I absolutely love this concept. Little Miss Sunshine is one of my favourite movies and the relationship between Dwayne and Olive is masterfully explored here. Their interactions feel organic and the parallels between Holden and Phoebe are brilliant (the Catcher in the Rye is a great choice as one of Dwayne's favourite novels; suitably angsty.) I also loved the little bit with the candy cigarettes. It's both in character for Olive and seems like something a child would say. There were so many small character moments that speak volumes about their slightly enigmatic relationship. Olive's perspective is nailed in this fic—her naïve assumption that Dwayne is cool solely because he is her older brother and her accepting manner has been carried through brilliantly from the source material. The call-backs to Grandpa's death and Dwayne's colour-blindness also cement it firmly into the canon. There was never a moment where I wasn't immersed or didn't feel as though I was reading about the Little Miss Sunshine characters. My only complaint is that there isn't more of it. I sincerely hope that you will write for this fandom again.

Awwwwwww

Hi there Rebecca! I’m here from the WA to read your entry for the WA’s 2016 Halloween Challenge! Mind you, I am completely fandom blind here but I don’t see that being that much of a problem. If I do get something wrong, feel free to correct me! That said, on with the review!

I really liked discovering how Dwayne had speech issues with the way you depicted it here: ((Out of habit, Dwayne pulled his notepad…)) It shows how this is something that is so familiar to him that he just inherently falls back to it whenever he wants to speak. He then remembers that he can verbally say what it is that he wants and does so, catching the members of his family by surprise. It does make me wonder more about why he was so silent for so long and whether there is a cause behind it. Traumatic events, physical handicap… I am sure that this answer lies in the canon material heh

I liked the connection between Dwayne and Olive to that of Holden Caulfield and his sister Phoebe. It’s kinda sad that Dwayne’s opinion of them is that ((he’s a loser who keeps getting kicked out of schools, and she’s so cute it’s almost nauseating and everyone loves her)) because it shows he doesn’t have much faith or confidence in himself. His sister clearly adores him and thinks he’s awesome but he just figures it’s because she must think like that (which, we don’t. We can decide our brothers are scourges heh) given he’s her only brother.

Dwayne’s desire to be the catcher for his sister was very sweet. He wanted to protect her from being laughed at by a bunch of cruel and thoughtless people when she doesn’t dance to their expectations. However, little Olive surprises him by dancing anyway because ((she didn’t care)) about them laughing at her. She had proven she didn’t ((need him to catch her at all)) because ((she jumped off that cliff and learned to fly)) on her own. There is a sense that as much as Dwayne is proud of his sister for having learned to fly on her own that he is envious that he didn’t get to be the catcher. He doesn’t see himself as anything other than a loser, someone that people look down upon because he is different, a “weirdo.”

Just a few quick pointer(s):

In the line here about his protanopia diagnosis: ((a complete absence of red, pink, and purple)), is there a word or bit of phrase missing after purple? Maybe something to do with the absence or lack of development in the cones that define color? It doesn’t feel complete and leaves me a bit wondering.

Here in this line: ((his copy of The Catcher in the Rye to show to people who ask…)), you have a bit of a tense issue. I think ask should be asked here since you aren’t showing the scene in question and mentioning it as something that has already passed.

In all this was a very sweet and charming piece that does a nice job of bringing classic literature into another setting in a way that doesn’t feel forced or which is satirical in nature. Excellent job!

Hi, rebecca-in-blue,

Congratulations on completing your entry for the WA Halloween Challenge. I'm fandom blind on this other than reading a quick synopsis of the movie.

This was a sweet story that goes against the grain of the oft-used Halloween horror theme. As such, it really works here as the focus is on Olive and Dwayne and how they turn out to be a lot like those in the book they are trying to imitate with their costumes.

I found it humorous that so many of the adults recognized the intent of their costumes. With all the superheroes and costumes-du-jour, I'd be surprised if I was able to guess anything! The ending where Olive sort of gives the invitation was really nice, too.

Well done and best wishes in the challenge.

Hiya, over from the WA Halloween challenge. And oh my goodness, I freaking loved this. I'm not fandom-blind, although it's been a while since I saw the film (and since I read Catcher in the Rye), but I found that didn't matter.

'Dwayne thought back to the Little Miss Sunshine pageant, and how he had tried to stop Olive from going onstage. He'd wanted to be the catcher in the rye, too. He'd seen his sister playing in her little field of rye, thinking that she had a chance at winning, and he didn't want her falling off that steep, familiar cliff of humiliation.'

I just can't even... I love the parallel you've drawn between the book and the film here. Really. It's lovely and it works perfectly.

Wonderful story and good luck wi the the challenge.

I'm not quite fandom-blind in this one, but as good as! I once read "The Catcher in the Rye", disliked it, and promptly forgot everything about it: I was probably the wrong nationality and the wrong age to have any sympathy for the protagonist. I certainly have no recollection of an adorable little sister. And "Little Miss Sunshine" I only know as a film title on a poster.

But you've done a really good job of making this accessible anyway without any fandom knowledge; the whole family dynamic is clear from about the first hundred words. And I love the image of the sulky teenager feeling a sort of weird pride that his good-as-gold little sister is equally capable of being a brat when it comes down to it :-)

It's pretty clear why Dwayne has a hard time at school if he's spent the last few years communicating only by pencil and paper... (the colour-blindness probably doesn't help either, even if nobody was actually aware of it at the time). And we get a really clear picture of him just from this first scene: teenage, moody, mute, hair over his eyes - and genuinely fond of his little sister. (And sharing a bedroom with his uncle, apparently, which can't be easy...)

I keep visualising the "red hunting hat" in this fic as being the sort of hard riding helmet people wear to go out hunting in this country (a rather surreal image), but I'm pretty sure it must be something different ;-p

I can certainly recognise the argument that starts when a completely unsuitable book gets a free pass because it's "great literature", and it's considered such a wonderful thing for an older brother to take any interest in a little girl at all :-p
And again, it's pretty clear just from the little bit you've written here that the adults in this family tend to be constantly at odds anyway.

"Olive didn't see how weird their family was, or what a loser he was, but she could see colors that Dwayne couldn't" - says more about her incurable optimism on both fronts, I think!
It's a neat division of labour to have Olive go and look for the red item while Dwayne looks for the blue; I'm not clear from this whether or not his family have always been aware of his colour-blindness even when he himself wasn't. (After all, it's difficult to know when there's something there that you're *not* seeing, just as there are apparently ultraviolet markings on white flowers that we humans are completely incapable of detecting because our eyes don't work in those wavelengths!)

And I like the way you convey Dwayne's non-verbal communication here (by conveniently having Olive interpret for the readers :-p)

Her reaction to the cigarette is very much young-child-absolute: all cigarettes bad, instant death as soon as you put one in your mouth :-)
(Unfortunately it's a viewpoint that doesn't stick once they work out that people around them aren't dying on the spot, which is the trouble with absolutes...)

"I don't want you to die, too" - is that a reference to the grandfather who gets mentioned later on?

To be honest, I'm amazed that a red hat and blue jacket are sufficient for everybody around them instantly to identify that they are supposed to be in fancy dress, let alone name the characters without any prior clue, but I dare say the novel is a lot more famous in America. (And Dwayne has his cynically drooping cigarette as a prop.)

It's a nice parallel between the book title and Dwayne's canonical attempts to sabotage(?) his little sister's performance. (I have to say that I don't remember Holden Caulfield as being the type of character to rescue anybody, but this is canon, so I may be doing him an injustice out of remembered dislike.)

To judge by the contents of Dwayne's bucket, he clearly believes in being *very* well prepared! (I like the detail of the precautionary plasters - gives us more of a sense that Olive is actually still very young, too.)

And some nice family dynamics at the end. Again, we get a real sense of Grandpa (who was evidently something of a reprobate) just from this brief exchange, and of the implied but never spelt-out affection between the siblings.

I think I noticed some missing words as I was going through:
"even as host tried to drag her offstage" - the host?
"tried to come to defense" - his/her/their defense?
"yanked the cigarette back from her and held too high for her to reach" - held it

"the hosted tried to drag her offstage" - this one is clearly a typo

"Dwayne shut the door behind her, laid down on the floor" - that looks like the classic mix-up between "to lie down" (past tense "lay") and "to lay [something] down" (past tense "laid")

"to show to people who ask who they're supposed to be" - this sounds a bit odd to me; I think the whole thing ought to be in the past tense like the surrounding narrative, i.e. "his bucket was filled with supplies [...] to show to people who asked who they were supposed to be"

I think I got a cavity, this was so sweet. But hey, that's a good thing. I like the combination of the film and the classic work of literature. It worked well in this setting. Oh, and the line "You can see blue so good, you don't even need to see all those other colors" just made me melt. Fantastic job! Good luck in the competition!

Best,
Zad
Critics United