田英慈/Morota Eiji(K)

COALTAR OF THE DEEPERS' setlist: 1. How Smooth 2. Zoei 3. Wipeout 4. Dear Future 5. Swimmers 6. Dl++ 7. Receive 8. Submerge 9. C/O/T/D 10. Aquarian Age Encore 11. Dead by Dawn 12. Hyper Velocity 13. Silver World Encore #2: 14. Killing An Arab (The Cure cover)

How Smooth When COTD walked onto the stage, it was like they returned to an old friend. They were such rock stars and everything seemed natural to them. When they opened with How Smooth, I was in awe and images from the "music video" in the FOREVER DVD kept flashing in my mind. I thought it was a great chill opening song to get the audience in the same vibe before we party like crazy.

Zoei I pretty much headbanged through the hard parts and watched the fans wave their arms while NARASAKI sang. (tezensu: waving both hands in the air in time to the music) Throughout the concert, when the timing was right, I joined in with the arm waving and it was really fun haha.

Wipeout Oh man... everyone went crazy during this song. I remember we were all jumping and I could feel the floor move.

Dear Future It was a little more chill during this song. I also really wanted to sing along with the chorus, but mouthed the lyrics instead. Japanese fans don't really sing along so they can hear the band perform better.

Swimmers Beautifully surreal. The blue stage lights waving onto the band really felt like they were submerged in water. I closed my eyes during this song a few times.

Dl++ THIS WAS A FUN TREAT. I didn't think they'd perform this song, BUT THEY DID! NARASAKI's singing was very cute.

Receive This was a fun shoegaze-y moment. I found myself mesmerized with the distortions and the transition to the end was beautiful.

Submerge MORE JUMPING AND HEADBANGING! I swear, everyone yelled, "ここに来るわ!!/koko ni kuru wa!!/It's coming over here?" in unison (Misato's quote from Evangelion) and it looked like NARASAKI expected it haha.

C/O/T/D I lost my shit when this came on. It's such a classic. Koji was great with the guitar solo!

Aquarian Age HOLD THE PHONE! THIS SONG IS FUCKING AMAZING LIVE. IT SOUNDS BETTER THAN THE STUDIO VERSION. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN THIS. I didn't think I'd headbang and jump so much to this song.

Encore The band talked to the audience a bit. A fan mentioned RABBIT EP and NARASAKI replied with something like, "Yeah! I know I know it will be out ....!" :( When there was a lull, I couldn't help myself so I yelled out, "NACKIE, DEATH GROOOOOWL!!!!!" He replied, "Nani?/What?" Apparently, Japanese people call death growls, death voice... so he probably didn't understand what I was saying. oops. ...BUT THEN THEIR NEXT SONG WAS...

Dead by Dawn THIS SONG IS ALSO AMAZING LIVE. NARASAKI'S DEATH VOCALS ARE SO MUCH MORE DIVERSE LIVE. He hit higher notes than usual and it sounded much better in my opinion. There was lots of screaming. huhuhu...

Hyper Velocity I also lost my shit when this song came on. I always dreamed to count along with the song... haha. 1! 2! 1! 2! 3! GO! More jumping and headbanging. It was beautiful.

Silver World This was also a treat! I also didn't expect them to play this song! Again, NARASAKI was very cute. It was going to be a sweet happy ending until...

Encore #2: Killing An Arab (The Cure cover) Morota played those famous trumpet notes from Killing An Arab. He looked sneaky while playing the notes as the band members walked off the stage. He repeatedly played the notes until KANNO came out waving his arms and making an X with his arms for "No!". In the end, KANNO gave up and the other band members slowly came out and NARASAKI looked like he was wondering what was going on. The show ended with more jumping and headbanging. It was as if we were all friends who had an amazing party together. While everyone was saying goodbye, KANNO approached the audience and gave everyone high fives! His departure was quite dramatic as the spotlight shined on him. He bowed goodbye and disappeared behind the fancy curtains.

Even the end of the concert was really fun. As concert staff was putting the cables and instruments away, they would throw out the setlists to the fans. I tried to jump for them, but didn't catch them. One of the staff found KANNO's drumstick stuck in the curtain and threw that into the crowd too! I thought it was really nice of the lucky fans to let other fans take photos of the setlists!

When we got outside the venue, I got to meet some Instagram and Twitter COTD FANs that I have been following for a while! It was fun chatting with them about COTD.

Before we left, Kurata quickly approached me and gave me a folded piece of paper. I unfolded it and saw that it was a copy of the setlist! I thanked him a billion times and lost my shit.

This whole experience was so surreal. COALTAR OF THE DEEPERS is my favorite band in the world and I'm so happy that I got to see them.

hide_u : https://www.instagram.com/p/BS3fJZIgCKL/

NARITAguiron : https://twitter.com/NARITAguiron/status/852920838533783552 NACKIE's cute pose of the night