#then it would have to be our adaptation of Christmas Carol | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

feelbokkie · 6 months

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Feelbokkie's A Christmas Carol

Feelbokkiemas Day 1

genre: angst, fluff, hurt/comfort

pov: 2nd person and 3rd person

description: After a scheduling mishap causes the boys to have to perform on Christmas Eve, Jisung starts to believe that Stray Kids would be better off without him. (A very loose adaptation of A Christmas Carol)

pairing: idol!Jisung x his demons (oh and fem!reader)

warnings: swearing, depiction of bullying, minor violence, mention of death, disbandment, depiction of a panic attack, mention of throwing up

word count: 10,848 (I am so sorry)

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"Why the fuck am I here?" Jisung sings into his microphone.

The music stops, causing everyone to freeze. Minho, Changbin, Hyunjin, and Chan turn to glare at Jisung, who messed up one of their few good takes for the rehearsal. Felix, Seungmin, and Jeongin turn to the staff and back up dancers and apologize on Jisung's behalf.

It's Christmas Eve, eve and the boys are doing a last-minute rehearsal for their Christmas eve performance. The whole ordeal is last minute. They were told last week that they were scheduled to appear on the show and if they canceled last minute, it'd look bad. With everything else going on, nothing was prepared. Flights home had to be canceled, staff members had to be called back, and songs had to be rearranged.

Nobody was more pissed off than Jisung about the scheduling mishap. This year, he was planning on going home with you for Christmas and to meet your parents. There were so many scheduling conflicts that he just never had the opportunity and he knew how much this meant to you. It broke his heart when he had to call you, crying, saying that he had to cancel, yet again.

"We get that you're mad but fucking up the song isn't going to do anything but piss us all off!" Chan yells, finally at his breaking point with Jisung.

"I'm sick and tired of this! I have to miss out on yet another thing that's important to Y/n because whoever is in charge of our schedule can't keep their shit straight. And if In can't pick up the choreography or if Felix can't get his cues right, we're never getting it right. So we should just give up now and go home." He responds into the mic, making sure everyone hears him.

Both Felix and Jeongin's heads drop to the floor before they turn back to the staff and apologize for their mistakes. Hyunjin and Seungmin go to comfort their respective maknaes. Jisung's sudden outburst only causes the older members to get angry, including Minho, who mostly tolerates Jisung's tantrums.

"Dude, don't blame Yongbok or In for anything! We've all made mistakes, you especially! Maybe if you focused on your lyrics and dancing, then we could go home and you could bitch and moan to Y/n on the phone like you've been doing all week!" Changbin shouts as he gets in Jisung's face.

"What, are you going to hit me? Because I'm right? Because you and everyone else is too scared to say it?" Jisung taunts, closing the gap between him and Changbin.

Chan quickly jumps in between them, pushing Changbin away from Jisung. He could tell by the tension brewing between the two of them that if he doesn't stop them now, this could only end one way: with Jisung flat on his back while Changbin, for the first time in his life, towering over him.

"Maybe we should take a break, yeah?" Chan tries to calm the two of them down.

"No, fuck this. I'm going home." Jisung hops off the makeshift stage and grabs his things from the front row, making sure to toss in his water bottles and phone.

“You know, you’re not the only one who had to cancel plans, right? We all had to cancel flights and trips home.” Minho says softly, trying to calm down the younger man.

“So why am I the only one upset?” He shouts causing Felix and Jeongin to jump. The backup dancers take this as a sign to leave the practice room, not wanting to be witnesses to the shitstorm that has been brewing since they started rehearsing two days ago.

"Hannie--"

“You’re not the only one who's upset, but you’re the only one not shutting the fuck up about it!” Changbin shouts again, the sudden emptiness in the room amplifies his already booming voice.

"Just let him leave. Then we wouldn't have to hear him bitch and moan anymore. One of us can just cover all of his parts tomorrow. Like we always do." Hyunjin breathes, finally having enough of Jisung's attitude.

"Hyunjin--"

"He's right. Tomorrow you guys can send out an announcement that I'm sick and then after the holidays, you guys can send out another notice announcing my departure from the group." Jisung climbs the fake stage again, the only exit for the practice room being in the back.

"Hyung--"

"--I think we're all a little tired and frustrated right now so maybe we should--"

"No, no, it's perfect. You guys can just cover all my parts for every song that we have. Hyunjin can just take my spot in 3racha since I'm clearly not needed here anymore. Right? Since I'm such a pain in the ass."

"Han, why don't we--"

"--Jisung, that's not--"

"--Nobody said anything like that--"

Jisung turns to leave the group, waving off his members' pleas.

"Where are you going?" Chan asks, trying, yet again, to de-escalate the situation.

"I'm going back to the dorm, packing my shit, and leaving." Jisung, who is halfway to the door, spins around to face his soon-to-be former group members. "You’ve all made it clear that I’m nothing but a problem. And Hyunjin made it very, very clear that you guys can just replace me so—"

“I didn’t say that you m—“

"If he wants to leave, let him leave. There's no use fighting with him. You know his stubborn ass isn't worth arguing with right now." Seungmin walks over to Hyunjin and places a hand on his shoulder, trying to at least calm him down.

"Thank you so much for that, Seungmin. Really helpful." Chan sighs, side-eyeing the second youngest member of the group. He hesitates for a second before approaching Jisung. "Why don’t we just call it for tonight? It’s late. We’re tired. We can run this in the morning."

“You guys can run this again in the morning. I’m done,” Jisung shouts as he storms out of the rehearsal space, slamming the door behind him.

***

Jisung spent the whole drive back to the dorm trying to book a flight to your parents’ house. The earliest flight he could find wouldn’t leave until late Christmas Eve night and, with the number of layovers, wouldn’t bring him to you until the day after Christmas. Distraught, annoyed, and exhausted all he could do was pack whatever he could, take a shower, and try to get some sleep.

Sleep didn't come easily for Jisung. He was mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted but still restless. Fighting with his brothers never felt good. The eight of them went through hell together. Jisung knew that there wouldn't be anyone else besides them who would understand exactly what he was feeling. But, thanks to Hyunjin, the idea that they could just easily replace him didn't sit well with him either. He knows that it shouldn't have escalated to that, but at the same time, he was only saying what needed to be said. Hyunjin is the one who escalated things.

Eventually, Jisung decided that taking a sleeping pill would be the only way he was going to get any sleep. So he takes the pill, washing it down with one of the water bottles by his bedside. He climbs back into bed, turning the picture he has of you to face him, and quickly drifts off to sleep.

BANG

Jisung jumps up, his heart pounding in his ribcage. He looks around his dark room, unsure of what made that noise. After a second, he grabs his phone, quickly dismissing the missed calls and texts from everyone to check the time. 12:00 AM

"You've got to be kidding me," He groans as he flops back into his bed. He only slept for about an hour.

Bang, bang, bang

Jisung mentally curses out all three of his roommates, who only want to piss him off further tonight. Why they feel the need to make so much noise right now is beyond him. He's almost certain it's just Hyunjin and his temper being pettier than normal.

BANG, BANG

Mentally preparing for round two of fighting with Changbin and Hyunjin, Jisung climbs out of bed. He makes his way over to his door. His heart pounds louder in his chest, this time out of anxiety rather than fear like when he woke up. He takes a deep breath before pulling his door open.

"What is your guys'-- What the hell?" Jisung is left confused as he's met with the darkness of the dorm. Not a single soul in sight.

Brushing it off as a prank, or even as the boys are scared of his reaction and hiding, he slams his door shut and walks back to his bed. He settles back in, covering himself with his blanket, and attempts to fall back asleep.

Knock, knock

Jisung, annoyed, rips his blanket off before stomping back to the door

"Can you guys just grow the fuck u--...Jagiya?" Jisung nearly passes out when he sees your face on the other side of his door. You're not supposed to be here. You're supposed to be back home with your parents. So why are you standing outside of his bedroom at midnight?

"Not exactly," You answer softly.

A strange, white light illuminates you, the rest of the door pitch black behind you. A pair of over-the-ear headphones are locked around your neck. Chains wrap around your body like a boa constrictor. He almost can't see the all-white outfit that you're wearing. You walk--no float into his room, causing him to stumble back.

"What the fuck?" He asks in disbelief.

"You swear a lot, do you know that?" The you, that is not exactly you, asks.

"I'm dreaming. I have to be dreaming." Jisung mutters to himself. He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. "Yeah, this is just some weird side effect from the sleeping pill. And instead of the hat man, I'm seeing Y/n."

Jisung slowly opens his eyes to find his room empty. He lets out a sigh of relief as he closes the door and walks back to his bed. He climbs in one last time and shuts his eyes, ready to return to sleep.

Clang, clang, clang

Jisung quickly opens his eyes only to find not-you hovering over him. Literally.

"Ah! What the fuck?" He screams, sitting up in his bed. Had Changbin, Chan, and Hyunjin been home, they would have been startled awake by his sudden terror.

"There you go with the swearing again. I should try to fix that too," The not-you thinks as you float down to sit on his bed with him.

"What the fu--what the hell are you?" He asks, pressing his hand to his chest to try to settle his heart. He can't remember what it feels like to have a normal heartbeat.

"Still a swear but I'll let it slide since you're trying to censor yourself." Not-you climbs off the bed and starts looking around the messy room. "I'm a spirit of sorts."

"A spirit? Does that mean that Y/n is..." He can't bring himself to finish the question.

"No, no. Y/n is safe and sound. I'm merely borrowing their voice and likeness since it may be the only way to get you to pay attention to me." Not-you picks up one of the crumpled pieces of paper from Jisung's desk and starts reading it.

"Then...am I dead? Oh my god, the sleeping pills." He panics. He knows he's had the bottle for a while, but he didn't think they were expired or anything.

"Relax, Jisung. You can't overdose on a single sleeping pill. You're still alive and well."

"There why is there a ghost in my room?"

"Not a ghost, a spirit. Two completely different things. A common misconception though, so I don't blame you for your incompetence."

"Why. Are. You. Here?"

"Still a little moody I see." Not-you pulls out the chair from Jisung's desk and sits on it. "I'm here to stop you from making a mistake."

"And what mistake is that?" Jisung relaxes a bit.

"Ruining Christmas,"

"My Christmas is already ruined, so fuck Christmas."

"Is that your favorite word or something?"

"I'll show you my favorite words in a second if you don't start explaining."

"Jeez, that temper of yours really is something. I'm surprised you didn't blow up on your friends sooner."

"You don't get it. I--"

"I know why you blew up and that person is next on my list of people to visit. But don't you think you're exaggerating a bit? You're going to throw away years of hard work just because you didn't get your way?"

"That's not--You're uncomplicating things a bit."

"Hm, am I? Because, from what I saw, you overcomplicated them." Not-you spins around in the desk chair, much to Jisung's irritation.

"You don't understand--"

"What I do understand is that you're on track to derail millions of lives."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"I really should do something about that mouth of yours while I'm here."

"Y/n--no, not Y/n. Spirit, what are you talking about?" Jisung gets off his bed and finally confronts not-you.

"See, I could tell you. But I think it'd stick better if I just let my friends show you."

"Friends? More spirits are coming?"

Not-you looks at the clock in the corner of the room before getting up. Not-you starts walking to the door to leave.

"Not spirits, ghosts. Three of them, actually. The first one should be here in under an hour."

"What?"

"Have fun Jisung," Not-you winks before disappearing through the door.

***

KNOCK

Jisung isn't sure when or how he fell asleep but less than an hour later he was being woken up again by a single loud knock. He checks the clock on his phone, groaning at the fact that it's only one in the morning now.

"You're a punctual ghost, huh?" Jisung mumbles as he gets up. He's not sure why he's going along with what the first spirit said. He's almost convinced that he's dreaming. Hell, this could all be some elaborate hallucination for all he knows.

When Jisung opens his bedroom door, he finds nothing but the black void of the dorm yet again. Getting annoyed, he closes the door and turns around, ready to go back to his bed.

“Oh, what the fuck?” Jisung jumps up, nearly slamming himself into the door as he jumps up.

In front of him is another not-you. You when you were a child. He didn’t know you back then. He’s only seen pictures of you when you were small. He’d often look at pictures of you when you were a kid and imagine what your kids would look like.

“You said a bad word.” Little not-you giggles.

“What are you? Like 11? I was swearing like a sailor when I was your age.” Jisung sighs as he regains his composure.

“I’m 9, thank you very much. And yeah, I know. You were a bad kid.” Little not-you starts to wander around Jisung’s room.

“You know?” Jisung furrows his eyebrows together as he follows little not-you, making sure they don’t break anything or fall.

“Yeah! I’m the ghost of Christmas past! I know lots and lots about the past.” Little not-you picks up a snow globe that sits on Jisung's desk and starts playing with it.

“So we’re going to look back on my past Christmases?” Jisung takes the snow globe out of little not-you’s hands and puts it where they can’t reach, causing them to pout. Cute, you still scrunch your nose like that.

“Hm, Marley says you’re a special case so we’re just going to go to the past. That’s why Marley made me come in this form. They said you’d be nicer to me but I think Marley lied because you’re still a big old meanie.”

“Who the fuck is Marley?” Jisung asks, causing little not-you to quickly cover their ears.

“Someone should wash your mouth out with soap.”

“Sorry, sorry. Who is Marley?” Jisung crouches down to little not-you’s eye level, placing his hand on their head.

"Marley? The spirit you met before I got here. Wow, normally They introduce themselves but I guess-- Oh no! We got to go, we're running out of time. I'm going to get in so much trouble with Marley!" Little not-you grabs Jisung's hand and drags him to his bedroom door. He has no choice but to follow them.

As they cross the threshold, Jisung is confused as the cool, dark dorm turns into a humid, bright room. No, not room, classroom. The humidity and the layout of the classroom feel familiar to Jisung. He scans the empty classroom until his eyes land on a desk.

"Why are we here?" Jisung asks calmly, not breaking his eye contact from the desk.

"You need to see something." Little not-you responds.

"I don't need to see anything. Why are we here?" Jisung raises his voice a little, still being mindful that he's talking to a child.

Little not-you stays quiet, not letting go of Jisung's hand. Before little not-you or Jisung can say anything else, someone walks into the room. Jisung recognizes his 14-year-old self, much to his dismay. He remembers it all, almost like it was yesterday. The awkward hair his mother gave him back in their kitchen that his brother said would make him look good if he got it. His uniform that was passed down from his brother didn't fit well but was told he would grow into it. The clear-framed glasses that made his eyes look small and were a bit bigger than his face. The feeling of his braces in his mouth. Being one of the shorter kids in his class. The deafening whispers that seemed to follow him everywhere. And while it feels like it was yesterday, it was nearly 10 years ago.

Younger Jisung quietly walks to the desk in the furthest part of the room, right by the window. His over-the-ear headphones sit on his head, playing his music slightly too loud. He pulls out a notebook from his backpack that present-day Jisung recognizes immediately. His old lyric book.

"Hey, you idiot, put that away!" Present day Jisung yells at his younger self.

"He can't hear you. This is just a memory, we're not really here." Little not-you says quietly.

"Why are we here?" He asks again.

"Shh, something's happening." Jisung instinctively squeezes little not-you's hand.

A group of three boys loudly come into the classroom. Younger Jisung doesn't hear them come in. His music is too loud and his face is buried in his notebook. Present day Jisung bites his tongue, fighting the urge to warn himself about what's about to happen. He knows there's no use, he isn't going to hear him anyway. Present day Jisung's heart pounds in his body as it slowly sinks to the pit of his stomach.

The boys spot younger Jisung and make their way to him, whispering something. As they make their way over to him, present-day Jisung finally lets go of little not-you's hand and runs to block their path. He closes his eyes, waiting for them to bump into him. Instead, he feels nothing as they walk through him.

"I told you," Little not-you comes up beside him, "we're not actually here."

"Yeah but--"

"Hey! Give that back!" Younger Jisung's voice cuts off present-day Jisung, causing him to whip his head behind him.

The tallest of the group of boys is now holding the lyric book. Younger Jisung tries to grab the notebook back, but he's too slow. The taller boy turns out of the way, causing younger Jisung to stumble. His two friends quickly move to hold Jisung back.

"What do we have here?" The taller boy asks, flipping through the notebook.

"None of your fucking business! Give that back!" Jisung struggles against the other two boys' grip on him. The sudden swear causes little not-you to gasp in shock.

"Wait, I can read any of this. What is this your diary or something?" The taller boy asks, dangling the notebook in front of younger Jisung.

Present-day Jisung smirks, remembering his pure stroke of genius. He wrote all of his lyrics in Korean, knowing none of his classmates would be able to read his writing. It was one of his rarer big-brain moments.

"Oh yeah, totally. It has every single detail of when I spent last night with your mom." Younger Jisung spits, still wrestling against the other two boys.

"You fucking idiot," Present-day Jisung mutters under his breath.

The taller boy didn't like that answer. His face quickly turns red as he swiftly punches younger Jisung in the gut. Younger Jisung hunches over, the wind being knocked out of him. The other two boys let go, allowing younger Jisung's body to slump to the ground as he held his stomach.

RIP

Younger Jisung's head snaps up at the sound, silently praying that what he thinks is happening is, well, isn't happening. His body runs cold, sending a chill down his spine.

RIP

The taller boy rips out another page from the notebook and hands it to his friends. The two friends rip up the pages more, letting them trickle down to the floor.

"Stop it!" Younger Jisung yells. Still in pain, he grabs onto the taller one's legs.

"What the...?" The taller boy shakes' younger Jisung off his leg. Once he's free he delivers a swift kick in younger Jisung's direction, making a direct connection with his stomach. Present day Jisung grabs his stomach, remembering the pain from that day.

As younger Jisung whiters in pain on the floor, the three boys continue to rip out pages from the notebook.

"Please...stop," Younger Jisung cries out, his face becoming wet with tears. Whether they're from pain or watching years of work being reduced to shreds is something that even present-day Jisung doesn't know.

After a few minutes, the taller boy throws the nearly empty notebook at younger Jisung, hitting him square in the face. He kicks him one more time, this time on this side, before stepping over him. One of his friends follows suit by kicking him in the side again and stepping over him. The last boy, being a free-thinker apparently, spits at younger Jisung before stepping over him and following his friends.

Covered in spit, tears, and a little bit of blood on his lips from the book hitting him in the mouth and getting caught on his braces, younger Jisung lets out a frustrated, angry scream.

Present day Jisung slowly walks over to his younger self, crouching down beside him. He gently places his hand on his younger self's head. He knows he can't actually feel it nor would younger him would get any comfort.

"You must have been so lonely," Little not-you whispers. Jisung looks up to find little not-you with their eyes rimmed with tears.

"I was fine. I had friends. Those three fu--those three punks ended up getting expelled a few weeks later. One of my classmates saw them beat the ever-living crap out of me. And, the following year, I was training at JYP so it was fine in the end." He moves out of the way as his younger self gets up and starts picking up the pieces of paper off the floor.

"B-but you didn't know that back then," Little not-you sniffles.

"Why did you bring me here? To this moment?" Jisung asks.

"Don't you remember," Little not-you whips their face "this was the day you decided you were going to move back to Korea and train seriously. You spent weeks convincing your parents to let you."

"So you brought me back here because--"

"Oh man, we don't have much time left. We have one more place to go."

Little not-you runs up to Jisung and grabs his hand, dragging him through the classroom doors before he can even protest. Instead of walking into the hallway, they walk into the familiar practice rooms at the old JYPE building.

"I know you don't like swearing but I'm going to start if you don't tell me why we're back in this building." Jisung whines.

He remembers the smell of the room the most. The sweat of every trainee who ever set foot in the room. Almost like it was absorbed into the walls. The state smell of vomit and the faint smell of the cleaning solution that would be used to clean the vomit. And the room is hot. The air conditioning never worked properly in this practice room and the fans only circulated the heat.

A young Jisung sits on the floor, back pressed against the practice room mirror. Younger Seungmin and Felix sit on his left, a speaker on his right. The speaker plays the backing track to a song Jisung remembers using for a monthly evaluation. Seungmin is scribbling something in a notebook while Felix is reading a textbook. Hyunjin stands in the middle of the room, holding a paper. Jeongin is probably with the four oldest members in one of the other practice rooms.

Jisung remembers practices being like this. In would go with the older members so they could help him since they were a bit more experienced while the '00 liners practiced together. Chan thought that the four middle members could use the time to settle their differences while helping each other.

"Jesus, do you know how to enunciate? You sound like you're trying to talk with a bunch of marbles in your mouth." Younger Jisung tells Hyunjin as he pauses the music.

Hyunjin clenches his fist, looking up at the stained ceiling as he tries to calm himself down. Both Seungmin and Felix squirm uncomfortably as they can sense yet another fight between the two oldest in the room.

"I am trying. Maybe if you actually try to teach me instead of sitting on your ass we could move on." Hyunjin breathes through his teeth.

"I don't know what you want me to do, Hyunjin. I can't teach talent."

"Teach talent? I'm going to teach you something in a second if you don't shut up." Hyunjin slightly crumbles the lyric sheet in his hand.

"How can you teach me anything? The only reason you're even at this company is because someone just happened to think you're pretty. They got lucky that you can actually dance." Younger Jisung stands up.

"Hey Han, that's not--"

"Hey, Felix, how about you talk to me when you can string together a proper sentence in Korean." Younger Jisung snaps, turning around to face Felix. "Do you want me to say that slower? In English maybe?"

"Wow, you were a jerk." Little not-you says.

"Please don't. I'm already dying inside." Present-day Jisung groans.

"Jisung--"

"What, Seungmin? What are you two even doing here? You're writing in your diary again and Felix is practicing to read at a second-grade level."

"Leave Felix alone, Han."

"Why don't you hop off my dick and focus on rapping better, Hyunjin?"

"Rap better?" Hyunjin scoffs, "Why don't you focus on dancing better, maybe we would actually debut."

"Do you two have to have this argument every day?"

"Shut up, Seungmin!" They shout in unison, causing the youngest of the quartet to wince.

"I promise you, my dancing isn't an issue. Why are you even here? Chan only asked you to be in the group because you're such a clear visual."

"Say one more thing about me being pretty or a visual. I dare you." Hyunjin steps closer, closing the gap between them.

"I'm going to get Chan hyung," Felix says getting up from his spot and running out the door.

"Yeah, go ahead and run to dad, Felix!"

"Leave him alone, Jisung," Hyunjin warns.

"Oh, you're using my first name. I'm real scared."

"Can you two just stop fighting and take this seriously? We're supposed to be training for next week's evaluations." Seungmin gets up from his spot and walks over to Hyunjin and younger Jisung. He knows they're not going to start fighting physically, but with the way they've been at each other's throats recently, it's only a matter of time.

"I am taking this seriously! And I feel like I'm the only one who is."

"Can we go home?" Present Jisung asks, having enough of being in the past. He looks down at little not-you. They're staring at the scene, refusing to look away.

"Do you think you were a jerk back then because you were scared?" They ask, completely ignoring Jisung.

Younger Chan bursts into the room with Felix in tow just as younger Jisung pushes Hyunjin. Felix grabs Hyunjin just before he can push Jisung back. Chan walks over to Jisung and holds him back, just in case.

"What would I have been scared of?" Jisung tries to let go of little not-you's hand but they tighten their grip.

The scene continues to play out in front of them but no sound comes. The four remaining members pour into the room, trying to see what's going on. Chan is yelling, causing some of the younger members to wince while Hyunjin and younger Jisung glare at each other. Jisung can barely remember the speech that Chan gave that day. But he remembers it weighing on his mind for a while. Something about them having to get their shit together.

"You were lonely back in Malaysia. You came back to Korea to train. You made friends with Chan and Changbin while you guys did 3racha and then you were put into a trial group with six other people and you felt like it could work."

"What does that have to do with--"

"But you also felt that a lot of the other members weren't putting in the same amount of effort as you and that would have been the group's downfall. You were a jerk to everyone in your group because you were scared that the trial group was going to be your only chance at debuting. You trained for a little bit but you didn't want to be one of those trainees who were training for a large chunk of their life."

"Wait a second--"

"Ah, I have to take you back." Little not-you pulls towards the door the members just walked through.

Jisung takes one more look at his younger self as he crosses the threshold. His tense jaw, squinted eyes, gritted teeth--He remembers that ander. He remembers feeling that angry all the time back then. It slowly consumed him during his training days. It even consumed him the first couple of years after they debuted. It was almost like his best friend, the anger.

"What was the point in those two memories?" Jisung asks as he finally wiggles his hand out of little not-you's grasp.

"It's a secret," Little not-you sing songs as they explore Jisung’s room.

“Hey, kid, tell me,” He runs his hand through his hair, getting frustrated, “why did you make me relive those moments?”

“You didn’t relive them! You watched. Like a TV show.” Little not-you hops onto Jisung’s bed.

“I’m going to start swearing,”

“No!”

“Tell me!”

Little not-you pouts, crossing their arms. Having enough, Jisuung walks over to his bed and picks up little not-you. He doesn’t think about the fact that he’s holding a ghost or that he held hands with one earlier. His main concern is going back to sleep and trying to push the rest of the night out of his head.

He sets little not-you down at his desk before stomping back to his bed. He climbs under his covers, pulling his blanket over his head. His heart, which feels like it never stopped racing, begins to settle in his chest. He’s overwhelmed, yes, but the feeling of his weighted blanket on his body and thick comforter on his bed starts to make him feel better as he lies in his safety cocoon.

Jisung loved living in Malaysia, but some moments of it were repressed in the deepest crevices of his mind. He only liked to remember the good parts like going to the mall and eating some of his favorite dishes while joking with his friends. He never wanted to think about the people who made him want to leave. Who made his life hell. And while he tried to forget, he regretted everything thing about his pre-debut, trainee self. He knew he was in the wrong most of the time. None of his members deserved any of that.

“‘I'm clearly not needed here anymore.’” Jisung hears a little voice say.

“What?” He asks, not taking the blanket off of his head.

“That’s what you said yesterday when you got into an argument with your group members, right?” The voice gets closer.

“…What does that have to do with anything?” Jisung thinks. None what what he just saw has anything to do with what happened yesterday. Right?

“I can’t tell you that. I already broke one rule and Marley is scary when they’re mad. Just think about it. I have to go now. Your next visitor should be here soon."

And just like that, the room is still. The only sound, other than his breathing, that Jisung can hear is the low, muffled hum from the heater. The heat from the room and the weight of the blanket quickly force him to drift back to sleep.

***

KNOCK, KNOCK

"I'm throwing out those fucking sleeping pills, I swear to god," Jisung mumbles to himself as he stumbles out of bed. He looks up at the clock on his desk.

2:45 am

At least he got a bit of sleep this time. Still, exhausted both mentally and physically, he crawls to his bedroom door to let in the next ghost.

"Since you guys are ghosts, can't you just...walk through the doors or something?" He groans as he collapses to the floor.

"Believe me, I wish we could, but we're not allowed to anymore. Gave one too many people heart attacks. Marley would rip us a new one if we scared another person to death." Jisung's ears perk up at the sound of your voice.

He quickly looks up to find you, no another not-you staring up at him. It's you, exactly how you look now, but with some sort of wreath-like flower crown on your head and a weird green fuzzy robe. On a normal person, the outfit would look weird, but you make it work.

Note to self, find out in real life for Y/n. Jisung thinks.

"You've killed people?" Jisung gulps, suddenly scared of what he's gotten himself into.

"Well not intentionally. I'm like the least threatening ghost. Well, after baby Past. Marley and Future on the other hand..." New not-you crouches down to Jisung's level.

"Past? Future? Does that make you the ghost of Christmas present?" He sits up, making eye contact with the new not-you. He can't help but smile while looking into your eyes. Their eyes? Does this count as cheating?

"Yeah, but present as in 'here and now.' Not as in gift."

"I know the difference!"

"Okay, Mr. Grumpy. Jeez, you wouldn't believe how many people don't. I your file said you were a member of something called baboracha so I thought I'd help you out a bit," New not-you stands up and stretches out a hand for Jisung. "Come on, we don't have a lot of time left. Future is super punctual and I already wasted most of our time."

Jisung hesitantly takes the hand of the new not-you. Once his hand is in theirs, he's promptly yanked up and through the door. In a few seconds, he's suddenly standing in the corner of one of the practice rooms of the new JYPE building. All of his members lay in various states of exhaustion around the room, panting. Chan sits in the middle, legs stretched out in front of him as he leans back on his arm with his head facing the ceiling. Both Seungmin and Jeongin lay supine with their bodies stretched out like starfish. Hyunjin lays flat on his stomach, almost like roadkill. Minho rests on his side, staring motionlessly at the mirror. Changbin sits, leaning against the wall while Felix rests his head on him. All seven of them are drenched in sweat.

"Holy shit, they're all so hot! What do they feed you here--who the fuck is that?" New not-you points directly at Changbin, "I wish I was human. The things I would do... Marley frowns on possession but 30 minutes alone with him would be worth an eternity of Marley's wrath."

"Can you please not say that while you look and sound exactly like Y/n?" Jisung pleads.

"Why? Does it make you jealous? I'd spend some time with you too, Jisungie. Don't worry." New not-you smirks, causing him to blush.

I like this ghost the least of all. He thinks.

Jisung looks at his group members. He left the venue around 9. If it really is the present, that means they've been practicing for the past 5 hours. Jisung gets a twinge of pain in his chest at that thought. He went home to sleep comfortably in his bed while they stayed to work.

"Since you're the ghost of the present, that means it's 2 am for them too, right?" He asks, trying to change the subject.

"I thought you were supposed to be smart."

Jisung presses his lips together to stop himself from saying something rude. He knows that the ghost isn't you, but the fact that they have your face stops him from hurting their feelings. He's having trouble separating the two.

"Do...do you think...he's really going...to leave?" Felix asks through breaths.

The room stays silent for a moment. Everyone has been thinking the same thing since Jisung stormed out of rehearsal. Throughout their late dinner, travel to the JYPE building and new practice, the same question loomed over all of them. And yet, Felix is the only one who is brave enough to say anything.

"I don't think so. But at the same time, he's so fucking stubborn that he might actually do it." Seungmin finally answers.

"I didn't mean to hurt his feelings like that. I didn't think he would--I was just mad. He wasn't supposed to take me seriously, that idiot." Hyunjin says softly.

"I get his anger though. He constantly feels like a shit boyfriend because he has to cancel on Y/n a lot or miss out on things because of work. This trip was really important to him. I know he hates disappointing Y/n." Minho explains.

Jisung has spent so much time venting to Minho about his struggles with his job and dating you because he knows that Minho would just listen. He couldn't tell you about any of it. He knows you'd feel guilty and suggest breaking up so he could feel less stress. You wouldn't want him to give up his career for you. Not when you see how much joy creating and performing brings him. He has no idea how you're going to react to him leaving the group.

"I think he just needs some time off. The last comeback was hard for him and he was back to his old self this comeback but we haven't had a proper break in a while. We'll just perform without him tomorrow and then after New Year's we can all sit down and talk seriously about this." Chan, always being the voice of reason, says calmly. In reality, he's panicking.

He hasn't felt this much panic since the group went from nine to eight. And before that, he hadn't felt this stressed since the survival show when there were only seven of them left. Not that any of his members knew. He was good at bottling all that in, not wanting to worry his members. Losing Jisung meant more than losing a member. While he felt the same about all his members, viewing them as his kids more than coworkers, losing Jisung also meant losing a little brother, a co-producer, a part of him.

"What are we going to do if he does leave?" Jeongin asks this time.

"Don't think about that Yongbokkie--Ah, I mean In." Changbin groans at his slip-up, earning tired laughs from the other members.

"Really? Even now?" The youngest member sits up, glaring at Changbin.

"He is on my lap. I am looking at his face. It was--"

"I don't care. Stop speaking to me, I don't want to hear it. I'm tired of your voice. Next time you speak, I'm hitting you."

"I think we've had enough fighting for one day," Minho warns as he laughs.

"If he does end up leaving, we'll rebuild. We'll have to. He wouldn't want us to completely fall apart without him. He might think that now, but once he snaps out of it, he'd feel guilty about it." Chan speaks up.

"Yeah but wouldn't he feel like shit if we don't fall apart? Like we actually don't need him?" Hyunjin sits up this time, looking at Chan with a guilty face.

"I won't. I promise I won't because I get it. I was there the first time we lost a member. I get if--I... fuck." Jisung says through wet eyes. He's not sure when he started crying or why. But watching his group members overwork themselves and even worry about him when they have every right to be mad gets to him.

"They can't hear you, Jisungie." New not-you reminds him.

"Goddamn it--"

"C'mon, we have to go." New not-you grabs Jisung's hand and pulls him away from the practice room.

"Where could you possibly be taking me now?" He asks as he whiles the tears from his eyes with the back of his free hand.

"Well, I was also supposed to take you to see a few of your fans and even your precious Y/n. But I came late and we're cutting it close to Future's time and let's just say the last time I did that, it wasn't so pretty."

When Jisung pulls his hand away from his face he sees that he's surrounded by the darkness of his room again. He lets go of the new not-you's hand and paces around his room. His heart is pounding impossibly fast in his chest, punching his ribcage. His thoughts going a mile a minute. If he doesn't calm down soon, he's going to work himself up into a panic attack.

"I don't need to go to the future. I get it now!" He blurts out in desperation.

"Oh really? Care to share with the class what you learned, Jisungie?"

"That I'm just causing problems for everyone if I leave." He stops pacing.

"Because?" New not-you walks closer to him, making Jisung stumble back.

"Because...because I'm a selfish dumbass."

"Oh, so close, Sungie. I guess you have to go to detention with Future after all. Make sure you pay attention this time. You already have all the answers that you need."

New not-you presses an ice-cold kiss to Jisung's cheek before completely vanishing from the room, leaving him confused and alone. He drops to his knees, clutching his head in his hands as he tries to process the events of the past couple of hours.

***

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNO--

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming!" Jisung sighs as he pulls himself off the floor. He's slightly calmer than he was a few moments ago.

At this point, Jisung wants to get this nightmare over with so he can fix everything. He pulls open the door to find a cloaked figure hovering in front of him. The hood of the cloak completely covers their face, but Jisung is sure you're face is hidden under there.

"Okay, out with it. What's your whole gimmick? You're the ghost of the future so you're going to show me how bad life is after I left, right?" Jisung asks, crossing his arms. He's completely over this nightmare.

The cloaked figure stares back at him, unwavering. The ominous quiet coming from the cloaked ghost sends a chill down Jisung's spine. Something about this ghost just feels different, and he doesn't like it.

"Cat got your tongue or something?" Jisung tries to joke. Still, the cloaked ghost just stays unmoving.

"Ahem," Jisung nervously chews on his bottom lip, "so I guess I'll just,"

Jisung walks through the door, giving up on trying to make any conversation with the ghost. As he walks through the door, he's transported to one of the hallways in the JYPE building. More specifically, the hallway where the 3racha studio is.

Future starts floating away from Jisung as they make their way through the hallway. Jisung slightly jogs to keep up. He takes in his surroundings as he walks. He sees the familiar posters of Day6, GOT7, Stray Kids, Miss A, TWICE, and NMIXX that are equally spaced along the walls. He also sees some posters of groups and solo artists he doesn't recognize.

Of course, you don't recognize them, it's the future. He thinks to himself.

He freeze when his eyes land on the door to the 3racha studio. He wonders if Chan and Changbin are inside right now, working on something. He wonders if they're struggling without him. Or if they're doing better without him. If they're able to get more work done without him there.

His concentration breaks when an unfamiliar face walks out of the room. He wears the same tired expression that Jisung has seen a million times on other idol's faces. One that he recognizes could only be earned from hours of frustrated writing pressured by looming deadlines. One that Chan often wears.

Did they replace me? He questions. No, they wouldn't.

He shakes the thought out of his head as he runs over to the elevator where Future and the new person are waiting. The door closes just as he slides in. The elevator plays music he's never heard before, no doubt from one of the new JYP artists.

Would this count as plagiarism if I released this in the present? He wonders.

He can't help be let his eyes wander over to the stranger. If he's someone who is currently training at JYP, he wouldn't be able to tell you. There are too many of them and out of desperation to try to debut, a lot of them start to mimic the style of debuted artists and they all look like clones of each other. It's quite scary actually.

He takes in the appearance of the artist. He's wearing a bucket hat and black sweatpants with a matching hoodie. By the size of his backpack, he must have been living in that studio for a few days. There's a pin on his backpack that reads CLxVxR.

Is that a brand? Is it Clover? Clever?

DING

The elevator lands on the ground floor. Mystery Idol walks over to the cafeteria as Future floats in the other direction. Curious about his new possible replacement, Jisung wants to follow him to learn more about him. He knows better, the sooner he finishes with the future, he can get back to the present, wake up, and fix everything.

Jisung quickly walks over to where Future stands, next to the plaque of all of the JYPE artists that debuted. Curious, he looks up at the list, reading the few names of new artists that were added. The most recent one debuted in 2044.

"2044? How far into the future are we?" He turns to ask Future, of course to no avail.

He turns to look at the list again. He furrows his eyebrows as his eyes glance over a familiar name.

CLxVxR February 29, 2024-

"What?" He mutters to himself.

Puzzled, his eyes fly up the list stopping only when they settle on the name he was looking for.

Stray Kids March 25, 2018- February 17, 2024

"No," He gasps.

He turns around to face Future, hoping for some sort of confirmation that what he is looking at is true. Still, the ghost remains silent, staring at Jisung with their cloaked face.

Jisung's palms start to feel cool and clammy as his heart rate begins to speed up. Too many thoughts flood his mind as he looks around the lobby. The poster of Stray Kids that once sat in the lobby is now replaced with a new group. All the staff members and trainees that walk around are unfamiliar to him, making him feel more anxious.

Air, I need air!

Jisung quickly runs out of the building, trying to calm himself down. Jisung doubles over, gasping for air. If he doesn't breathe, he might actually die in this dream hellscape he brought himself to. He looks around, trying to find something, anything to ground him but the landscape isn't helping. The buildings are all unfamiliar. Restaurants have new names, shops have new designs, and the cars on the street are unrecognizable. The tears on his face begin to freeze as the cool winter air and snow freeze them.

"JiJi! Come here!" A familiar voice calls.

Jisung's head whips around, trying to find where you are. You shouldn't be able to see him. He's not actually here but, you still call him. His eyes finally land on you. You're facing him, waving while holding a bouquet. He doesn't hesitate to run to you. He stops when he's standing right in front of you.

You still look like you, only older. Your hair is a little shorter and has some white strands that suit you. Your face looks the same only with a few wrinkles. Smile lines mostly. Signs of a happy life. But overall, you still look like you, and for that, Jisung was relieved.

His smile drops when he realizes that your same, warm eyes are looking past him. Not at him. He slowly turns around to see who you're really looking at. All he can see is a child running towards the pair of you.

"Eomma!" The little boy runs up to you and wraps his arms around your leg.

"Jiho, did you run away from appa again?" You say to the little boy.

"Yeah! But only because Sang-hee fell in the snow and won't stop crying." He pouts. He has your face. Almost as if he's a carbon copy of you.

"Did she fall or did you push her?" You ask with a soft smile.

"She fell! And she only fell because she slipped while trying to hold my hand when I told her I didn't want to."

"Jiho, Sang-hee is only 6. She was probably trying to hold your hand so you wouldn't fall and get hurt like she did."

"Yeah, but I'm 8! I'm a big kid! I don't need to hold anyone's hand."

"You still need to hold mine or appa's hand when you cross the street. Until you're at least 10 or a little taller."

"I am tall!" he yells, getting on his tiptoes. Jisung can't help but laugh. It reminds him of something Changbin would do.

"Sorry, Jagiya. I tried to give you your space but Jiho ran off when I was checking on Sang-hee." A new, unfamiliar voice says. Jisung quickly turns around to see who could be calling you Jagiya.

He's met with a man he's never met before. He's taller and looks a little older. Dread begins to fill Jisung's body as he quickly realizes what happened.

"Hell, I'm in hell." He says quickly.

"It's okay, I'm almost done here. And then the four of us can go to dinner." You smile softly at your husband.

Jisung stumbles back, staring at your tiny family in horror. He watches as your son walks over to his father--your husband--a man who is not him. His heart shatters in his chest, providing some relief from the relentless beating it's been doing all day. He watches as you quietly place the bouquet beside the others on the floor that he didn't realize were there. Your small smile is gone as you suck in your lower lip. Your chin trembles for a bit.

"Are you okay Eomma?" Your daughter asks from her father's arms.

"Eomma is okay, Sang-hee. Let's go," You wipe your face before turning to face your husband and children with a new smile on your face. Jisung can tell that only half of it is real. The other half is fake. A show you put on to not worry your family.

Your husband sets your daughter on his shoulders, using his right hand to hold onto her leg. His left hand is free to hold yours, your left hand being occupied by your son's.

Jisung tries to turn around, to leave, and to find his way back to the present. To stop whatever happened from happening only to be stopped by Future.

"I saw what you wanted me to see. I get it now! Let me go so I can fix it!" He shouts, hot tears pouring down his face, melting the frozen ones.

Future continues to say nothing. Instead, they raise a hand, their find pointing outward. Jisung looks to see what they're pointing at, only to find the pile of flowers you were just interacting with. Confused, Jisung turns back to Future, trying to get some sort of explanation.

Woosh

A small gust of wind blows past them as a car speeds by, causing the hood to fall off of Future's head. Jisung takes a few steps back in horror as Future's face is revealed to be nothing more than a skeleton.

"Oh, what the fuck?" He breathes. He can only hope that Future's skeleton isn't yours.

Still as a statue, Future continues to point at the flowers, urging Jisung too. Wanting to look at anything else, he complies. He turns his full body to the pile of flowers. As he steps closer, he realizes that it's not a pile of flowers as his own face stares back at him. No, not his face exactly. A picture of his face when he was younger. Maybe one or two years after debut.

"What?" He looks around at everything around his picture. There's more than just frostbitten flowers. There are snow-covered Han Quokkas, slightly burnt candles, and old concert pickets. He kneels to the floor, picking a flower from your bouquet, a forget-me-not, taking in this new information.

He died. You moved on because he died. You didn't leave him because he left the group. That he could live with. Partly. His eyes fall on a strange patch of snow. He quickly brushes it away to see what could possibly be under there. All he finds is a bronze plaque that reads:

Han Ji-Sung

Beloved brother, son, producer, singer, rapper, and Stray Kid

September 14, 2000- December 23, 2024

"No," He mutters to himself. He turns his head to Future, who is now beside him.

"This has to be a mistake. I can't die in a year!" He pleads.

Still Future remains silent.

"Let me go back! I can fix this. I won't leave! I get it now! They need me! Chan hyung, Minho Hyung, Changbin hyung, Hyunjin, Felix, Seungmin, Jeongin, and Y/n, they all need me," He sniffles, "A-and I need them too! I get that now. I won't take that for granted. P-please, take me back."

The landscape changes and they're suddenly in a cemetery. Jisung's heart, which appears to have mended itself and started beating again, pounds loudly in his chest. Even if Future started talking now, the only thing he'd be able to hear is the beating of his own heart. In front of him is an open grave and a headstone with his name on it.

"I take it back!" He shouts as he turns around to Future.

"I take back everything I said!"

Future hovers towards Jisung, causing him to take a step back.

"Please, just take me back to the present and I promise not to complain ever again."

Step

"I--I'll be the first one in and last one out of the studio and practice room!"

Step

"I'll do more mc gigs!"

Step

"Please, I don't want anything to change. Just let me go back--"

Slip

Jisung loses his footing and falls into the empty grave.

***

Jisung springs awake, gasping for air.

His room is bright as the sun pokes through the window, letting him know that his nightmare is finally over. A nightmare, that's all it was. Right?

He runs his hands through his hair. As he looks around his room. Everything looks just as he left it the night before. His eyes settle on the sleeping pills he took the night before. He slowly gets out of bed, feeling exhausted, and grabs the pill bottle. He leaves his room, walking straight to the bathroom he shares with Hyunjin. He opens the toilet bowl and pours the entire contents of the bottle before flushing it.

"Never fucking again," He mumbles as he tosses the now-empty bottle in the trash.

He stares at himself in the mirror. He looks like shit. His eyes have thick, dark circles around them. His face is puffier than he likes and his hair is all over the place. He rubs his eyes as he turns the faucet, allowing the water to get a little warm before splashing his face with the slightly cool water. Still unable to shake the nightmare from his mind, he decided to take a shower. Hoping the warm water will allow him to clear his mind.

It had to be a dream. There's no possible way he could have time-traveled. It's just not possible. Two ghosts and a spirit that looked exactly like you and another ghost that resembled the Grim Reaper didn't visit him last night to psychologically torture him. He just swallowed an expired sleeping pill that took him on a bad trip fueled by his guilt. It's the same as if he took an allergy pill and saw the hat man. None of that is real.

Jisung walks back into his room. One towel hugs his waist while another one sits on his head. He feels a little after his shower, but not 100% back to his normal self. As he slowly begins to get dressed, he also starts to pack a suitcase. He still plans to fly out to you, even if it means having to fly on Christmas day.

A chill runs through Jisung's spine as his eyes land on a forget-me-not flower on his desk, right next to the snowglobe that little not-you was playing with in his dream.

"Shit," He breathes, quickly realizing that it wasn't a dream.

He licks his lips as he thinks about what to do. He runs over to his bed, throwing pillows, blankets, and clothes around while looking for his phone. Finally finding it, he wakes it up and checks the date and time.

24 December 2023

3:04 pm

He still has time.

He quickly orders a car and finishes getting ready. Everyone should be at the JYPE building getting ready for the show. If he gets there now, he'll have enough time to fix everything. He'll get down on his hands and knees if he has to. He just needs to change the future.

"Ha, yeah, it's that easy," He scoffs at himself.

"Han? What are you--"

"I'm so sorry for throwing a fit like a complete fucking idiot. I'm sorry for making you all worry. I'm sorry for blaming Felix and Jeongin. I'm sorry for everything I said behind your backs when I was going home in a fit of rage. I'm sorry--"

"Han, get up," Chan says softly to the younger man.

In Jisung's defense, he had an entire speech that he planned out in his head while he was being driven to the rest of his members. A decent one that would win awards if it was said in a movie. But when he walked into the room where everyone was in various stages of getting ready, he couldn't but drop to his hands and knees to grovel and beg for forgiveness. It was pitiful really, everyone in the room could agree.

"Hyung, 'm sorry. I don't want to leave the group. I was just mad." He whimpers, looking up at his leader with tearful eyes.

"Jagiya, get up," Minho calls from the makeup chair he's sitting in.

Jisung shakes his head before he presses it to the floor again.

"H-hey," Felix gets up from his spot on the couch, "Han, it's okay. We understand. None of us are mad at you."

"Annoyed maybe, but not mad," Changbin adds.

Chan finally manages to get Jisung up from the floor and pulls him into a hug. The rest of the members follow suit, much to the make artists' dismay. Soon, Jisung is surrounded by all of his members in a suffocating sandwich.

"I'm sorry I hurt your feelings, Han. I didn't mean--" Hyunjin starts.

"It's okay, I know."

The pile separates and the boys are pulled in all sorts of directions as they're back in getting ready mode. Jisung stands awkwardly in the middle of the room.

"I want to perform with you guys tonight if that's okay." He says loudly as he wipes his face clean.

"Not...not to start another fight, but are you sure you can?" Seungin asks while getting his hair done.

"He practiced with us long enough yesterday and for once was the only one who had his shit together. No offense," Jeongin adds.

"None taken," He lets the backhanded compliment roll off his back.

"I see nothing wrong with it if he feels ready. We didn't change anything so it should be fine." Minho adds.

Jisung lets out a sigh of relief as everyone agrees to let him join them. He's quickly grabbed by one of the stylists as they scramble to get him ready, he's behind schedule compared to everyone else. And just like that, almost everything felt right in the world.

"Not to add any pressure on anyone, but we have some very important guests in the audience tonight," Chan says while the boys are huddled together backstage.

The MCs are busy interviewing ATEEZ, who just finished performing. Stray Kids should be up next. Everyone is already nervous, still feeling under-prepared for tonight.

"Pd-nim is here?" Changbin asks, annoyed.

"Yeah, but that's not who I'm talking about." Chan pats' Changbin's back.

"Then who?" Jisung asks while fiddling with his hand mic.

"Our families, including our significant others." Chan beams.

"I'm going to throw up," Seungmin says suddenly.

"Wait? Y/n is here?" Jisung pokes his head through the wing of the stage, scanning the audience to find you. A large toothy smile consumes his face when he finds you and your parents.

"Pd-nim felt bad about the scheduling mix-up and ruining the holidays so he paid for all of them to be here," Chan explains as some of the boys get bouncy with excitement while others become nervous.

"The Grinch's heart grew?" Changbin adds, earning a slap in the back of the head. Chan gives him a look, reminding him to be mindful of where he is.

"Cool, I'm still going to throw up," Seungmin leans on Jeongin for support.

"Hyung, if you throw up on me, I will punch you," Jeongin warns.

"I think the stylist might kill him first," Minho quips.

"It's fine. We got this. You guys practiced for like 5 hours after I left. If anything, I should be nervous. You all got this." Han says, patting Seungmin on the head.

"How do you know that?" Felix asks. The boys look at each other, unsure of who told him how long they practiced. They were in silent agreement not to tell him so he wouldn't feel bad and start crying again.

"I...lucky guess? Oh look, ATEEZ is coming off the stage." Jisung says quickly, pointing as Hongjoong leads his members off the stage.

Jisung breathes, relieved that his distraction worked. He's unsure how or if he's going to tell them that he traveled time. Maybe that's something he should keep for himself. They might think stress has gotten to him and force him into a hiatus.

The nerves quickly leave all of their bodies as they all walk out onto the stage. Jisung makes eye contact with you and bows to your parents as he takes his position. The bright smile on your face lets him know that everything is going to be okay.

—

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achilleanfemme · 1 year

Text

In 2023, Let's Remember that Jesus Was a Poor Man

I’ve been thinking alot about this picture lately that I first came across online probably 4 or 5 years ago, you can view it at the start of this blog post. It’s a black and white photo of a mule drawn covered wagon. Painted on the wagon cover is the phrase, “Don’t laugh folks, Jesus was a poor man.” This picture was taken in 1968 as part of The Mule Train. The Mule Train was a train of mule drawn wagons that rode together from Marks, Mississippi, one of the poorest areas in all of the USA at the time, to Washington DC as an act of protest to highlight the need for poor people, especially poor children, to have their basic needs met. The Mule Train was part of the original Poor People’s Campaign which Martin Luther King Jr. was a leader in before he died. Marks was populated predominantly by poor Black sharecroppers who were descendents of enslaved people, which was no accident either. Disproportionate Black poverty was and is a feature of US racial capitalist society, which was built by enslaved Black people, and became prosperous by the total theft of value generated by their labor while living in bondage. Much like Southern Black people in the USA in 1968, Jesus too lived under constant state repression and under oppressive social regimes as a Palestinian Jew living under Roman Imperial occupation.

I love the implication of the claim that this wagon makes. The idea that the God of the universe became human and lived, walked, worked, loved, ate, cried, laughed, and died amongst us is earth-shatteringly profound. Yet, when this Creator of everything that was, is, or will be became a human-being, God chose not to be born into a wealthy, aristocratic family. God chose to become a poor man living under occupation. Therefore, how our societies and economies treat poor people is reflective of how our societies and economies would treat God if God became human in our day.

At my lovely Episcopal church in Dallas last night, sitting in the pew, participating in our lovely Lessons and Carols liturgy that we always do the first Sunday after Christmas, I heard this passage, John 1:1-14, like I’d heard it for the first time. In this passage, the author of the text refers to God as “the Word” and “The Light” which are common Biblical titles for God. I, however, couldn’t escape this idea of “what if these titles, the Word and the Light, were replaced with the phrase “the Poor Man”? After all, our Mule Train drivers named Jesus as a poor man. How might we hear this passage differently in our time? In this place?”

Therefore, I invite you to read this New Revised Poor Man edition of John 1:1-14 below, adapted from the Common English Bible. I took the liberty of abandoning this motif a few times for clarity.

John 1:1-14 - Common English Bible

In the beginning was the Poor Man

and the Poor Man was with God

and the Poor Man was God.

The Poor Man was with God in the beginning.

Everything came into being through the Poor Man,

and without the Poor Man

nothing came into being.

What came into being

through the Poor Man was life,

and the life was the light for all people.

The Poor Man shines in the darkness,

and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the Poor Man.

A man named John was sent from God. He came as a witness to testify concerning the Poor Man, so that through him everyone would believe in the Poor Man. He himself wasn’t the Poor Man, but his mission was to testify concerning the Poor Man.

The true Poor Man that shines on all people

was coming into the world.

The Poor Man was in the world,

and the world came into being through the Poor Man,

but the world didn’t recognize the Poor Man.

The Poor Man came to his own people,

and his own people didn’t welcome him.

But those who did welcome him,

those who believed in his name,

he authorized to become God’s children,

born not from blood

nor from human desire or passion,

but born from God.

The Poor Man became flesh

and made his home among us.

We have seen his glory,

glory like that of a father’s only son,

full of grace and truth.

When I read this adapted passage, the first thing that it reminds me of are two verses from John 12:7-8 CEB:

““Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”

This passage comes from an absolute favorite Gospel story of mine, the raising of Lazarus followed by the story of Mary and Martha and the perfume. In the story, following Jesus’ miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead, Lazarus, Mary, Martha, Judas Iscariot, and Jesus share a meal together in Mary, Martha, and Lazarus’ home. In the story, while Martha is serving the table, Mary gets up and pours a very expensive bottle of perfume (worth a year’s wages) over Jesus’ head, anointing him, and then wipes his feet with her hair. The others are outraged by this act, but Jesus understands it as a holy sign of devotion from his dedicated follower, Mary, who seems to know that Jesus is quickly approaching his death.

When Jesus says “You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me” it sounds kind of dismissive of the plight of the poor. However, if you are familiar with the full text of the Gospels and Jesus’ work and ministry then you understand that Jesus cares more for the poor and the outcast than any other group in ancient Palestinian society.

If we interpret John 12:7-8 through the lens of Jesus being the Poor Man then the verses take on an entirely different meaning. If Jesus is leaving his humanly and earthly life, but the poor are staying, that means that Jesus is staying, embodied in the lives of the poor. It follows that, if we want to know how to best worship God on this side of the eschaton then we need look no further than the homeless person on the side of the street asking for money. We need look no further than the single mother working 70 hours a week to keep her children fed and housed. We need look no further than the Central American refugees at our southern border fleeing persecution and immiseration, seeking a better life in the USA.

The Poor Man, the Peasant King, is with us everyday. Jesus lives in our hearts but he also lives in the places furthest out of the eyes of mainstream society, where poor and working people struggle to meet their basic needs under the oppressive thumb of a patriarchal, nativist, racial capitalist world system. As we enter into 2023, let us boldly worship God by working towards making a world where all unjust systems and institutions are torn down and the world is remade for the perpetual worship of our Creator, meaning a world where all poor people are fed, cared for, loved, and free.

#Jesus #Poverty #Capitalism #racial capitalism #2023 #Happy New Year #progressive Christian #liberation theology #democratic socialism #socialism #anglican #anglicanism #episcopalian #episcopal church

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wickedlysecret · 7 months

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Something I’ve been lowkey obsessing over for the past few years has been The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), which is quite possibly my favorite Christmas movie ever. It’s fun, it’s funny, it has cute moments, Michael Caine is absolutely the best Scrooge to ever Scrooge… I can’t sing this movie’s praises enough. I was so excited when it was included on Disney+, so I could watch it pretty much whenever the desire struck.

The thing is, there’s another Christmas Carol adaptation that I loved to watch as a child that’s also on Disney+: Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983). It’s another retelling of the same story, and yet… it doesn’t really hit in the same way that the Muppet one does. And I can’t stop thinking about why that would be the case. What do the Muppets do in their adaptation that Mickey and his friends don’t do in theirs?

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m going to sit here and compare and contrast these adaptations, with pictures and quotes. This is gonna be one of those “In this essay I will” posts, except the essay actually follows under a cut. After all, I’m nothing if not a former English major with weird hyperfixations.

I broke down the places where the differences are strongest into four parts: The Spirits/Ghosts of Christmas Whatever; the inclusion of a comedic Narrator character; the simple fact that the Muppets are Actors in their own right; and the entire “Christmas Future” part of the story.

1. The Spirits.

For the Muppets, new characters have been created for the roles. These characters were only ever used for these roles, and we never see them again in other Muppet productions, save for Jacob (and Robert) Marley, as played by Statler and Waldorf, whom I’ll talk about at another point.

These new characters make much of the dialogue work, as well, with much of their exchanges with Scrooge at least sounding, if not actually being exactly as written in the original Christmas Carol. The supernatural look of the little ghosty Spirit of Christmas Past helps to sell the whole picture when they say lines like, “A touch of my hand, and you shall fly.” The jolly, bumbly, ginger-haired-Santa lookalike Spirit of Christmas Present is personable and friendly, even able to make a mean and grumpy man like Scrooge joke and laugh with joy. And the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come is faceless, imposing, and silent. They communicate through pointing, or a guiding hand, and they chill both Scrooge and the audience without saying a single word, merely showing Scrooge the future that awaits him.

Disney, perhaps understandably, made use of some of their existing Intellectual Properties (IPs) instead of creating new characters to serve as the Spirits. Jiminy Cricket is our Ghost of Christmas Past; The Giant (from Mickey and the Beanstalk) makes a surprising return to the screen as the Ghost of Christmas Present; and finally, in a jarring reveal which I could argue was made only for the purpose of having yet another IP make an appearance, Pete fills the role of the Ghost of Christmas Future. These are characters with personalities that the audience already presumably knows, and while they are able to fill their roles to a degree, they also come with baggage, for lack of a better term. They struggle to keep a balance of their original personalities, while also donning the personalities of their Christmas Carol roles.

Jiminy attempts to give sage advice to Ebenezer Scrooge (McDuck), in the same manner as he had with Pinnochio, but a stern little cricket lecturing an old man duck just doesn’t feel right. And the giant is also bumbling, sure, but more than that, he’s just… stupider than the Muppet Spirit. Caine’s Scrooge even remarks “You’re a little absentminded, spirit,” to which the Muppet Spirit of Christmas Present replies, “No, I’m a large absentminded spirit!” The giant’s version of the Spirit is just your run-of-the-mill comedic relief idiot. As for Pete’s ghost, he’s silent and somewhat imposing for almost the entire Christmas Future segment, until he removes his hood and scares Scrooge into his empty grave with some mean remark. And the mean remark is truly what ruins Pete as the Spirit of Christmas Future; this Spirit isn’t mean, but rather delivering harsh truths. The purpose of the Spirit of Christmas Future is to really drive home to Scrooge that, if he doesn’t change his ways, this is the unfortunate future that awaits him. It’s the future itself that’s supposed to scare Scrooge, not the Spirit delivering the message.

In essence, by not only using existing IPs for the Spirits in the story, but miscasting the Spirits with IPs that don’t work for their roles, Mickey’s Christmas Carol confuses the whole message that A Christmas Carol is supposed to convey.

Finally, as I mentioned, I want to talk about our Marleys. In The Muppet Christmas Carol, Marley is the only spirit for whom they’ve used an existing character–or, rather, characters. They’ve cast the grumpy old men, Statler and Waldorf, as Jacob and Robert Marley. They have a silly song they sing to Scrooge, which still manages to terrorize the man, and to be fair, the spirits of Scrooge’s old business partners are warning him of something terrible coming for him: more ghosts. We’re still early in the story at this point, so the Muppets wouldn’t be taking their big guns out yet, so imparting a scary warning in the form of a light and fun musical number is… well, it’s very on brand.

Meanwhile in Mickey’s, we have Goofy as Jacob Marley. I’ll talk more about this casting choice later, but the short of it is: why? Goofy’s not a mean OR selfish guy at all, and I can’t understand this role placement for him. He’s very stern with Scrooge, and it’s hard to take him seriously at all, and to top it all off he falls down the stairs at the end of his scene, with his trademark “Yaaaaah-hoo-hoo-hoo-eeeeeeee” shout and all. It doesn’t fit the character they’re trying to have him portray.

2. The comedic benefits of a Narrator Character.

In the beginning of The Muppet Christmas Carol, the audience is introduced to Gonzo and Rizzo on the streets of the British Muppet City.

“Welcome to the Muppet Christmas Carol! I am here to tell the story!” “And I am here for the food!” “My name is Charles Dickens.” “And my name is Rizzo the Rat! Hey, wait a second…”

Gonzo and Rizzo, from this point forward, are the audience’s guide throughout the story of A Christmas Carol, there to explain, buffer, and offer comedic relief. They break the fourth wall, talking about and to the audience, and referring to any children who might be watching.

“Whoa, that’s scary stuff. Hey, should we be worried about the kids in the audience?” “Nah, that’s alright, this is culture.”

Gonzo and Rizzo carry a lot, and I mean a lot of the comedic moments within The Muppet Christmas Carol, leaving the story’s characters to portray the story, without strange interruptions from within. Well, for the most part. There are moments where comedy comes from within the story.

“If you please, Mr. Scrooge? It’s gotten colder… and the bookkeeping staff would like to have an extra shovelful of coal for the fire.” “We can’t do the bookkeeping.” “Yeah, all of our pens have turned to ink-cicles!” “Our assets are frozen!” “How would the bookkeepers like to be suddenly… UNEMPLOYED?!” “HEAT WAVE! This is my island in the sun!”

There are also moments where Gonzo Dickens and Rizzo interact with characters in the story, breaking the fourth wall further for more comedy.

“It is the American way!” “Sam! [Unintelligible whispering]” “Ah. It is the British way!” “Good.”

And of course there are moments where the characters’ existing personalities do come forward through their acting, such as when Miss Piggy, as Emily Crachit, calls Kermit (Bob Crachit) “Crachie”, in a play on her nickname for Kermit, “Kermie”.

The thing to note about all of these moments of comedy, is that none of them interrupt the story for the sake of a joke, or a catchphrase. The story continues without a hitch.

It also means that, when Gonzo Dickens and Rizzo leave at the beginning of Scrooge’s time with the Ghost of Christmas Future, they take just about every chance at joyful comedy with them. The audience knows their absence means things are about to get serious.

Without a similar character to bear some of the comedic weight, it all rests on the shoulders of the characters in Mickey’s Christmas Carol’s story. There’s plenty of jokes and humor, of course, but most of it is slapstick-ish, and typical of a cartoon; for example, Scrooge asking about Crachit’s daily pay, recalling it to be two shillings, only for Crachit to interrupt that it’s two shillings and a ha'penny–a raise that originated three years ago, when Crachit started doing Scrooge’s laundry. The jump into Christmas Future doesn’t have a smooth transition, leaving the audience rather jarred at the sudden change in tone; in particular, when Pete’s embodiment of the Spirit suddenly starts speaking, where previously he’d been silent.

3. The Muppets Are Actors.

In every Muppet production, one of the things that makes the entire experience work is that nobody in the canon recognizes the Muppets as anything other than the characters they’re portraying. Nobody looks at Kermit and goes, ‘Why is there a talking frog made of felt here?’ That’s exactly the way someone should act with the Muppets, and, according to an interview with Brian Henson, that was Michael Caine’s intention from the very beginning when he was asked to play Scrooge.

"When I met Michael Caine to talk about playing Scrooge, one of the first things he said was: “I’m going to play this movie like I’m working with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I will never wink, I will never do anything Muppety. I am going to play Scrooge as if it is an utterly dramatic role and there are no puppets around me.”

The fact that the illustrious actor understood the assignment from the beginning, without even being told, works wonders for this movie. Caine said in an interview with GQ that, before The Muppet Christmas Carol, he’d never done a movie that a child, like his then-seven-year-old daughter, could see; this was his motivation in choosing the role. He then went on to discuss how one is meant to act with the Muppets.

Interviewer: When you’re talking to Kermit, where do you look? Do you look him in the eye? Caine: Yes. You look him straight in the eye. It’s like talking to a real actor. And the guy is just down below, buried in the floor.

This is a man with a great respect for and understanding of the Muppets, their work, and of course their puppeteers. When asked who is more famous, himself or Kermit, Caine replies that of course Kermit is the more famous, as he should be.

Caine: Oh Kermit is much more famous, because he’s known by children as well as all adults. And I’m known by many, many, many adults, but he’s known by all adults. And then I’m known by few children, but he’s known by every child.

(As a side note, this is a delightful interview with Michael Caine, and he’s just as pleased with and delighted by The Muppet Christmas Carol as the rest of us.)

In contrast with Mickey’s Christmas Carol, the casting for the Mickey Mouse & Friends characters into their Christmas Carol roles feels like it was done without much consideration or thought, beyond the logic of ‘Mickey Should Be Bob Crachit, Donald Should Be Scrooge’s Nephew, Of Course Scrooge McDuck Should Be Ebenezer Scrooge’, and so on.

For example, the part of Jacob Marley is played by Goofy. Marley’s character, or rather his ghost, is one that exists as Scrooge’s warning, both of his night to come and what awaits him if he doesn’t change his ways. Marley was just about as bad as Scrooge in life, hence all his chains weighing his spirit down, formed from his wicked deeds against his fellow man. He even warns Scrooge that he also wears such a chain.

The problem here is that Goofy Goof doesn’t have a single mean bone in his tall, lanky body. He’s a dogman that would never covet money like a miser, would never be cruel to others because he doesn’t deem them worth his time. So, why was he cast as Marley? It’s a confusing decision.

Another example lies with Mickey Mouse as Bob Crachit. Logically, I can understand the casting choice; Mickey is to Disney as Kermit is to the Muppets. Both made the same decision to cast their Big Name Character as the second lead in A Christmas Carol. However, the two portrayals go in very different directions, particularly in the Christmas Future segment. I’ll dig into this particular example in more detail in a bit, but in essence, it feels more like the Disney characters were plugged into their roles for the story, without much consideration for how their personalities would work with that of the characters they’d be portraying. The Muppets were matched with characters to portray, but it feels like careful thought was put into how each character would act and work as their Christmas Carol role.

4. The Entire “Ghost of Christmas Future” Chapter.

I’ve referred to this part of the story, and the ways in which the Muppets and Disney handled it, several times so far, and this is because I believe that this is where the biggest differences lie, and where the Muppet adaptation truly outshines Disney’s.

First, the Spirit themselves. The Muppets created an entirely new, imposing, shadowy-cloaked Muppet specifically for this role, rather than casting a known Muppet as the Spirit. This Muppet never speaks, and has no face, and only communicates in gestures. It looms over the third act of the story, showing Ebenezer Scrooge what awaits him in this future, without words, instead letting the scenes speak for themselves. The Spirit is silent, but Scrooge understands what it’s telling him, asking questions and paraphrasing the messages he receives as the Spirit guides him through the scenes. And although the Spirit’s appearance is terrifying, that’s not the part that ultimately chills Scrooge to the core; instead, the future that awaits Scrooge (and Tiny Tim), should he continue down his path of cruelty and greed, is what prompts Scrooge to tearfully beg for forgiveness and a chance to prove that he can make things right.

Then, in Mickey’s Christmas Carol, the basic bones of the tale are there: an imposing, silent, hooded figure shows Scrooge glimpses of his possible future. But before this third act is over, the Spirit reveals its face and speaks: it’s not just a Spirit, but Pete. Nasty, mean, cigar-smoking Peg-Leg Pete. And he dumps Scrooge into his own grave to be consumed by flames until he awakens from his dream. Certainly, Scrooge has been shaken by the visions of an awful future, but he’s also been sent to hell by a mean, angry cat. Ultimately, this takes away from the big message of the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come’s chapter: that we should change because we choose to, not because we’ve been scared into it.

Second, the sharing of Tiny Tim’s fate. In both the Muppet version and in Disney’s version, the audience and Scrooge have both been told that, if things don’t change, Tiny Tim’s going to die. Now that we’re being shown the future, Scrooge needs to go and check on the Crachit family, to see if this loss has come to pass.

In the Muppet Version, Scrooge approaches the home with relieved excitement, remembering the home of his employee as the warm and happy one he’d caught a glimpse of thanks to the Spirit of Christmas Present. However, Scrooge notices the silence of the house, and instantly knows something has changed. He peeks into the window and watches as Mrs. Crachit cries as she cooks Christmas dinner. Then, he learns that indeed, Tim has passed away. We watch the grieving family convene for dinner, and talk of loss; although they try to encourage each other, it’s clear that the loss of Tim has cut them so deep, they might never truly recover.

The fact that someone can watch this entire emotional scene performed by the Muppets and, somehow, not lose any suspension of disbelief, speaks of the incredible talent involved in the making of this scene; the puppeteers, the voice actors, the editors, the filmographers.

In comparison, the scene we get in Disney’s version is short, and stiff. What we get is a panning view of a graveyard, and a closeup of Mickey Mouse crying while holding onto Tiny Tim’s crutch, before he sets it against the boy’s gravestone. The audience watches Mickey Mouse cry over his dead son before the movie continues.

It sounds sad when said aloud, but watching it happen doesn’t carry much emotion. It just feels awkward, almost forced. It feels like the people who decided that Mickey Mouse should be Bob Crachit finally had the consequences of their actions catch up to them, and they suddenly realized what they were going to have to put the company’s mascot through… and then they had no idea how to do it. The entire scene feels haphazard and strange; it’s upsetting to watch, but not in the way it should be. Instead of being sad about Tiny Tim, I’m just bummed they made me watch Mickey Mouse cry like that.

And here’s the thing: neither of these scenes have been performed by human actors. One has been played by puppets, the other has been animated. The fact that the Muppets, who, in order to show emotion have to move their head a certain way or have the felt of their faces scrunched, do a better job performing the scene than the one that is animated, in which people could make the characters make any face they wanted, speaks volumes.

Perhaps it’s because, while Kermit will always be Kermit, and Mickey will always be Mickey, it all draws back to the fact that the Muppets are actors. Kermit has played so many other roles in other Muppet movies. But Mickey Mouse? He’s almost always Mickey Mouse. Using him in a different role is difficult when he’s never been anything other than himself.

...

I’ve spent some time trying to think how to wrap up this ridiculous essay I chose to write for fun, because while this isn’t an assignment and doesn’t require a conclusion, it also feels wrong to just end it there. I suppose I can say again, that the Muppet Christmas Carol is my very favorite Christmas movie, and I love watching it over and over again. I love it so much that I’ve literally written an essay explaining why it’s good. And it’s not like I hate Mickey’s Christmas Carol; I grew up watching that movie just as much as the Muppet one. It’s just that… the Muppet version hits different, you feel me? The story moves in a different way, treats humor differently, and even treats the audience differently. I’m by no means an expert on film, and I certainly don’t expect everyone to agree with my opinions about this movie. In the end, these are just two child-targeted adaptations of a classic Christmas tale, and I’m just an ADHD girl who got way too invested in a passing thought. The different feelings evoked in me by the two different movies about the same story fascinated me, and I decided I’d try to analyze them and share my thoughts. If you made it this far, thanks for reading!

#the muppets #the muppet christmas carol #disney #mickey's christmas carol #a christmas carol #in this essay i will #essay writing #if i told you i worked on this for around a year would you judge me? yes? okay then i won't tell you.#my personal opinions btw!!! agree or don't agree idc i just was hit with the need to exercise my argument writing muscles

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hopeymchope · 6 months

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If we had a Danganronpa version of “A Christmas Carol”, which character do you think would be a good stand in for Scrooge? And which characters would fit the three ghosts?

Probably the best parallel I could make for Scrooge is Tokuichi Towa, but that's a lousy pick given that he's 99% an off-screen character that we only HEAR about. So I'm going to limit myself to the main casts (i.e., just characters who get focal "screen time" at some point in the series) instead.

Ebenezer Scrooge — I'd argue Byakuya Togami is our best option, though he's certainly not a perfect parallel. Sure, he's wealthy and regularly cruel, but he's definitely not greedy and miserly like Scrooge; Togami pays those under his direct employ *very* well, actually. Even so, it's easy to picture him dismissing Christmas as a stupid waste and narrowly focusing his life on the pursuit of ever-increasing power and renown. For that reason, I think he works well enough as our Scrooge. (You can also naturally expand this to suit the rest of the cast: The way he treats Naegi during his FTEs in DR1 makes Makoto a great Bob Crachit. Jacob Marley? Pennyworth! Fred the Barely Noteworthy Nephew? A cameo role for Shinobu! And so on.)

Ghost of Christmas Past — I had to look into the base description of these ghosts to really dig into this question, particularly in regards to this first ghost. They're definitely the most varied in how adaptions visually portray them. So let's take it back to the source: In the book, Christmas Past is said to look youthful yet simultaneously old; in a lot of adaptions, this is taken to mean their face looks young but their clothing ages them up. They also possess wisdom their youthful appearance would not initially suggest, and they're the smallest of the three — usually child-sized. Perhaps V3's Ryoma Hoshi is a good proxy? He's smaller than most DR characters, plus he can seem both younger than the rest yet simultaneously older in other ways. ... I could make a case for Yuto Kamishiro as a decent alternative. But seeing as he's relegated to a light novel and a DR3 cameo, he's probably not noteworthy enough.

Ghost of Christmas Present — Boisterous, friendly, large, surrounded by food — that's Chrismas Present. Their large size is most often interpreted as being a muscular figure, but some adaptions portray him as being more rotund. It's not hard to see his personality filled quite well by a number of DR characters, but I feel like Nekomaru Nidai is probably the closest and best choice. He's got that positive energy that can still carry a tone of warning/threat, he's big and imposing, he's kind, he's pretty damn hungry... you get the idea. After him, I'd say Akane Owari and possibly Ultimate Imposter are the nearest runners-up... and there's defintely something particularly delightful about the idea of Togami being "haunted" by the Imposter. :)

Ghost of Christmas Future/Yet to Come — This one is the most visually consistent in adaptions. It's basically "Death" — a shadowy, silent figure who just points at shit ominously. And if you want a visually threatening character who doesn't talk much? Isshiki Madarai is the obvious pick. But he's also a very obscure pick, so uh... how about we take a page from the few adaptions where this ghost is allowed to speak and instead find ourselves someone who can act threatening and/or haughty while still cutting a grim, imposing figure? I think if you put Gundham Tanaka, Kokichi Ouma, or Celestia Ludenberg into this cloak and let them turn their Attempted Menace level all the way up to 11, you'd have something REALLY entertaining and interesting. Or if you really want to torment Togami specifically? Make this ghost take the form of Syo/Jack. That might make it harder for the Ghost to coherently convey useful information, but it'd certainly be funny. :D

#a christmas carol #danganronpa christmas #danganronpa #asks #byakuya togami #togami as scrooge

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coralsgrimes · 8 months

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Remember when I said that our boy's career is oh so very close to stinky corpse like no one gonna invest in that except the funeral home lobbyists maybe???

Do ye also remember when Benny was doing the podcast recordings earlier this year alongside someone who said that was their first job?

So put them two together and what comes out is Benny as a ghost of Christmas in Christmas carol podcast from a Christian spreading love for Jesus Hope Media Group.... The funeral home lobbyists are laughing as they dodged thy bullet

Here a lil list of Benny's recent-ish (about 3/4years) career milestones:

1. Cringe ya book adaptation that should be on CW, currently in cancellation limbo probably will be announced as axed after strikes are resolved so netflix can say that they don't have shadow daddy's blood on their hands, it was them selfish peeps fighting for fair work compensation

2. One episode of anthology series last halloween, that was so bad everyone forgot about it by now

3. Self funded vanity music project that he released through vanity label (he paid for it to be released like is what I mean, no one invested in that steamin pile) and that no one even bothered to review except that one guy who called it turtleneck music? beige Michael Bublé rip off??

4. Low low tier partnership with Boss Fur Deutschland. still not sure if boss knows they are in partnership. Might be Benny is paying them too for that... privilege of badly fitted Zalando sale selection

5. Black mirror two seconds cameo that I would dispute it's legitimacy as an actual acting credit

6. Series of awful T-Mobile's ads

7. Couple of self funded live gigs so he could attempt to sing his four original song REALLY badly, and then went on to assassinate popular songs cuz it's too much to call them pained sounds singing. But boy he probably still getting stiff thinking of these 315 sweaty girls following him through the country of Europe

8. A film that is bad, critics agree, and is called The Critic which is very funny. No idea when this masterpiece will be released. About boys performance, critics either skipped mentioning him or he was called the weak link.... In other words I desperately need to see this one xd research purposes

9. Christian radio podcast version of Dickens Christmas carol

10. Apparently he finished that full album of his finally, if someone wanna buy the limited edition hand signed EP tho, it's still available in his child labour merch shop! And it's been two years xd

11. Oh!! And I almost forgot to add his lil tiktok dip cuz he an influencer now me thinks xd funny story here too. So he actually multitasking. So Benny does a remember me imma Sirius Black!!! Lemme go viral!!! Fans pleazzzz love me back and HBO please hire me I talked about it during a con recently too please it's them strikes so I gotta be sneaky and I wanna be super popular too

#still on a break #but ive been sitting in waiting rooms for close to six hours today sooo #was reading Hume but by the couple of looks ive got it was bad choice of book for the day #so i went to see what's boy been up to #ben barnes #glorious one??

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feeshies · 1 year

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i still remember that during my senior year in high school, we had a new english teacher (we went through english teachers like acid through rice paper lol) who decided that, since we only had roughly 3 months in a semester, it would make more sense to analyze short stories instead of "covering" full novels. we still read novels, of course. but we spent more time going over short stories and poems written by these authors.

as a result, not only did we get to finish more works during the semester (instead of just reading the "highlights" or reading half of the book and watching a movie adaptation for the rest), but we had more time to give thoughtful analysis of the works we went over.

for my sophomore english class, we read 1984 and until i went back and reread it as an adult, i didn't take away much except for the sex scenes in the movie version our teacher forgot to fast forward past.

but in my senior year class, we read one of george orwell's short stories: the hanging. what resulted as a class-wide discussion that was so lively that we almost missed that lunch had started. not only did being able to finish the story and discuss it properly make it feel more meaningful when i went back and read orwell's longer works, but that very story has worked its way into my own writing. whenever i write about death, i think about the hanging. it's so ingrained in me that when i was processing my own anxieties over getting surgery, specific passages from that story were entering my mind. that wouldn't have happened if my experience with this story was limited to a crunchy pdf and a worksheet telling me to "find the symbols".

in that class, we read more complete works than i ever had in an english class before. we only watched movies if there was an adaptational or thematic point the teacher wanted to make -- not as a stand-in for reading the actual book. sometimes i think about where i would be now as a reader and a writer if i had him for more than one semester. because yeah he was fired lol. apparently one of the reasons was that he wasn't sticking to the curriculum by not assigning more full books. also he was a conspiracy nut but that always seemed to come up second. that's a story for another day.

when his replacement took over, we had to read (parts of) a christmas carol. and one of our assignments was a christmas themed word puzzle. one of the words was "coal". it was like watching dead poets society but backwards.

#it's been 10 years and it's still on my mind lol #also one time i turned in a piece of writing and on the last page he wrote this really long paragraph thanking me for being a writer #and it got me out of a writing slump i've been stuck in for years #unfortunately i don't have it anymore bc the following year i was taking an online math class bc i failed algebra #and i didn't have any scratch paper around so i had to use it

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literalgrill · 2 years

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The Animated History of Treasure Island: Mr. Magoo's Treasure Island - 1964

I have been on a journey to watch every animated adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. (Yes, my hyperfixations can be quite unusual). I wanted to share my thoughts and research on them as they were compiled before hopefully making a long video about the entire topic.

So today I'm here to share my thoughts on one of its earliest animated adaptations: Mr. Magoo's Treasure Island from 1964. Read on if that's something you'd enjoy!

Nowadays, it’s easy to dismiss Mr. Magoo as that ableist cartoon making fun of nearsighted people that spawned the worst Leslie Neilson film of all time, one so bad it universally flopped and was even protested by the National Federation of the Blind. But this now maligned character was once a mainstay of animation and television. The original cartoon series won two Academy Awards for Best Animated Short Film and its titular character made TV history as the star of the first-ever animated TV Christmas Special — Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol. It would go on to be parodied by The Simpsons and even still aired on television as late as 2014 by The CW. However, in this case, the most important part of the special is how it would lead to the story of Treasure Island’s first full-scale animated adaptation. (The absolute first was Mel-O-Toons: Treasure Island, but we’ll mention it a bit later.)

After the wildly successful original series and television special, United Productions of America decided to have Mr. Magoo star in various other literary adaptations. Thus, The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo came to life in 1964 with Mr. Magoo’s Treasure Island being one of its earliest episodes, a two-parter even.

The shows were played far more straight, ignoring the previous nearsighted jokes outside of their introductory sequences, and were quite realistic. My research says the other episodes were highly realistic and even portrayed a good bit of the violence and deaths within their stories. From my experience with their adaptation of Treasure Island, this rings particularly true. Plenty of characters are straight-up shot and killed as they are in the original novel and Jim Hawkins still fights Isreal to the death as he attempts to reclaim the Hispaniola. For the most part, it’s quite a direct retelling of the original story, but with a few big changes.

First, there are some characters that are completely omitted including Jim’s mother, John Trelawney, and “Blind” Pew, the latter of which is a particular relief considering the source material. I’d even hazard a guess that he was avoided entirely to not make any confusing associations with who the true “main character” was in the show.

The biggest departure from the book that is absolutely worth focusing on is how the story ends as it likely doesn’t align with your memories of watching adaptations of the story over the years. For those who don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of Treasure Island as I now do, I shall quote the book directly:

"Ben Gunn was on deck alone, and as soon as we came on board he began, with wonderful contortions, to make us a confession, Silver was gone. The maroon has connived at his escape in a shore boat some hours ago and he now assured us he had only done so to preserve our lives, which would certainly have been forfeited if "that man with the one leg had stayed aboard." But this was not all. The sea-cook had not gone empty-handed. He had cut through a bulkhead unobserved, and had removed one of the sacks of coin, worth, perhaps, three or four hundred guineas, to help him on his way further wanderings.

I think we were all pleased to be so cheaply quit of him."

Mr. Magoo started at least one more historic trend with this series — they have Jim Hawkins set Long John Silver free. It makes sense as Jim is the only one with a relationship, however strained, with the pirate menace that might incline him to help the old sea dog avoid the gallows. Still, these were the first storytellers that decided Jim’s relationship with Long John was so important to the story, that he must have a conflicted moment where he sets his previous tormenter free.

In the first-ever animated adaptation of the tale, Mel-O-Toons: Treasure Island, decided to leave the end particularly nebulous as to what happened to Long John in the end. While Mr. Magoo’s 2019 animated series is so obscure most don’t know it exists, this choice made for Mr. Magoo’s Treasure Island is one that would echo out through the decades.

If this piqued your interest, my next Treasure Island-related post will be on Osamu Tezuka's adaptation — Shin Takarajima (A New Treasure Island). Thanks for reading, and let me know if you enjoyed learning about such a niche topic!

#treasure planet #animation #robert louis stevenson #adaptation #tw death mention #jim hawkins #long john silver #squire trelawney #1960s #mr magoo #animated series #2d animation #blind pew #captain smollett #children's movie #christmas special

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princesssarisa · 2 years

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Character ask: The Ghost of Christmas Present (A Christmas Carol)

Favorite thing about them: Everything in general. I love his jolliness, the joy he both figuratively and literally radiates, his eagerness to share the pleasures and the peace and goodwill of Christmas, and his concern to the poor and how fiercely he champions them against the ignorance and selfishness of people like Scrooge. There's virtually nothing to dislike about him.

Least favorite thing about them: Hmm... well, in the book, if not in most adaptations, he can be a bit preachy. He's by far the preachiest of the three Ghosts, in contrast to the more subtle and graceful way Christmas Past urges Scrooge to come to his own conclusions, or Christmas Yet-to-Come's literal "show, don't tell" approach. But of course the sociopolitical and religious messages he preaches are powerful and important, and sometimes controversial to this day, which is probably why so many adaptations cut them.

Three things I have in common with them:

*I'm warm and cheerful most of the time.

*I love the holidays and love sharing their joys with others.

*I care very much about social justice and helping those in need.

Three things I don't have in common with them:

*I'm not a giant ghost.

*On principle I refuse to wear fur-trimmed clothes.

*I don't have a torch that sprinkles goodwill onto others (though I wish I did).

Favorite line:

His iconic first line from atop his throne of holiday food:

“Come in! Come in! and know me better, man!”

In reply to Scrooge's question if the blessings he sprinkles from his torch apply to any Christmas dinner:

"To any kindly given. To a poor one most... Because it needs it most."

This passage usually cut from adaptations, about people (i.e. clergy or religiously conservative politicians) who do heartless deeds in the name of spirit (i.e. in the name of God), in response to Scrooge's question about why the bakers' shops should be closed on Sundays when the poor depend on them for hot meals:

“There are some upon this earth of yours who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.”

His foretelling of Tiny Tim's death:

“I see a vacant seat in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.”

This speech – again, cut from most adaptations – after he throws Scrooge's words about "the surplus population" back in his face:

“Man, if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child. Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!”

When he reveals two horrifically ragged, starved children beneath his robe:

“They are Man’s. And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it! Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And bide the end!”

brOTP: All humankind, especially the poor, and his fellow Christmas ghosts if they were to interact.

OTP: None.

nOTP: Scrooge, or probably any other human.

Random headcanon: The very first Ghost of Christmas Present (the "eldest brother" of Dickens's Ghost, as he would say) came into the world the day that Jesus was born, long before there was an actual Christmas holiday. This is probably canon, since Dickens's Ghost speaks of more than 1800 brothers The succession of Ghosts watched over Jesus and invisibly aided his mission throughout his life, then did the same for his early followers, and as Christianity spread and the celebration of Christmas took hold, they attached themselves to the holiday. Throughout the early years, each new Ghost manifested in the spring, on Jesus's actual birthday, but when December 25 officially became Christmas Day, they shifted their arrival to that date instead, and gladly, because the idea of bringing warmth, light, and joy into the darkest, coldest time of year appealed to their core values.

Unpopular opinion: I get slightly tired of the fact that when modern adaptations diversify the cast, they always seem to choose the Ghost of Christmas Present as the token black character. Not that I have anything against a black Ghost of Christmas Present in the least. It's not bad representation. But why not break stereotypes further and let the quiet, gentle Ghost of Christmas Past be a black person for a change, instead of always choosing the loudest and most boisterous ghost for that casting? Or why not other characters? Why should it always be the Ghost of Christmas Present?

Song I associate with them:

"I Like Life" from the musical Scrooge.

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"Abundance and Charity" from A Christmas Carol: The Musical.

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And my personal favorite, "It Feels Like Christmas" from The Muppet Christmas Carol.

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Favorite pictures of them:

The classic illustration by John Leech:

This illustration by Sol Eytinge Jr.

Lionel Braham in the 1938 film. (@ariel-seagull-wings, do you remember him from the 1916 silent Snow White? He played the Huntsman.)

Francis De Wolff in the 1951 film.

Kenneth More in the 1970 musical Scrooge.

From Richard Williams's 1971 animated short.

Willie the Giant in Mickey's Christmas Carol, 1983.

Edward Woodward in the 1984 TV film.

From The Muppet Christmas Carol, 1992.

Desmond Barrit in the 1999 TV film.

#character ask #a christmas carol #the ghost of christmas present #ask game #fictional characters #fictional character ask

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carewyncromwell · 2 years

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“Good day, everyone. It seems that we, once again, are on the cusp of that most wondrous time of year -- the Feast of Christmas.

“I am called Bartholomew -- or more commonly just ‘Bat’ -- Varney...and this time of year is by far my favorite of the lot. To mark this occasion, my ‘mundane’ has once again given me access to her ‘Askbox,’ so that I may discuss aspects of this wonderful holiday with you, her followers, whether through historical lectures, editorials, or even lively debates. She encourages you to consult the ‘Bat Comments on Christmas!’ tag to see my previous entries to this series, to like and reblog these posts if you find them engaging and interesting, and to send in other holiday-related Asks to me, if you wish to see more. I was born in the mid-18th century and currently occupy what my mundane calls the��‘HPHL’ and ‘Fantastic Beasts’ timelines, but I have also been given access to the Fourth Wall, so that I can discuss aspects of Christmas Yet to Come as well.”

The single best aspect of Christmas is the fascinating way it has changed and will continue to change.

[Bat replaces the spent Blood Pop in his mouth with a new one with a grin that shows off his sparkling white fangs.]

“...Our subject today, appropriately enough, actually regards Christmases Yet to Come, as well as those of the Past and Present. Yes, my friends, it is time we discuss my favorite novel of all time, which arguably changed how Christmas is celebrated more than any other piece of text ever written -- Charles Dickens’s immortal classic, A Christmas Carol.

“Now, for those of you who have grown up with Christmas as a holiday, and even for many who haven’t, it would be silly to go into a full summary of the tale. It’s such a popular and well-adapted story, even back in my own era, that even those who haven’t read Dickens’s novel are familiar with it, simply through cultural osmosis...and from what I understand, over time, it’s only become more widespread. But truly, we’re not going to delve too deeply into the story of miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who initially scoffs at the thought of giving back to his fellow men and treating his employees and associates kindly around Christmas, before he’s haunted by three spirits who teach him the true meaning of the season. Instead, I’d like to talk more about the book’s publication, its themes, and ultimately why it both is a perfect time capsule of the up-and-coming Christmas fads of the mid-1800′s and ultimately came to popularize and set in stone customs we still associate with Christmas today.

“Charles Dickens was a celebrity of his day. Originally the man had no concept of what he wanted to do with his life -- he even once considered a life on stage as an actor -- but writing truly ended up being his calling. First finding success as a journalist, Dickens then became famous across Britain when he wrote The Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist. Even her Majesty the soon-to-be Queen Victoria was purportedly enamored with them. Unfortunately Dickens’s success ended up being a double-edged sword. John Dickens would frequently use his son’s fame as leverage to borrow money, only for Charles to have to frequently come to his rescue when John couldn’t pay the lenders back. And with his family still growing (three going on four, at that time), Dickens had to keep the money rolling in, in order to pay for his family’s lifestyle. They were part of what was called the ‘middling sort,’ or the ‘middle class,’ as I’ve heard it more frequently called, which had only just started to form about a century prior, as education and land ownership became more widespread in Europe and America. Just a century ago, that ‘middle class’ had been the main force behind the American and French Revolutions and the Enlightenment ideals that argued against the superiority of kings and nobles over the common Man -- now most of their members were trying to find comfort and contentment in their new status as the ‘petit bourgeoisie.’ But there was still activism and fresh ideas to be found in their ranks, if one were to look carefully.

“The wide publication of books via printing presses and that subsequent increased access to education and knowledge fueled a new appreciation for history in 19th century Europe. Not too long ago, as I’ve discussed previously, Christmas had been banned in England, only for that idea to blow up spectacularly in the Puritans’ faces. And well, with England having lost their foothold in the American colonies and having spent even more years and money warring with France under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte before finally defeating him soundly at Waterloo, there was a new sense of nostalgia in England for when their country was great and prosperous...namely, the Renaissance, under the rule of Queen Elizabeth I. The arts became more reputable and profitable again after the likes of Oliver Cromwell had tried to shut down theaters en masse; investment in new technologies and sciences were promoted, sparking an Industrial Revolution in England; and holidays of the Tudor era were reinvented for a new generation, including -- you guessed it -- Christmas.

“But Christmas, as celebrated in Tudor England, was a very bawdy, raucous, messy affair. A public outdoor festival punctuated by drinking and debauchery didn’t really suit the ‘proper’ attitudes of the Victorian-era middle class. So, just as we always have with Christmas since the beginning, old traditions were attempted, adapted, and -- in some cases -- flat-out made up. One such tradition I’ve discussed previously that was likely completely fabricated around this time is the act of kissing under mistletoe. Other fads that were ultimately discarded was putting fruitcake under your pillow -- replaced with just eating it at holiday gatherings -- and wearing animal-themed costumes -- which I would argue was just shifted over to our celebration of holidays like Halloween. Even the idea of electing a ‘Lord of Misrule’ -- an aspect of the holiday I always enjoyed as a boy, which was also very popular back in the Elizabethan era -- didn’t last, under the Victorians. But still, these new twists on old traditions -- caroling at people’s doorsteps; hosting parties with friends and family; playing parlor games; exchanging presents; decorating the house with mistletoe, holly, and evergreen trees; eating lots of good food -- would become very fashionable among this new middle class and how they celebrated Christmas. And with the arrival of more Romantic ideals in Europe at the turn of the 19th century, the concept of children being evocative of innocence rather than sin became much more mainstream. This then prompted middle-class parents to want to make the old bawdy Feast of Christmas more family-friendly and to use some of their new wealth to give both themselves and their children some joy during the holiday season.

“Dickens, like many members of the Victorian middle class, loved Christmas and the new fashionable ways it was being celebrated. Considering the man also greatly disdained organized religion, as well, it’s not entirely surprising he enjoyed the secular trappings that encouraged joy and extravagance without making it too focused on the church. But Charles Dickens didn’t just think Christmastime should be a time for the middle class to indulge for themselves. The true inspiration behind his novel A Christmas Carol ultimately ended up being Dickens witnessing the horrific conditions child workers suffered through in the new Victorian factories he saw in England, including the Cornish Tin Mines. He became convinced that something had to be done to combat the poverty and injustice he saw in the streets, and he ultimately thought that a story about Christmas might be a more palatable way to deliver that message to the mass public, including other members of the middle class, than a mere article would. And so Dickens partnered the Victorian fad of indulgence with social activism...which, ironically enough, perfectly adapted another tenant of Christmas back in my day, as well as its progenitor celebration of Saturnalia -- the redistribution of wealth. Whether Dickens realized it at the time or not, he had adapted the core of Christmas for a new generation -- this time, not by the poor having to beg or threaten the rich at their doors for their best food and drink, but by the new middle class and the wealthy being compelled by civic duty to give back to the needy willingly.

“A Christmas Carol was an instant success. Thousands of copies were sold all over England from the moment it first hit shelves on December 19th, 1843, with the entire first run being sold out by Christmas Eve of that year and twelve more editions being published by the end of the following year. It is by far Dickens’s most well-known, read, and beloved novel, and it has only become more popular over time. And yet, in his day, Dickens didn’t enjoy the profits he probably should’ve from A Christmas Carol, after all his efforts. Part of this is because of how much money he invested into the publication of his manuscript. Dickens envisioned his book as something that should be bought and given as a Christmas present, and so spared no expense in making each book a work of art. The books were bound in red cloth, printed on gilt-edged pages, with hand-painted illustrations. All of this took a big chunk out of Dickens’s profits. Another problem, however, was that this expensive binding was the only way the book was published, which made it so that many poorer people who wanted to read this new book written by the great Charles Dickens about the virtue of giving to the poor didn’t have the five shillings needed to buy it. And this is why a lesser publisher ultimately plagiarized the novel, condensing it somewhat and printing it much more cheaply without permission, so as to cash in on those who couldn’t afford the full, official manuscript. Dickens later took that publisher to court for copyright infringement and won, but the whole affair still hurt his profit margin.

“Even so, A Christmas Carol’s legacy is undeniable, and many of the Christmas traditions we love most today -- mere passing fads of Dickens’s era -- were popularized because of this very well-received and circulated little book. Christmas cards and gifts. Games and toys. Caroling. Childhood innocence. Christmas trees. Eating turkey, pies, and warm chestnuts for Christmas dinner. Giving to the poor. Even just the concept of the ‘holiday spirit,’ of ‘good will toward men’ -- of hope and charity, in the midst of the cold and hunger of winter. The ritual of taking time off work specifically just to celebrate at home with your loved ones, rather than go to church or go out drinking in the streets. All of this is what Christmas is all about in the minds and hearts of so many...but it wasn’t, until Charles Dickens wrapped all of these ideas up in a neat little package and gave it to the world, in the form of a manuscript he had to finish in less than six weeks and yet clearly put so much heart and soul into.”

[Bat removes the spent pop from his mouth. He reaches into the inside of his waistcoat, taking a sip of blood from his pewter flask. Then, clearing his throat, he puts the flask down and then reaches into the other side of his waistcoat, out of which he fetches out a very small, leather-bound copy of A Christmas Carol -- a present from someone, no doubt.]

“...And so...to close this out...let me quote one of my personal favorite sections of the novel. It’s a part of the story far less quoted than the infamous ending, but it’s a passage I’ve always found so striking, and one I think similarly embodies the beauty of Dickens’s work...”

[Bat opens his tiny copy of the manuscript and reads:]

“‘A small matter,’ said the Ghost, ‘to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.’

“‘Small!’ echoed Scrooge.

“The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig: and when he had done so, said,

“‘Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?’

“‘It isn’t that,’ said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. ‘It isn’t that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count ‘em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.’”

[Bat looks up from his book with another fanged grin as he takes another sip of blood from his flask.]

“...Happy Christmas to you all.”

((OOC: HAPPY BATMAS!! 🎄🥰 Yes, friends, for all this month and next, Bat had free reign over the Askbox to chat Christmas with you all! Please consider sending in Asks, or of course, just liking/reblogging my entries to this series! It’s truly so much fun to work on, and I’m so thrilled to do some more fun installments to it this year!))

#bat comments on christmas!#bartholomew varney #roleplaying #christmas #a christmas carol #hphl #hogwarts legacy #history #harry potter

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popculturebuffet · 2 years

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Monthly Muppets: The Muppet Christmas Carol Review: With a Thankful Heart (comission for Emma Fici)

Merry Muppety Christmas all you happy people! I've just finished my 500th review and with that horse eaten, it's time to get back to some monthly muppet madness, i'ts monthly muppets yeahhhhh. And today we got a BIG one and a well timed one. I was already considering asking Emma who commissions these if this could be the next one… when it was announced the full verison, complete with when love is gone was going to end up on plus. Naturally neither of us could deny the obvious perfect timing, and the fact it's also the films anniversary just adds to it so I present to you with a thankful heart under the cut my review of …. A Muppets Christmas Carol

The Ghost of Jim Henson

A Christmas Carol came at the Muppets darkest hour: Two years ago… Jim Henson had passed. The man who created the muppets, who brought together a bunch of kind, talented people to create true magic, who directed and spearheaded the films, tv shows, a man of endless heart, creativity and kindness.. was gone.

His son Brian was left with two hard roles: Taking over form his dad in steering the ship and the henson company, and figuring out if the Muppets would go on. The latter was easy, as at a meeting with all of them the day Jim died, they all agreed to go on despite the pain and grief at the loss of Jim. As David Goelz put it "This was our life's work and we'd like to continue it if that's possible. ". The question now was HOW.

The method ended up coming from Henson's agent, who outright sold a new project to ABC before even asking: Christmas Carol with the Muppets. So shoved out the door, it was up to Brian and writer of The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper Jerry Juhul to figure out where to go with it.

Orginally as you'd expect from the mupppets it was a parody: using the muppets as the ghosts, really being zany with it but something unexpected happened: Jerry Juhl fell in love with the original book, and realzied most adaptations didn't really put in Dicken's narration or a lot of the book itself into it and wanted to play it straight as they could. Brian agreed and decided to lean into the contrast between the darkness and Victorian commentary of dickens and the goofyness of the muppets. Highlight that contrast by putting hte muppets in very peiord approraite outfits.. but still having talking vegtables, lew zeland and other shenanigans.

To anchor all this they needed just the right performer: Uncle Deadly was considered back when it was a parody and while that was awesome once they were playing this straight they needed a human and only two were considered. The first was Tim Curry who is of course awesome.. but as my earlier look at Muppet Treasure Island proves, he's also a MASSIVE, GLORIOUS HAM.. and that's just not what the piece needed for Scrooge. He'd of done great, he's tim, but the piece needed someone a bit more classical

Enter Sir Micheal Motherfucking Caine. Classically trained shakesperian actor, movie star, gentleman and the man who gleefully admitted that he only did the trainwreck that was Jaws The Revenge because

I will never get tired of that story especailly since MIcheal Caine just having the time of his life and being cool as heck is one of the most watchable things about that movie and part of what takes it from nigh unwatchable to so bad i'ts good. He was also one of the best Alfred's, because someone had to say it.

Caine told Brian up front he would be playing this straight as if the other muppets were theater company players.. and Brian was excited as that's exactly what he wanted. Caine was also excited because while he hadn't voiced it at the time.. he was disappointed all his friends kept getting to go on the muppet show or the movies and have a wonderful time but he never got to play, but was happy where he ended up as he ended up getting one of the biggest parts of all.

Brian had a problem though: he ended up thrust into the director chair. He has outright said that he tried everything he could to find SOMEONE else to do it as, having only directed a few tv episodes before this, he felt understandably horribly unprepared for this. Why no one else stepped up

But luckily the muppet crew is a family, so they all encouraged brian and had faith in him, with Frank Oz particularly mentoring the young man. To his credit… Brian does a terrific job directing and I coudln't tell he was a first time film director going into this. He's every bit as good as his father was at the role. It was so good that Micheal Caine was genuinely shocked when he found out halfway through. And when Micheal Fucking Caine doesn't notice your a first timer, that's the highest praise you can get.

Another problem cropped up: Disney being disney. Progress on the film was going well.. to the point Jeffrey Katzenberg, at the time head of disney, wanted to make it a feature. Because that always goes really well and is'nt stressful as fuck. Shocker.. it was stressful to the point Brian nearly had to quit production, but a member of the studio who came to check budget realized they need more , especially since even on what little they had they made a whole fucking moveable victorian london for the piece, and there was no issue from there.

Production went well.. but box office not so much. The film got middling box office and to my bafflement SAVAGED in the press. I found out why via a tough pigs article: For me now it's just another day at the muppet offic eif a very diffrent day. At the time.. no one knew what the muppets would look like post jim, so for all they knew this was the new status quo

I still think the critics went Roger Ebert hard on the film, especially given HOW good it is, they should know better, but I can' tblame some general audiences for fretting a bit not knowing this was just another thing they were doing. Professional Fucking Critics should know better.

Thankfully like another Katzenberg made project that hopped from DTV to film, a paticuarlly goofy one shall we say, home video saved this film and next year it sold like all hell and became a staple of many's childhood and the rest is history. The film became the true classic it was meant to be.

And as you can probably guess I loved this flim on rewatch.. but since i'm a wordy bastard, let's get into why shall we?

Magic in The Air So story wise I don't have to go into as much detail as usual. See Christmas Carol is one of those classic stories that has been adapted countless times.. and that's not be being lazy, it gets adapted in some form at LEAST once a year: Just this year we've gotten the musical animated film "Scrooge: A Christmas Carol", Apple TV+'s riff on it spirted and the long awaited youtube release of Team Starkid's "A VHS Christmas Carol". And that's just what i'm aware of. For all I know Hallmark did "A Very Christmas Christmas Carol". It's been parodied, homaged, adapted, deconstructed countless times to the point this will be the THIRD time i've covered a version of it: I did Mickey's CHristmas Carol last year as part of the house of mouse christmas movie, and this year I did "Last Christmas!" where Ducktales did their own unique take on it. It won't even be the last a Christmas Carol takeoff I do this year and it's gotten to the point iI may have to do at least one a year from here on and i'm confident I will NEVER run out.

So it's doubtful, espeically given how popular this versoin is and how faitful it is to the core of the story, I have to recap it but in short: The story follows a Greedy Dick named Ebeneezer Scrooge living in Victorian London. He's a cruel and monsterous landlord who gladly throws out anyone who can't pay, insert your own evil landlord joke here, and is horrible to just about everyone: the town is actively afraid of him, he pushes his carefree and cheerful nephew fred away (played by a human suprisingly enough), and horribly abuses his employees, paticuarlly Bob Cratchet whose naturally played by Gonzo here.

To stop his reign of terror before he ends up in his rightful place in hell, his old partner Jacob Marley (Here a pair of brothers played by Statler and Woldorf), comes to warn him where he's headed and that he'll be haunted by three spirits: The Ghost of Christmas Past, Present and Future. Past shows him his lonely childhood and his tearfully failed romance with Belle, Present takes him to see his Nephew who lightly mocks him but whose spirit and kindness is infection, and just hwo destitute poor Bob Cratchett is, how joyful his family is despite it.. and how his son tiny tim is close to death. Finally Future takes scrooge to see how no one mourns him, looted his things.. and how Tiny Tim is dead. Scrooge wakes up a changed man, parties throughout the town, reconclies with fred and becomes a good friend to Cratchet, promoting him and becoming like a second father to Tiny Tim who lives a long healthy life.

It's simple, and there's a reason it's been parodied and even the loosest verisons can still have fun with the three spirits concept.

This verison is unique entirely because of how they decidd to go about it: The story is as Jerry Juhl begged Brian Henson for and rightfully so played straight; Gonzo, usually one of the goofiest muppets is our narrator as Charles Dickens and the truly dark nature of the story that can oft be forgotten in parody shines: We see Scrooge treked through his miserable childhood, loosing the love of his life, how little his nephew respects hima nd understandably so, how much his greed has cost the cratchets and finally what his greed will cost both himself and tiny tim if he dosen't let this all sink in.

What makes it still work as a muppet production. .is that ther'es ballance. The muppety side of thing helps provide some warmth in the cold depths of this beautifuly haunting tail: the opening already has the produce for sail alive, lew zeland around and a jaunty song. While Scrooge himself is terrifying, his workers are the fairly goofy rats. Even Gonzo, who normally a goofus is deadly seriously reciting the book, get sosme relief as Rizzo frequently pipes in his own commentary Dickens!Gonzo responds to. The best of which being "Is this too scary for the kids?" "Don't worry, it's culture". The jokes are there, but their simply woven in where they fit to provide a nice laugh amid what can be a fairly instense story. THere's always heart.. but the laughter with the heart helps ballance out Scrooge himself.

The presentation is helped by Gonzo, whow as chosen to play dickens and recite his lines simply because he was the absolute least likely candidate to play it.. and thus by muppet logic the best. Dave Golez does a truly PHENOMINAL job quoting the book, something Juhl wanted as most adaptations for obvious reasons had to leave Dickens own prose and quotes ont he floor. The result helps set the atmosphere brilliantly, with every bit of narration inhancing what we see on scnee. While normally it's best for an adaptation to show don't tell, it works as this is the muppets and micheal caine essnetially putting on a peformance of a christmas carol, so the narration gimmick works perfectly wtih that sort of logic: just as a play would to save on budget this would too even if it does nothing of the sort.

The biggest boon of course is Micheal Caine himself. Caine is easily one of if not THE best scrooge.. well Ebenezzer Scrooge. best Scrooge is taken by a certain duck, but Caine just utterly OWNS the role. He's deeply terrifying as first, in a way few scrooges i've seen have been, just a deeply unsettling, unfair, unhappy man who makes everyone else miserablea nd afraid just by looking at him. Only Fred is able to cut through it and even then just for himself. It also makes his reactoins as he goes all the more striking: what starts as a skinflinted miserable bastard slowly becomes unwrapped as we see him talking up his traumatic childhood as a good thing, regretting his lost loves, and slowly having it dawn on him both how people feel about him and how he's treated bob.. and then coming off as almost in denial in the last act as it's VERY clear from the way Caine plays it this scrooge KNOWS this is his future.. but he just can't accept it and badly wants to run from it. It's all topped off with a now warmer and kinder scrooge singing with a thankful heart. Caine sells the slow character developmnent beautifully and may be the singl ebest performer ina muppets production. and after almos ta year of doing these , that's the highest praise I can give. When you've outflanked David Bowie and Tim Curry, you sir are a master at what you do.

Another needed choice.. was that NONE of the muppets we know play the ghosts. All three are brand new, really well designed muppets…. though "Well designed' dosen't mean that Christmas Past still isn't a sleep paralissi demon

They work, but.. jesus. Even Chucky dosen't haunt my nightmares that bad anymore right bud?

We have fun. The three look how you'd expect: horrifying spectre, jolly big guy not unlike john goodman, horrifying spectre. A truly emaculate sandwich.

The past is etherial, as if she isn't even here, which is what I tell myself to help sleep at night. The present is jolly, fully and in the now, and the future is a haunting reaper like spectre just out of reach.

Naturally the muppets and co fill out most of the rest of the cast, but there are a few humans. Which I get to a point, but I Mean.. it's not like we haven't had weird muppet parent situations before

Still we get Fred, his wife and Belle all as humans and Edward Sanders, THeo Sanders, Kristopher Milnes, Russel Martin and Ray Coulthard as the various scrooges. It's likely to help sell the down to earth nature by keeping those closest to scrooge as humans.

Muppet wise it's all hands on deck and in addition to Gonzo and Rizzo we have some perfect casting all around: As Steve Whitmire himself said, Kermit really is Bob Cratchet so having him as a joyous soul whose under constant diress from his place of work fit like a glove. It was Whitmire's first time in the roll and while he got flack at the time, mostly because you know it was new

By now we're all used to his verison and frankly.. it's near impossible to tell it's his first time voicing the character. IT's a probable feat, but it isn't one that happens very often: Even Donald Duck legend Tony Anselmo took some time to really settle in and Whitmire's own sucessor, while having settled into the roll now, has took some time too, not helped by Whitmire's departure being so abrubt meaning he didn't have the time Steve likely did to train, where as both Anselmo and Whitmire were trained heavily by their predecessors. He just eases into the roll as naturally as jim did and given both the circumstances and what massive flippers to fill those are is a truly titanic feat.

We also have the various muppets spersed thorught: Fozzy is perfeclty cast as Scrooge's jolly former boss Fezziwig, and somehow surivives to present day in this verison.. mostly so we can see a very elderly fozzy, but who dosen't want that? Electric Mayhem play his christmas party, as they should. Sam the Eagle is in a great position as Scrooge's stern headmaster who sets in stone his way of thinking, and who gets a neat enough song. He also gets one of the best jokes as Sam, being sam, calls their way of doing things "The american way"… only to be reminded this is britan and hastily correcting it to "The BRITISH way", just an all around great delivery by frank Oz. It seems like sam always gets to be at the heart of the best comedic moments in this classics of literature duology.

Miss PIggy gets put in the roll of Miss Cratchet, one of the rare times her and Kermit's relationship is remotely functional, and we even get kids. We also get some original muppets besides the ghosts in this scene with the cratchets daughters and sons who arne't tiny tim. Peter Cratchet in paticular has some excellent 1800's game going, what Jess who watched this with me acturatley described as Phillip Whitbane Drip.

Robin is of course Tiny Tim since he's both basically Kermit's son anyway and this isn't the first time he's been in mortal peril nor had leg trouble.

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Some final muppets to clear up before we get into the music: Bean Bunny is the child who says why it's christmas day, which is a greta version of this scene.. though I found my faviorite very recently.

I like to think despite the strip not really setting it up that Elvis went through a whole Christmas Carol thing. Statler and Woldorf are the Marleys and get a whole awesome musical number, and we also get some terrifying cat muppets

If I can't sleep tonight, you can't either. Cue the music!

A Thankful Soundtrack

This soundtrack.. may be the best in muppet history. And that's no small feat: We have the classic Muppet Movie songs, David Fucking Bowie at full speed for Labyrinth, the awesome soundtracks by Brett Mckenzie for the two revivial films. I'ts very stiff compettition. But the sheer joy and scope here rockets it to the top. IT's to the point I've decided to start ranking the soundtracks along with the movies reviewed here. When aclipable, for instance I don't think there's an abudnacne of musical numbers in say the dark crystal. But since i've started adding a whole soundtack section, as I should've all along, it feels right. But before I get to rating, let's get to whyt his soundtrack is so awesome.

For starter's it's written by Paul Williams, 70's musician and composer for the Muppet Movie, aka a soundtrack equal to this one that's going to make ranking that one a nightmare. He also wrote this song which showed up on my spotify. This isn't all that relevant but given I hadn't heard any of his non muppet music and just knew him as "that guy with long blonde 70's hair and awesome glasse", it was a plesant suprise

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I need to listen to more of his stuff because holy shit is he good. And it shows here as he provides a joyus wonderful soundtrack that goes where its' needed. This may be the best scrooge based musical.. and that is an actual competition given the stage show and a VHS CHristmas Carol exist.

So starting us off we have Scrooge, a nice tone and character setting piece as the entire town talks shit behind scrooge's back in song form. It's been caught on my head in occasoin and ONLY on occasoin because of another song on this soundtrack that hasn't left my head since. We'll get to that closer to the end of the film.

Next we get the utterly heartwarming One More Sleep Till Christmas. Why anyone doubted Whitmire's kermit after hearing that I really DON'T know. It's so Jim in tone, so warm and loving as he talks about the true magic of Christmas eve, of the most wonderful and warm day of the year being THIS close. It's a truly beauitful song and now one of my faviorite christmas songs. While I only vaguely remembered the film from childhood, it' sstuff like this that will keep it in my heart. It's easily one of the best songs in the film.

Marley and Marley on the othe rhand was the only part I remembered with vivid unceasing clarity as it's been stuck in my head for decades. It's a fun yet forboding number as the Marleys warn Scrooge of the night ahead. It's a bit simple compared to the previous two numbers but i't sso fan and that "marley and marley, woooooohhhhh " in the cohours is infectious.

So we've come to the song that is the major reason we're here, the omissoin no one would let Disney forget, not the least Brian Henson himself: When Love Is Gone. If you were wondering why I hadn't brought this up till now.. this is why. I figured it was best to talk about the song's complicated history when we got to it.

So in short: When Love is Gone is a beautiful hautning ballad by Belle, played wonderfully by Merdeith Braun who sings this song heartbreakly well. It is two minutes of pure pain and heartache that really undrescore the tragedy of Scrooge's breakup with bell, what he's lost and him singing with her really fucking hurts.

And it was cut from the Theatrical Release. Jeffery Katzenberg said it was too long, and kids would be confused and bored during it. As a kid I was a bit, i'll admit, but it's Jeff forgetting that you know MUPPETS ARE FOR EVERYONE YOU BELL END. The property is ALL AGES, but plenty of jokes and bits are meant for adults. It's a reminder that while the Chapek era of Disney was the worst at this, the whole forgetting some thigns aren't just for the target demo wasn't new. It's just extra galling here because Jim NEVER intended for the muppet show to be just for once audience. He wanted it to be for everyone and Katzenberg forgetting that bothers me. It dosne't help when Love is Gone is only two minutes, and really dosen't that it's vital to the film. otherwise the breakup just kinda comes nad goes. With it it makes it tha tmuch more heartwrenching and that much more clear that even despite all his greed and popposity.. scrooge TRULY regrets what happened with Belle and it's the one mistake he can't fix with his ephinay.

It got restored to VHS, as it should've.. but afterwords it was left out. For Classic Disney reasons: they lost the negative.

. And it'd be more forgivable if a) they hadn't lost it when their disnmey and were better at not loosing shit normally and B) it didn't take TWENTY YEARS to look for. It's very clear it wasn't a high priority. And this bothers me a lot as we've lost plenty of films scenes over the years, my former holy grail being the original ending of LIttle Shop of Horrors, which is btw fuly ellegible for this space in my eyes as while it wasn't done by jim henson productions, Muppet legend frank oz directed it, many people he knew worked on it and Audrey 2 has the complexty of any muppet. Currently it's the lost fantasy scenes for a Christmas Story, which I only found out had pictures of their existance a few days ago. The lack of care for a film like this disgusts me, and the fact it took them this long when it could've been a big selling point for the blu ray, and wasn't, astounds me. It was gone theatrically sure but it wasn't supposed to be and again is only two minutes. It dosen't affect the run time badly and is vitlaly important to the film itself. Why disney thought any of this was okay was baffling.

IT somehow still gets dumb because apparently Disney coudln't get even restoring the film right as rather than just.. replace the theatrical cut on plus (since again their pracitcally identical) or put the special edition seperate.. they made the When Love is Gone version a SPECIAL FEATURE, something that's every easy to forget plus has especailly when the bulk of them are just trailers.

Yes even when Disney finally gives fans what they want.. they still have ot do it int he most self sabotaagingly moronic way possible.

Next we get Christmas Present's song, the amazing "Feels like Christmas', a song that truly captures how christmas feels the same way one more sleep catches the feeling of Christmas Eve. I cannot overstate how warm , kind and loving this soundtrack is. It just feels so damn good to hear.

Bless Us All after this DOUBLES that, just talking abotu the love of family, the warmth of christmas and being together and with what we want and deserve. Of what we should have and want: warmth, love and togetherness. And it's Jerry Nelson once again: while Frank Oz and Steve Whitmire get plenty on this song it's Nelson as Tim/Robin that TRULY directs the song it's warmth and really captures who tiny tim is: apure, innocent soul with nothing but kidness in his little failing heart.

And thus we come to my faviorite song out of the bunch, whcih given just how much sheer praise and love I have for these songs is a lot, Thankful Heart. Micheal Caine gets to sing and he has the voice of a fucking angel. It PERFECTLY sums up who Scrooge has become: a man whose gone from being a greedy bastard who exploits.. to a greatful, kind man, whose happy to be alive and have time to make things better, whose kind to all, and whose most of all thankful for this second chance. It's a song that makes ME want to be a better person simply by hearing it. It's about how life is short, and to make the best of life and to be a good person. That that's the best you can do.. and it is glorious. It never ceases to make me happy in the half a dozen or so times i've played it since I found it with this rewatch. I'll hold it close with a thankful heart

When Love is Found is a short but sweet ending, that both shows what Scrooge has truly gained and serves as a nice coda to the sad "When Love is Gone", showing what our hero has lost.. with this showing what he's GAINED. A truly great ending to a great film. There's also a country cover of WHen Love is Gone in the credits

I have nothing against Martina McBride but .. this is a very forgettable HIGHLY uncessary country cover ESPECAILLY given how good the original is and how it SHOULD be here instead, especially since the song was removed form the theatrical cut.

It dosen't damper this soundtrack which as I mentioned ranks highest on our newly minted soundtrack ranking

Speaking of rankings

FIlm Rankings:

It's time for my usual ranking. This only includes what's avaliable on letterboxd for visual convience, but here we go

After a five month reign of rightly earned dominance, Labyrinth gets knocked to the #2 spot. It was shockingly easy too: Muppets Christmas Carol is just THAT masterful, joyous and well put together that it knocked down labyrinth's masterful world and use of david bowie. There's only a few films I think could beat this one, and we'll get to them in due time. So as we wrap up this truly joyous christmas present, i'd like to thank emma for letting me revisit this masterpiece. This is a truly wonderful, well done film and at a breezy 100 or so minutes it goes by all too fast, not because it left anything on the table or missed opprotunities but because you don't want it to be over this soon. This film is fucking masterful and I recommend you root around and watch the new cut. It's easily one of the best i've reviewed on this blog, muppet or otherwise. Next Month we pivot from our faviorite troupe for a long overdue look at the other side of the street: yes it's FINALLY time to FOLLOW THAT BIRD as I watch the seasame street classic for the first time. Until then thanks for reading, be careful of that icy patch and have a happy holiday.

#the muppet christmas carol #muppets #brian henson #michael caine #kermit the frog #bob cratchett #ebenezer scrooge #gonzo the great #charles dickens #Youtube

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