#false nostalgia

♡ THG Reread, Week Six: My “Fanart” :)

I am not a visual artist in any way, shape, or form, but once upon a time I was a barista, and after that an innovative espresso drinker, so whenever I truly fangirled about something, I turned it into a latte. (In fact, Porchwood was the name of my “coffee shop” - fangirl/sci-fi-themed lattes served on my porch on Thursday evenings to a church fellowship group - I’d never really planned on it becoming my username/Tumblr identity!) I made everything from Feast Day lattes to Beatles-themed lattes and was constantly on the lookout for new ingredients to use in my creations.

Unfortunately, money and circumstances have made it impossible for me to assemble many of those wonderful creations for several years now and it breaks my heart to have lost such a joyous part of my life. :( But maybe by telling you about my Hunger Games creations, I’ll stir up some good luck and things will finally take a turn for the better!  

1. My beloved Peeta latte - too exquisite to assign a cutesy name. Torani cupcake syrup (think rich yellow cake, the kind they put chocolate frosting on), orange curd, nutmeg, orange blossom water, espresso, and half-and-half. The last time I tasted this it made my knees wobble, and @ghtlovesthg can attest to this power: I mailed her little jars of the ingredients so she could prepare a Peeta latte at home and sheer euphoria may have resulted. (Did this latte inspire the orange wedding cake from the New Year’s chapter of WtM? Maaaaaaaaaybe...)

2. Tribute Train - the drink that launched a fragrance at False Nostalgia! As described on my menu: “Finely ground milk chocolate meltaways, Nebraska Valhalla honey, and a snug blend of baking spices are gently whisked into creamy half-and-half and exquisitely pulled espresso. Garnished with whipped cream, cubes of freshly toasted bread, and a delicate drizzle of honey, this latte is cozier than cashmere and is best served decaf and sipped with a spoon and a lover.” (If you didn’t catch it, it’s a mashup of the hot chocolate and toast from Everlark’s first tribute train and milk with honey and spices from the second. And yes, this drink totally made an appearance in WtM - sans coffee, of course. :D)

3. My Mr. Mellark latte - I never got ‘round to a cutesy name for this one either, so I usually just called it Janek, but that didn’t stop anyone, least of all my extremely hard-to-please sister, who still extols the virtues of this latte. It’s made with Trader Joe’s cookie butter (yes, cookie butter) and Torani Almond Roca syrup with shortbread crumbs garnishing the whipped cream, and the flavor lies somewhere between a sippable cookie and, well...getting laid in a bakery. ;) It’s sumptuous.

4. The Ginger Bread Man. This one has the most ridiculous origin story (literally: my sister was recounting a joke she’d seen on Tumblr - “If Peeta was a redhead, he’d be a Ginger Bread Man!” - and I decided that would be a great idea for a latte) but it quickly became a delicious staple in my personal lineup.  “Unexpected coziness in the heart of a brutal Appalachian winter, courtesy of handcrafted Mellark confections and an Everdeen-tapped maple tree. A rich blend of cupcake, gingerbread, and maple spice syrups, garnished with snowy whipped cream and a shimmery sprinkle of ‘coal dust.’” The “coal dust” (black glitter flakes) garnish was my sister’s idea (I came up with the shimmer “snow” part :D) and it makes for an awesome look, but you have to drink it quickly - the flakes taste bitter and unpleasant if you let them melt down. 

So, I bought @falsenostalgia-sundries Power Armor Grease and Testosterone as an impulse buy which I normally don’t do. I bought the aforementioned scent and was pleasantly surprised to get Nuke Cola scent and Fancy Lads Snack Cakes Soap too <3. I'm surprised there is not more ranting and raving going on about these (Maybe I  am missing them, idk)! I am no fragrance connoisseur, but here’s my humble opinion. 

Power Armor Grease and Testosterone: This is Danse. Imagine him dressed to the nines at a Brotherhood Galla, maybe celebrating a victory or his reinduction into the brotherhood. As you walk by him, you catch a subtle sweetness, not like candy, more caramel and sea salt. As you turn to identify the source your hit with spice, and it rich but soothing. It’s so alluring, just like his gaze, pulling you in until your lips are pressed against his and he’s kissing you, slowly, deeply.Only when your this close do you catch that hint of power armor oil.

 Nuka Cola: It’s the first day at Nuka World, with cotton candy, caramel apples, and, of course, Ice Cold Nuka Cola! You would have expected the smell to be overwhelming but when you close your eyes it’s the perfect blend of candy sweetness and fizzy drink as you take your first sip of a freshly bottled Nuka Cola. (It literally smells like these fizzy candies I ate as a kid, holy nostalgia indeed)

Fancy Lads Snack Cakes Soap: Sorry, no story here because I want to eat this damn soap. It smells like chocolate cake and something else I can’t put a finger on. I’m still not 100% convinced it’s NOT chocolate but I'm not about to take a bite XD

90s Baby Co-worker: I wish I was born in the 50s. I'd be living my best life! Being a teen in the 70s would have been awesome.

Lefty Boomer: Oh yeah? You know you couldn't even have credit cards until 74? Good luck getting a bank account with your husband's approval.

90s Baby: They wouldn't know how to handle me. I'd be so divorced.

Lefty Boomer: Good luck, no fault divorce wasn't a thing either. You know how few rights women had back then? Virtually none.

Like you are

The In-Between Thing

and everybody is like “yeah, that’s normal, wtf, why are you crying?”

and you can’t really explain to people that watching an uploaded TikTok of a sunset over the Hudson Bay filmed in 1999 with the old Manhattan Skyline, and the outlaw feeling you get when you straddle the ages

a memory of a feeling of not just Big Progress or anything like that, but a feeling that you, specifically, the individual, had a place in the world that was being prepared for you, that you were invited even though your family may not have passed on the invitation, or if it got interrupted by minor forces, that somehow, somewhere, that place was being prepared for you

and then…

flash forward to November 4th, 2022 and you’re sitting in a quiet office listening to the HVAC system, staring out the window like it’s going to somehow give you answers to this David Lynch fever dream we’ve all been living for the last 25 years.

and then…

the moment comes when you realize that sweet kiss of teleology that you felt back then was part of a colonial lie

and then…

you wonder if there ever was a place like that, a place that your feeling reached for and said “yes, it’s there”

so you cry at a TikTok video over a place that may never have existed for you, but you wanted it to so badly, just so you could have an opportunity at flourishing.