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starlightmaker17 · 4 years

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So about Stolitz...

So I have been looking at the relationship on Blitzo and Stolas in Helluva Boss.... and I like to think it is a complex ship that could develop into a great one.

For starters, those who have seen the pilot can somewhat agree that Stolas was pretty creepy with that phone call- not exactly a good first impression (who cares- it’s hell). But upon further examination on Instagram and showings of episodes in progress, I have some things to mention.

Start with Stolas:

It is very clear that Stolas at least cares for the well being of Blitzo. Given, we don’t know of his relations and treatment to everyone else other than with his daughter and wife. But he seems to be in friendly terms with the IMP team and vise versa. He even buys them coffee. The guy can draw, garden, and is shown to be a very devoted father to Octavia (who shows typical teenager behavior- just as loving but also seeming embarrassed). On top of that he has dorky moments, but this could easily be due to loneliness or lack of social skills. It explains why he didn’t have an Instagram account until his daughter convinced him to doing it- he likely has no friends (his wife’s status is yet to be determined). He barely gets along with some Overlords. He is morally grey on some situations- given he is a prince of hell (but Charlie is princess and she is her own case). He really could be just a lonely soul forced into an arranged marriage and didn’t have anyone to talk to- until he came upon Blitzo.

Now, onto Blitzo:

The guy has lots of issues going on with him, down to the point of obsessively intruding his coworkers’ personal lives and overspending their business fundings without thinking of the consequences. The guy’s only true hobby is stalking them or obsessing over his horse, or his business. Based on little background we have, it is implied that Blitzo and his sisters worked in a circus at some point and had a less than supportive dad. There was little to no mention of the mother being involved, so this creates a scenario where if the parents are not involved enough in a child’s life, then that child will look for that attention elsewhere. Hence, the circus. This certainly explains the over-the-top behavior he exhibits in trying to promote his business, even when it is slowing down. Furthermore, because he had little family involvement and memories, he tries to compensate that by comparing his business as his family - it’s all he most likely has, and will do whatever it takes to keep it running. Is it sane? Not at all- but it shows he cares at least about his employees, even if they treat him like garbage or a nuisance at times. He even lets Loona get away with inappropriate behavior and misconduct. So long as he gets the attention, he does not care.

This leads to him meeting Stolas. The guy has the money, a means to keep his business going, and links that could get him A LOT OF ATTENTION. Blitzo already demonstrated no sense of chain in command etiquette, so this probably got Stolas’ attention as he’s most likely treated like a prince all the time. It is unknown how their affair started, but perhaps they made a business deal (considering how little Stolas seems to care how Blitzo uses the grimoire other than getting caught). Literally, Stolas had no reason to give an imp a powerful family heirloom unless there was something in it for him - maybe he was doing it for the sake of the thrill and ease his boredom. He would get into potential trouble with the Royal Family regardless.

Maybe something happened to where Stolas kept getting sincere (if a bit blunt) treatment from Blitzo and Blitzo finally got attention from someone important. This developed a bond that became rocky - Blitzo got his business running, and Stolas has someone interested in talking to him as an equal. Over time, the more the business began to plummet, the more Blitzo went to schmooze Stolas for more investment. This may make Stolas think Blitzo became more interested in him as a person rather than as a business investor, and at some point their affair became more frequent. Soon enough, it gets to point Blitzo becomes uncomfortable at the sudden closeness they develop and tries to keep his distance, and Stolas tries to woo him back. It’s literally a game of tug-o-war: Blitzo goes to him for help but pulls back when he finishes business, and at that point Stolas keeps pursuing someone who seems to care for him as a person and not as a royal. It’s possible that Blitzo may be aware that Stolas is falling for him, and is conflicted of his own feelings since he primarily went to Stolas to save a business he treasured more than anything else. Meanwhile, Stolas tries to keep that bond strong, even instigating more communication despite the imp’s cold shoulder.

It’s not uncommon that a person who wants love is hesitant to accept it - they’ve been hurt/deserted before, so it could happen again. In Blitzo’s mind, he didn’t plan to have an ongoing affair- it most likely just happened on a whim. He has no dating history (that we know of) and came from an emotionally strained childhood so he has no healthy means of knowing how to love properly. It’s even possible he only accepts Stolas’ advances out of guilt or obligation, but that doesn’t mean he is not capable of learning to accept it and possibly returning it.

As for Stolas, he may be too obsessed having that one person finally seeming to understand him on an even level. This can be dangerous and sometimes delusional, as there is a reason why it’s called rose-tinted glasses or the grass-is-greener syndrome. He at least knows boundaries when they are needed, but lacks emotional and social intelligence. But same applies to Blitzo as well- they are being silly dorks.

We know very little of their lifestyles outside of work and business, but it seems they like to hang out together and even enjoy some of their get-togethers. It is also heavily implied that Blitzo does not like being bribed into sex for favors (which is sort of hypocritical, considering that’s what probably started the affair) and rather wants to have a relationship that isn’t too casual, but committed. Despite being married, Stolas seems to agree on this on the emotional concept. He wants to be committed to someone on his own terms, not that out of obligation.

Their needs match each other almost very well. Blitzo wants love, Stolas is willing to give it. Blitzo wants attention, Stolas gives it (more than needed sometimes). Stolas wants honesty, Blitzo gives it. Stolas has real expectations, Blitzo can work on that. Stolas doesn’t like being lonely, Blitzo can relate.

So how would I rate this ship?

8/10.

I can see great potential in it now, but it depends how it flows from here on out. We haven’t really seen them in arguments besides Blitzo being caught so that’s another factor needed. There’s too little details on them still so we’ll need to wait to see what happens.

Regardless, I stand by Vivzie’s decision 100%. This is her world and creation - I only implement my thoughts about it.

#helluva boss #stolas #blitzo #stolitz #helluva boss stolas #helluva boss blitzo #helluva boss stolitz

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finnicks · 4 years

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fandom/shipping prompt: bellamy & clarke

This is no doubt going to be a very unpopular opinion.

I used to really, really, really like Bellamy and Clarke circa seasons 1 and 2. I felt that they had great, sizzling chemistry; they worked so well together when they were sharing scenes and plots. Clarke encouraged Bellamy to calm down and slow down and trust other people while Bellamy encouraged Clarke to be brave and make harder decisions.

I used to like it as a romantic ship, but then season 2 happened where Clarke disregarded the importance of Bellamy’s life (a boy who had already shown signs of being someone who wore death very heavily upon himself) and lied to him about Octavia (and never seemed to apologise for it; while the show never delved into it, technically Octavia and Bellamy shouldn’t know how siblings function as they never had an example of it, so their co-dependency is one that’s borderline toxic and they got their identity from being related to one another), she took a step above Bellamy. The moment she let Lexa wiggle into her ear with opinions about leadership, Clarke and Bellamy stopped being on an even playing field.

(A side note: It would have been very interesting if we saw Lexa's leadership clash with Clarke's more than it did so. I find Grounder culture, while it has heavy racist undertones, very interesting and it deserved to be fleshed out even further. I know we sort of got this between Lexa and Clarke, but I wish that we had seen more discussions, more political debates. I wish we didn't see White people bring guns to the table and wave them around and close their earholes to the (technically) POC political group who was trying to express to them that this was their way of living. Do I think Clarke ever understood why a little girl back in season 1 had tattoos to indicate her kills? No.)

This would have been interesting if the narrative actually acknowledged Bellamy as a leader himself. It did in the beginning, but he lost his footing and the narrative pushed Bellamy to stand on a step lower to its Queen Clarke. No one will ever be able to convince me that Bellamy was ever considered on the same footing as her post-season 2 given how his season 3 storyline developed and how he lost quite a lot of his own spark and guts as the story developed.

I personally felt like their chemistry was damaged significantly by Clarke’s decisions and the way the narrative framed other characters expressing their frustration with Clarke (whose decisions were sometimes very off-base and incredibly dangerous) as wrong when they were right. While Bellamy did get to express his resentment towards Clarke, Clarke continues to drag Bellamy along and use him.

I feel like what was once a previously great relationship turned incredibly toxic. Bellamy became a foot soldier. The narrative itself demoted Bellamy from “king” to “knight”. Bellamy lost his development for the sake of Clarke. She never learns from her mistakes; the entire show is basically a love note to Clarke’s horrible decisions. And while that’s realistic—our heroine can make bad decisions—she never changes from it.

I also feel like it’s a big problem when your leading man who was originally framed as being an emotional human being (and the story actually honoured those emotions) can no longer express his feelings. Bellamy, who started out in season 1 as Clarke’s opposite, someone who was passionate and incredibly outspoken and someone who was never afraid to call Clarke out, becomes a lap dog for no other purpose than to stand up for Clarke when all the other characters are against her. No one can convince me that Bellamy’s arc soured in the later seasons; his character, the person he was, the person that I liked so much had died in the season 2 finale. He lost his spark.

Bellamy was my favourite character for years. And I no longer recognise him when I see later season stuff. That’s a problem. (Clarke I can recognise because she’s still making decisions on behalf of everyone without actually talking to those people. Clarke is a self-imposed martyr; no one asked her to make decisions for them, but she takes it upon herself and never learns her goddamn lesson. It started to become a problem for me in season 3 and beyond because of how her decisions and lack of care often saw Raven, who has a disability, consistently used and put in danger. Raven was often framed as being mean to Clarke for calling out her bullshit. I am a Raven stan, and even I can tell you Raven was cruel sometimes. But nothing will ever compare to Clarke's cruelty. It's not kind nor is it heroic to consistently make decisions for others and then bail because "It's my burden to bear". Clarke continuously martyrises herself and expects Bellamy to also support that self-imposed narrative.)

While some of the Bellarke fandom is super sweet (the people who read my fics in the past and continue to read them now made me feel very welcome when I dipped my toes in this side of the fandom), the louder pockets of this fandom are incredibly toxic. (Sending death threats to an actress because she is playing a romantic storyline out with the character of Bellamy Blake is not okay. Becho made more sense as a canon ship at the time than Bellarke ever did. No amount of story plot point meta justifying will ever convince me of this because of fandom's actions towards an actress speaks a lot louder than meta.) The way canon developed (season 3 onward was atrocious) and the way fandom carried on about things was a little too hard for me to ignore, which is why I even struggle to watch this show and write from the early seasons. The Bellamy and Clarke I love are in seasons 1-2. I don’t recognise who these people are beyond that.

Send me a ship and I’ll give you my (brutally) honest opinion on it

#my opinions #anti bellarke #anti clarke griffin #the 100 #sorry anon; I USED TO REALLY LOVE THEM #Anonymous #my meta #HERE IS MY 100 RANT THAT I'VE BEEN HOLDING IN FOR YEARS

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ravenkruposts · 3 years

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hi!! i love hearing about fanfics that other people enjoy, so do you have any murven fic recs? <3

Hello!! I love giving fic recs, so here are a few I don't think I've mentioned before:

make my wish come true by ProbablyVoldemort (@probably-voldemort on Tumblr)

"It's been ten years since the Delinquents went off air, so clearly it's time for a reunion in the form of a Christmas special. Yeah, it sounded like bullshit to Murphy, too, but he hadn't seen the crew since Raven's wedding a few years back, and he'd managed to convince Kane that his character should have a dog, so there was no way it could be all bad. Right?"

Quick Summary: Murphy, Raven, Finn, Clarke, Bellamy, and Octavia were all on an extremely popular show when they were tweens/teens, and have now been brought back together after many years to film a reunion movie.

My Notes: I love this fic so flocking much please read it. It has a fantastic Murven plotline, lots of details added in about the other characters, and has such an interesting premise!

i saw her for the first time (and i was lonely for the last time) by danahscott

When John Murphy's father told him that he can time travel, he feared that Alex's illness was getting the best of him -- turns out he was right. Murphy is able to get everything he wants and more; that is, until time catches up with his dead.

Or, Murphy/Raven About Time AU!

Quick Summary: Based off a movie, but you don't need to have seen it to understand the premise. Basically Murphy can travel back in time and replay countless lives, and then... he falls in love with Raven!! Features a beautifully portrayed relationship between Murphy and his dad.

My Notes: This fic is phenomenal. It's tightly plotted and all the relationships and friendships are so well-written.

the one where Raven gets restless by ilya

Oh well, free booze is always good. And she was sure some would have said she was indulging in it a bit much.

So much, in fact, that she was starting to find Murphy attractive.

Quick Summary: A peaceful post-s2 AU. Raven gets drunk and realizes that she might actually be a little in love with Murphy.

My Notes: I have this one saved purely for THE FLUFF. If your Murven heart is hurting, I guarantee this fic will put a smile on your face.

fire up hearts that have grown up cold by angel_deux

Raven starts intercepting Clarke's radio calls about five months in, and she makes the decision to not tell Bellamy. It changes everything.

Raven fixes the radio after a few years, and Clarke can talk to them again.

Echo tells Murphy that Raven thinks an episode of this random sitcom is romantic. It involves anniversaries and tears and proposals and cake, and Murphy kind of loses it when he realizes that he's never provided Raven with any of that.

Quick Summary: They're able to hear Clarke's radio calls while still on the Ring.

My Notes: This does have quite heavy Bellarke, though Murven is still the main focus. I love this fic mostly cause of the AMAZING characterizations. The author's really fleshed out the supporting characters (my fave is Echo!!), and their different interactions with each other are absolutely hilarious.

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree by Amethyzt (@jarleene on Tumblr)

“Do you excuse a lot of his behavior because of his age?”

Raven jumps in before Murphy can. “What do you mean ‘his behavior’?”

Kayleigh clasps her hands together on the desk. “Eli is a very smart kid—there’s no doubt about that. He’s very far ahead the others in the class when it comes to the STEM courses, and he’s a fairly good reader for his age as well. But, as you could probably guess from my notes in his agenda, he has issues behaving in class and following instruction.”

Or, the one where Murphy and Raven have a gifted six-year-old son who becomes the bane of his teacher's existence for reasons Raven and Murphy can't, and most importantly don't, care to understand.

Quick Summary: Murven, at a parent-teacher conference.

My Notes: This fic gives me all the feels. I'm a sucker for established relationships, and Murven's relationship with their son is so sweet.

Hope you liked my reccomendations!

#murven #murven fanfiction #fic recs #fanfiction recommendation #the 100 #hopskipaway #john murphy #raven reyes

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scorpiashugs · 4 years

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Thoughts on Catra scratching Octavia’s eye:

So as we know in “Boy’s Night Out”, Force Captain Octavia reveals that Catra scratched her eye out when they were kids.

“Oh, this? Catra scratched it out when she was six.” (17:27, Season 4, Ep. 8)

This isn’t the only time we hear or see Catra lashing out at someone when she is young—in particularly violent or harsh ways. In a flashback, it is revealed that she hit Lonnie. She also hits Adora, who is her closest friend.

When I watched the scene with Octavia for the first time my reaction was, “Oh. Shit. Catra literally gauged her eye out?!?!” There were parts of me that started becoming uncomfortable with Catra’s tendencies and history. However, when I really started to think about it, there are two major points that help me understand Catra as a character who undergoes SERIOUS mental and emotional change.

1. Catra was SIX YEARS OLD. By this I mean, six year olds do stupid shit all the time. I’m a preschool teacher over the summer and a middle school English teacher during the school year. If there is anything I have learned from dealing with difficult age groups it is that they are still learning. They don’t know how to react in situations and often get out of control. I have seen six year olds throw chairs and scream and cry until they are turning blue. For the most part, even children in stable environments need to learn emotional intelligence and control—from peers, parents, and teachers. In Catra’s situation, she has neither stability or someone to help guide her other than Adora who is still a child herself.

2. The expectations of her environment are built around physicality. The Fright Zone is a violent place. They are training to be soldiers and any punishment dished out is manipulative or physical. We see Shadow Weaver inflict physical pain on Catra when she doesn’t do what Shadow Weaver wants her to. It’s is more than reasonable to understand why Catra lashes out in similar fashion.

I think, when you really look at it, the crazy part is that Adora didn’t turn out the same way. In the flashbacks she still seems level headed. I think Adora is one reason Catra sees any hope for redemption because Catra has been shown kindness and support from at least someone in her life, even if it’s someone her own age.

(No, I am not saying physical violence is okay. No, I am not saying typical six year olds permanently injure people. BUT I AM saying that kids need patience and understanding to grow into the people they have the potential to be.)

#spop #catra #she ra #shera #catradora #boys night out #season 4 #spop rewatch #spop s4 #octavia #force captain #adora #fright zone #shadow weaver

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grigori77 · 4 years

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2020 in Movies - My Top 30 Fave Movies (Part 2)

20. ONWARD – Disney and Pixar’s best digitally animated family feature of 2020 (beating the admittedly impressive Soul to the punch) clearly has a love of fantasy roleplay games like Dungeons & Dragons, its quirky modern-day AU take populated by fantastical races and creatures seemingly tailor-made for the geek crowd … needless to say, me and many of my friends absolutely loved it. That doesn’t mean that the classic Disney ideals of love, family and believing in yourself have been side-lined in favour of fan-service – this is as heartfelt, affecting and tearful as their previous standouts, albeit with plenty of literal magic added to the metaphorical kind. The central premise is a clever one – once upon a time, magic was commonplace, but over the years technology came along to make life easier, so that in the present day the various races (elves, centaurs, fauns, pixies, goblins and trolls among others) get along fine without it. Then timid elf Ian Lightfoot (Tom Holland) receives a wizard’s staff for his sixteenth birthday, a bequeathed gift from his father, who died before he was born, with instructions for a spell that could bring him back to life for one whole day. Encouraged by his brash, over-confident wannabe adventurer elder brother Barley (Chris Pratt), Ian tries it out, only for the spell to backfire, leaving them with the animated bottom half of their father and just 24 hours to find a means to restore the rest of him before time runs out. Cue an “epic quest” … needless to say, this is another top-notch offering from the original masters of the craft, a fun, affecting and thoroughly infectious family-friendly romp with a winning sense of humour and inspired, flawless world-building. Holland and Pratt are both fantastic, their instantly believable, ill-at-ease little/big brother chemistry effortlessly driving the story through its ingenious paces, and the ensuing emotional fireworks are hilarious and heart-breaking in equal measure, while there’s typically excellent support from Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Elaine from Seinfeld) as Ian and Barley’s put-upon but supportive mum, Laurel, Octavia Spencer as once-mighty adventurer-turned-restaurateur “Corey” the Manticore and Mel Rodriguez (Getting On, The Last Man On Earth) as overbearing centaur cop (and Laurel’s new boyfriend) Colt Bronco. The film marks the sophomore feature gig for Dan Scanlon, who debuted with 2013’s sequel Monsters University, and while that was enjoyable enough I ultimately found it non-essential – no such verdict can be levelled against THIS film, the writer-director delivering magnificently in all categories, while the animation team have outdone themselves in every scene, from the exquisite environments and character/creature designs to some fantastic (and frequently delightfully bonkers) set-pieces, while there’s a veritable riot of brilliant RPG in-jokes to delight geekier viewers (gelatinous cube! XD). Massive, unadulterated fun, frequently hilarious and absolutely BURSTING with Disney’s trademark heart, this was ALMOST my animated feature of the year. More on that later …

19. THE GENTLEMEN – Guy Ritchie’s been having a rough time with his last few movies (The Man From UNCLE didn’t do too bad but it wasn’t exactly a hit and was largely overlooked or simply ignored, while intended franchise-starter King Arthur: Legend of the Sword was largely derided and suffered badly on release, dying a quick death financially – it’s a shame on both counts, because I really liked them), so it’s nice to see him having some proper success with his latest, even if he has basically reverted to type to do it. Still, when his newest London gangster flick is THIS GOOD it seems churlish to quibble – this really is what he does best, bringing together a collection of colourful geezers and shaking up their status quo, then standing back and letting us enjoy the bloody, expletive-riddled results. This particularly motley crew is another winning selection, led by Matthew McConaughey as ruthlessly successful cannabis baron Mickey Pearson, who’s looking to retire from the game by selling off his massive and highly lucrative enterprise for a most tidy sum (some $400,000,000 to be precise) to up-and-coming fellow American ex-pat Matthew Berger (Succession’s Jeremy Strong, oozing sleazy charm), only for local Chinese triad Dry Eye (Crazy Rich Asians’ Henry Golding, chewing the scenery with enthusiasm) to start throwing spanners into the works with the intention of nabbing the deal for himself for a significant discount. Needless to say Mickey’s not about to let that happen … McConaughey is ON FIRE here, the best he’s been since Dallas Buyers Club in my opinion, clearly having great fun sinking his teeth into this rich character and Ritchie’s typically sparkling, razor-witted dialogue, and he’s ably supported by a quality ensemble cast, particularly co-star Charlie Hunnam as Mickey’s ice-cold, steel-nerved right-hand-man Raymond Smith, Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery as his classy, strong-willed wife Rosalind, Colin Farrell as a wise-cracking, quietly exasperated MMA trainer and small-time hood simply known as the Coach (who gets many of the film’s best lines), and, most notably, Hugh Grant as the film’s nominal narrator, thoroughly morally bankrupt private investigator Fletcher, who consistently steals the film. This is Guy Ritchie at his very best – a twisty rug-puller of a plot that constantly leaves you guessing, brilliantly observed and richly drawn characters you can’t help loving in spite of the fact there’s not a single hero among them, a deliciously unapologetic, politically incorrect sense of humour and a killer soundtrack. Getting the cinematic year off to a phenomenal start, it’s EASILY Ritchie’s best film since Sherlock Holmes, and a strong call-back to the heady days of Snatch (STILL my favourite) and Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels. Here’s hoping he’s on a roll again, eh?

18. SPONTANEOUS – one of the year’s biggest under-the-radar surprise hits for me was one which I actually might not have caught if things had been a little more normal and ordered. Thankfully with all the lockdown and cinematic shutdown bollocks going on, this fantastically subversive and deeply satirical indie teen comedy horror came along at the perfect time, and I completely flipped out over it. Now those who know me know I don’t tend to gravitate towards teen cinema, but like all those other exceptions I’ve loved over the years, this one had a brilliantly compulsive hook I just couldn’t turn down – small-town high-schooler Mara (Knives Out and Netflix’ Cursed’s Katherine Langford) is your typical cool outsider kid, smart, snarky and just putting up with the scene until she can graduate and get as far away as possible … until one day in her senior year one of her classmates just inexplicably explodes. Like her peers, she’s shocked and she mourns, then starts to move on … until it happens again. As the death toll among the senior class begins to mount, it becomes clear something weird is going on, but Mara has other things on her mind because the crisis has, for her, had an unexpected benefit – without it she wouldn’t have fallen in love with like-minded oddball new kid Dylan (Lean On Pete and Words On Bathroom Walls’ Charlie Plummer). The future’s looking bright, but only if they can both live to see it … this is a wickedly intelligent film, powered by a skilfully executed script and a wonderfully likeable young cast who consistently steer their characters around the potential cliched pitfalls of this kind of cinema, while debuting writer-director Brian Duffield (already a rising star thanks to scripts for Underwater, The Babysitter and blacklist darling Jane Got a Gun among others) show he’s got as much talent and flair for crafting truly inspired cinema as he has for thinking it up in the first place, delivering some impressively offbeat set-pieces and several neat twists you frequently don’t see coming ahead of time. Langford and Plummer as a sassy, spicy pair who are easy to root for without ever getting cloying or sweet, while there’s glowing support from the likes of Hayley Law (Rioverdale, Altered Carbon, The New Romantic) as Mara’s best friend Tess, Piper Perabo and Transparent’s Rob Huebel as her increasingly concerned parents, and Insecure’s Yvonne Orji as Agent Rosetti, the beleaguered government employee sent to spearhead the investigation into exactly what’s happening to these kids. Quirky, offbeat and endlessly inventive, this is one of those interesting instances where I’m glad they pushed the horror elements into the background so we could concentrate on the comedy, but more importantly these wonderfully well-realised and vital characters – there are some skilfully executed shocks, but far more deep belly laughs, and there’s bucketloads of heart to eclipse the gore. Another winning debut from a talent I intend to watch with great interest in the future.

17. HAMILTON – arriving just as Black Lives Matter reached fever-pitch levels, this feature presentation of the runaway Broadway musical smash-hit could not have been better timed. Shot over three nights during the show’s 2016 run with the original cast and cut together with specially created “setup shots”, it’s an immersive experience that at once puts you right in amongst the audience (at times almost a character themselves, never seen but DEFINITELY heard) but also lets you experience the action up close. And what action – it’s an incredible show, a thoroughly fascinating piece of work that reads like something very staid and proper on paper (an all-encompassing biographical account of the life and times of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton) but, in execution, becomes something very different and EXTREMELY vital. The execution certainly couldn’t be further from the usual period biopic fare this kind of historical subject matter usually gets (although in the face of recent high quality revisionist takes like Marie Antoinette, The Great and Tesla it’s not SO surprising), while the cast is not at all what you’d expect – with very few notable exceptions the cast is almost entirely people of colour, despite the fact that the real life individuals they’re playing were all very white indeed. Every single one of them is also an absolute revelation – the show’s writer-composer Lin-Manuel Miranda (already riding high on the success of In the Heights) carries the central role of Hamilton with effortless charm and raw star power, Leslie Odom Jr. (Smash, Murder On the Orient Express) is duplicitously complex as his constant nemesis Aaron Burr, Christopher Jackson (In the Heights, Moana, Bull) oozes integrity and nobility as his mentor and friend George Washington, Phillipa Soo is sweet and classy as his wife Eliza while Renée Elise Goldsberry (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Jacks, Altered Carbon) is fiery and statuesque as her sister Angelica Schuyler (the one who got away), and Jonathan Groff (Mindhunter) consistently steals every scene he’s in as fiendish yet childish fan favourite King George III, but the show (and the film) ultimately belongs to veritable powerhouse Daveed Diggs (Blindspotting, The Good Lord Bird) in a spectacular duel role, starting subtly but gaining scene-stealing momentum as French Revolutionary Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, before EXPLODING onto the stage in the second half as indomitable third American President Thomas Jefferson. Not having seen the stage show, I was taken completely by surprise by this, revelling in its revisionist genius and offbeat, quirky hip-hop charm, spellbound by the skilful ease with which is takes the sometimes quite dull historical fact and skews it into something consistently entertaining and absorbing, transported by the catchy earworm musical numbers and thoroughly tickled by the delightfully cheeky sense of humour strung throughout (at least when I wasn’t having my heart broken by moments of raw dramatic power). Altogether it’s a pretty unique cinematic experience I wish I could have actually gotten to see on the big screen, and one I’ve consistently recommended to all my friends, even the ones who don’t usually like musicals. As far as I’m concerned it doesn’t need a proper Les Misérables style screen adaptation – this is about as perfect a presentation as the show could possibly hope for.

16. SPUTNIK – summer’s horror highlight (despite SERIOUSLY tough competition) was a guaranteed sleeper hit that I almost missed entirely, stumbling across the trailer one day on YouTube and getting bowled over by its potential, prompting me to hunt it down by any means necessary. The feature debut of Russian director Egor Abramenko, this first contact sci-fi chiller is about as far from E.T. as it’s possible to get, sharing some of the same DNA as Carpenter’s The Thing but proudly carving its own path with consummate skill and definitely signalling great things to come from its brand new helmer and relative unknown screenwriters Oleg Malovichko and Andrei Zolotarev. Oksana Akinshina (probably best known in the West for her powerful climactic cameo in The Bourne Supremacy) is the beating heart of the film as neurophysiologist Tatyana Yuryevna Klimova, brought in to aid in the investigation in the Russian wilderness circa 1983 after an orbital research mission goes horribly wrong. One of the cosmonauts dies horribly, while the other, Konstantin (The Duelist’s Pyotr Fyodorov) seems unharmed, but it quickly becomes clear that he’s now the host for something decidedly extraterrestrial and potentially terrifying, and as Tatyana becomes more deeply embroiled in her assignment she comes to realise that her superiors, particularly mysterious Red Army project leader Colonel Semiradov (The PyraMMMid’s Fyodor Bondarchuk), have far more insidious plans for Konstantin and his new “friend” than she could ever imagine. This is about as dark, intense and nightmarish as this particular sub-genre gets, a magnificently icky body horror that slowly builds its tension as we’re gradually exposed to the various truths and the awful gravity of the situation slowly reveals itself, punctuated by skilfully executed shocks and some particularly horrifying moments when the evils inflicted by the humans in charge prove far worse than anything the alien can do, while the ridiculously talented writers have a field day pulling the rug out from under us again and again, never going for the obvious twist and keeping us guessing right to the devastating ending, while the beautifully crafted digital creature effects are nothing short of astonishing and thoroughly creepy. Akinshina dominates the film with her unbridled grace, vulnerability and integrity, the relationship that develops between Tatyana and Konstantin (Fyodorov delivering a beautifully understated turn belying deep inner turmoil) feeling realistically earned as it goes from tentatively wary to tragically bittersweet, while Bondarchuk invests the Colonel with a nuanced air of tarnished authority and restrained brutality that made him one of my top screen villains for the year. One of 2020’s great sleeper hits, I can’t speak of this film highly enough – it’s a genuine revelation, an instant classic for whom I’ll sing its praises for years to come, and I wish enormous future success to all the creative talents involved.

15. THE INVISIBLE MAN – looks like third time’s a charm for Leigh Whannell, writer-director of my ALMOST horror movie of the year (more on that later) – while he’s had immense success as a horror writer over the years (co-creator of both the Saw and Insidious franchises), as a director his first two features haven’t exactly set the world alight, with debut Insidious: Chapter III garnering similar takes to the rest of the series but ultimately turning out to be a bit of a damp squib quality-wise, while his second feature Upgrade was a stone-cold masterpiece that was (rightly) EXTREMELY well received critically, but ultimately snuck in under the radar and has remained a stubbornly hidden gem since. No such problems with his third feature, though – his latest collaboration with producer Jason Blum and the insanely lucrative Blumhouse Pictures has proven a massive hit both financially AND with reviewers, and deservedly so. Having given up on trying to create a shared cinematic universe inhabited by their classic monsters, Universal resolved to concentrate on standalones to showcase their elite properties, and their first try is a rousing success, Whannell bringing HG Wells’ dark and devious human monster smack into the 21st Century as only he can. The result is a surprisingly subtle piece of work, much more a lethally precise exercise in cinematic sleight of hand and extraordinary acting than flashy visual effects, strictly adhering to the Blumhouse credo of maximum returns for minimum bucks as the story is stripped down to its bare essentials and allowed to play out without any unnecessary weight. The Handmaid’s Tale’s Elizabeth Moss once again confirms what a masterful actress she is as she brings all her performing weapons to bear in the role of Cecelia “Cee” Kass, the cloistered wife of affluent but monstrously abusive optics pioneer Aidan Griffin (Netflix’ The Haunting of Hill House’s Oliver Jackson-Cohen), who escapes his clutches in the furiously tense opening sequence and goes to ground with the help of her closest childhood friend, San Francisco cop James Lanier (Leverage’s Aldis Hodge) and his teenage daughter Sydney (A Wrinkle in Time’s Storm Reid). Two weeks later, Aidan commits suicide, leaving Cee with a fortune to start her life over (with the proviso that she’s never ruled mentally incompetent), but as she tries to find her way in the world again little things start going wrong for her, and she begins to question if there might be something insidious going on. As her nerves start to unravel, she begins to suspect that Aidan is still alive, still very much in her life, fiendishly toying with her and her friends, but no-one can see him. Whannell plays her paranoia up for all it’s worth, skilfully teasing out the scares so that, just like her friends, we begin to wonder if it might all be in her head after all, before a spectacular mid-movie reveal throws the switch into high gear and the true threat becomes clear. The lion’s share of the film’s immense success must of course go to Moss – her performance is BEYOND a revelation, a blistering career best that totally powers the whole enterprise, and it goes without saying that she’s the best thing in this. Even so, she has sterling support from Hodge and Reid, as well as Love Child’s Harriet Dyer as Cee’s estranged big sister Emily and Wonderland’s Michael Dorman as Adrian’s slimy, spineless lawyer brother Tom, and, while he doesn’t have much actual (ahem) “screen time”, Jackson-Cohen delivers a fantastically icy, subtly malevolent turn which casts a large “shadow” over the film. This is one of my very favourite Blumhouse films, a pitch-perfect psychological chiller that keeps the tension cranked up unbearably tight and never lets go, Whannell once again displaying uncanny skill with expert jump-scares, knuckle-whitening chills and a truly astounding standout set-piece that easily goes down as one of the top action sequences of 2020. Undoubtedly the best version of Wells’ story to date, this goes a long way in repairing the damage of Universal’s abortive “Dark Universe” efforts, as well as showcasing a filmmaking master at the very height of his talents.

14. EXTRACTION – the Coronavirus certainly has threw a massive spanner in the works of the year’s cinematic calendar – among many other casualties to the blockbuster shunt, the latest (and most long-awaited) MCU movie, Black Widow, should have opened to further record-breaking box office success at the end of spring, but instead the theatres were all closed and virtually all the heavyweights were pushed back or shelved indefinitely. Thank God, then, for the streaming services, particularly Hulu, Amazon and Netflix, the latter of which provided a perfect movie for us to see through the key transition into the summer blockbuster season, an explosively flashy big budget action thriller ushered in by MCU alumni the Russo Brothers (who produced and co-wrote this adaptation of Ciudad, a graphic novel that Joe Russo co-created with Ande Parks and Fernando Leon Gonzalez) and barely able to contain the sheer star-power wattage of its lead, Thor himself. Chris Hemsworth plays Tyler Rake, a former Australian SAS operative who hires out his services to an extraction operation under the command of mercenary Nik Khan (The Patience Stone’s Golshifteh Farahani), brought in to liberate Ovi Mahajan (Rudhraksh Jaiswal in his first major role), the pre-teen son of incarcerated Indian crime lord Ovi Sr. (Pankaj Tripathi), who has been abducted by Bangladeshi rival Amir Asif (Priyanshu Painyuli). The rescue itself goes perfectly, but when the time comes for the hand-off the team is double-crossed and Tyler is left stranded in the middle of Dhaka with no choice but to keep Ovi alive as every corrupt cop and street gang in the city closes in around them. This is the feature debut of Sam Hargrave, the latest stuntman to try his hand at directing, so he certainly knows his way around an action set-piece, and the result is a thoroughly breathless adrenaline rush of a film, bursting at the seams with spectacular fights, gun battles and car chases, dominated by a stunning sustained sequence that plays out in one long shot, guaranteed to leave jaws lying on the floor. Not that there should be any surprise – Hargrave cut his teeth as a stunt coordinator for the Russos on Captain America: Civil War and their Avengers films. That said, he displays strong talent for the quieter disciplines of filmmaking too, delivering quality character development and drawing out consistently noteworthy performances from his cast. Of course, Hemsworth can do the action stuff in his sleep, but there’s a lot more to Tyler than just his muscle, the MCU veteran investing him with real wounded vulnerability and a tragic fatalism which colours every scene, while Jaiswal is exceptional throughout, showing plenty of promise for the future, and there’s strong support from Farahani and Painyuli, as well as Stranger Things’ David Harbour as world-weary retired merc Gaspard, and a particularly impressive, muscular turn from Randeep Hooda (Once Upon a Time in Mumbai) as Saju, a former Para and Ovi’s bodyguard, who’s determined to take possession of the boy himself, even if he has to go through Tyler to get him. This is action cinema that really deserves to be seen on the big screen – I watched it twice in a week and would happily have paid for two trips to the cinema for it if I could have. As we looked down the barrel of a summer season largely devoid of blockbuster fare, I couldn’t recommend this enough. Thank the gods for Netflix …

13. THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 – although it’s definitely a film that really benefitted enormously from releasing on Netflix during the various lockdowns, this was one of the blessed few I actually got to see during one of the UK’s frustratingly rare lulls when cinemas were actually OPEN. Rather perversely it therefore became one of my favourite cinematic experiences of 2020, but then I’m just as much a fan of well-made cerebral films as I am of the big, immersive blockbuster EXPERIENCES, so this probably still would have been a standout in a normal year. Certainly if this was a purely CRITICAL list for the year this probably would have placed high in the Top Ten … Aaron Sorkin is a writer whose work I have ardently admired ever since he went from esteemed playwright to in-demand talent for both the big screen AND the small with A Few Good Men, and TTOTC7 is just another in a long line of consistently impressive, flawlessly written works rife with addictive quickfire dialogue, beautifully observed characters and rewardingly propulsive narrative storytelling (therefore resting comfortably amongst the well-respected likes of The West Wing, Charlie Wilson’s War, Moneyball and The Social Network). It also marks his second feature as a director (after fascinating and incendiary debut Molly’s Game), and once again he’s gone for true story over fiction, tackling the still controversial subject of the infamous 1968 trial of the “ringleaders” of the infamous riots which marred Chicago’s Diplomatic National Convention five months earlier, in which thousands of hippies and college students protesting the Vietnam War clashed with police. Spurred on by the newly-instated Presidential Administration of Richard Nixon to make some examples, hungry up-and-coming prosecutor Richard Schultz (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is confident in his case, while the Seven – who include respected and astute student activist Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne) and confrontational counterculture firebrands Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen) and Jerry Rubin (Succession’s Jeremy Strong) – are the clear underdogs. They’re a divided bunch (particularly Hayden and Hoffman, who never mince their words about what little regard they hold for each other), and they’re up against the combined might of the U.S. Government, while all they have on their side is pro-bono lawyer and civil rights activist William Kunstler (Mark Rylance), who’s sharp, driven and thoroughly committed to the cause but clearly massively outmatched … not to mention the fact that the judge presiding over the case is Julius Hoffman (Frank Langella), a fierce and uncompromising conservative who’s clearly 100% on the Administration’s side, and who might in fact be stark raving mad (he also frequently goes to great lengths to make it clear to all concerned that he is NOT related to Abbie). Much as we’ve come to expect from Sorkin, this is cinema of grand ideals and strong characters, not big spectacle and hard action, and all the better for it – he’s proved time and again that he’s one of the very best creative minds in Hollywood when it comes to intelligent, thought-provoking and engrossing thinking-man’s entertainment, and this is pure par for the course, keeping us glued to the screen from the skilfully-executed whirlwind introductory montage to the powerfully cathartic climax, and every varied and brilliant scene in-between. This is heady stuff, focusing on what’s still an extremely thorny issue made all the more urgently relevant and timely given what was (and still is) going on in American politics at the time, and everyone involved here was clearly fully committed to making the film as palpable, powerful and resonant as possible for the viewer, no matter their nationality or political inclination. Also typical for a Sorkin film, the cast are exceptional, everyone clearly having the wildest time getting their teeth into their finely-drawn characters and that magnificent dialogue – Redmayne and Baron Cohen are compellingly complimentary intellectual antagonists given their radically different approaches and their roles’ polar opposite energies, while Rylance delivers another pitch-perfect, simply ASTOUNDING performance that once again marks him as one of the very best actors of his generation, and there are particularly meaty turns from Strong, Langella, Aquaman’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (as besieged Black Panther Bobby Seale) and a potent late appearance from Michael Keaton that sear themselves into the memory long after viewing. Altogether then, this is a phenomenal film which deserves to be seen no matter the format, a thought-provoking and undeniably IMPORTANT masterwork from a master cinematic storyteller that says as much about the world we live in now as the decidedly turbulent times it portrays …

12. GREYHOUND – when the cinemas closed back in March, the fate of many of the major summer blockbusters we’d been looking forward to was thrown into terrible doubt. Some were pushed back to more amenable dates in the autumn or winter (which even then ultimately proved frustratingly ambitious), others knocked back a whole year to fill summer slots for 2021, but more than a few simply dropped off the radar entirely with the terrible words “postponed until further notice” stamped on them, and I lamented them all, this one in particular. It hung in there longer than some, stubbornly holding onto its June release slot for as long as possible, but eventually it gave up the ghost too … but thanks to Apple TV+, not for long, ultimately releasing less than a month later than intended. Thankfully the film itself was worth the fuss, a taut World War II suspense thriller that’s all killer, no filler – set during the infamous Battle of the Atlantic, it portrays the constant life-or-death struggle faced by the Allied warships assigned to escort the transport convoys as they crossed the ocean, defending their charges from German U-boats. Adapted from C.S. Forester’s famous 1955 novel The Good Shepherd by Tom Hanks and directed by Aaron Schneider (Get Low), the narrative focuses on the crew of the escort leader, American destroyer USS Fletcher, codenamed “Greyhound”, and in particular its captain, Commander Ernest Krause (Hanks), a career sailor serving his first command. As they cross “the Pit”, the most dangerous middle stretch of the journey where they spend days without air-cover, they find themselves shadowed by “the Wolf Pack”, a particularly cunning group of German submarines that begin to pick away at the convoy’s stragglers. Faced with daunting odds, a dwindling supply of vital depth-charges and a ruthless, persistent enemy, Krause must make hard choices to bring his ships home safe … jumping into the thick of the action within the first ten minutes and maintaining its tension for the remainder of the trim 90-minute run, this is screen suspense par excellence, a sleek textbook example of how to craft a compelling big screen knuckle-whitener with zero fat and maximum reward, delivering a series of desperate naval scraps packed with hide-and-seek intensity, heart-in-mouth near-misses and fist-in-air cathartic payoffs by the bucket-load. Hanks is subtly magnificent, the calm centre of the narrative storm as a supposed newcomer to this battle arena who could have been BORN for it, bringing to mind his similarly unflappable in Captain Phillips and certainly not suffering by comparison; by and large he’s the focus point, but other crew members make strong (if sometimes quite brief) impressions, particularly Stephen Graham as Krause’s reliably seasoned XO, Lt. Commander Charlie Cole, The Magnificent Seven’s Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and Just Mercy’s Rob Morgan, while Elisabeth Shue does a lot with a very small part in brief flashbacks as Krause’s fiancée Evelyn. Relentless, exhilarating and thoroughly unforgettable, this was one of the true action highlights of the summer, and one hell of a war flick. I’m so glad it made the cut for the summer …

11. PROJECT POWER – with Marvel and DC pushing their tent-pole titles back in the face of COVID, the usual superhero antics we’ve come to expect for the summer were pretty thin on the ground in 2020, leading us to find our geeky fan thrills elsewhere. Unfortunately, pickings were frustratingly slim – Korean comic book actioner Gundala was entertaining but workmanlike, while Thor AU Mortal was underwhelming despite strong direction from Troll Hunter’s André Øvredal, and The New Mutants just got shat on by the studio and its distributors and no mistake – thank the Gods, then, for Netflix, once again riding to the rescue with this enjoyably offbeat super-thriller, which takes an intriguing central premise and really runs with it. New designer drug Power has hit the streets of New Orleans, able to give anyone who takes it a superpower for five minutes … the only problem is, until you try it, you don’t know what your own unique talent is – for some, it could mean five minutes of invisibility, or insane levels of super-strength, but other powers can be potentially lethal, the really unlucky buggers just blowing up on the spot. Robin (The Hate U Give’s Dominique Fishback) is a teenage Power-pusher with dreams of becoming a rap star, dealing the pills so she can help her diabetic mum; Frank Shaver (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is one of her customers, a police detective who uses his power of near invulnerability to even the playing field when supercharged crims cause a disturbance. Their lives are turned upside down when Art (Jamie Foxx) arrives in town – he’s a seriously badass ex-soldier determined to hunt down the source of Power by any means necessary, and he’s not above tearing the Big Easy apart to do it. This is a fun, gleefully infectious rollercoaster that doesn’t take itself too seriously, revelling in the anarchic potential of its premise and crafting some suitably OTT effects-driven chaos brought to pleasingly visceral fruition by its skilfully inventive director, Ariel Schulman (Catfish, Nerve, Viral), while Mattson Tomlin (the screenwriter of the DCEU’s oft-delayed, incendiary headline act The Batman) takes the story in some very interesting directions and poses fascinating questions about what Power’s TRULY capable of. Gordon-Levitt and Fishback are both brilliant, the latter particularly impressing in what’s sure to be a major breakthrough role for her, and the friendship their characters share is pretty adorable, while Foxx really is a force to be reckoned with, pretty chill even when he’s in deep shit but fully capable of turning into a bona fide killing machine at the flip of a switch, and there’s strong support from Westworld’s Rodrigo Santoro as Biggie, Power’s delightfully oily kingpin, Courtney B. Vance as Frank’s by-the-book superior, Captain Crane, Amy Landecker as Gardner, the morally bankrupt CIA spook responsible for the drug’s production, and Machine Gun Kelly as Newt, a Power dealer whose pyrotechnic “gift” really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Exciting, inventive, frequently amusing and infectiously likeable, this was some of the most uncomplicated cinematic fun I had all summer. Not bad for something which I’m sure was originally destined to become one of the season’s B-list features …

#onward #onward movie #The Gentlemen #spontaneous #spontaneous movie #hamilton #hamilton movie #sputnik #sputnik movie #The Invisible Man #Extraction #extraction movie #the trial of the chicago 7 #greyhound #greyhound movie #project power #2020 in movies

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imnotgoinganywhereok · 3 years

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Yeah, I’m back on my Sims 4 bullshit! („ಡωಡ„) After an entire month I started to miss my Sim children. So, I decided to visit them once again and have some memorable screenshots, especially since I only started sharing my Sims experience from 5th and 6th generation. I’d be grateful if you checked it out one day, I think it can be somewhat investing! And there will be more content to come...

Recently I noted down in my little notebook all basic information and cool trivia about each of my Sim children, and I decided to share some of it here. There is a limit of only 10 pictures in one post, and I was afraid the post would be long but, to be fair, this is my blog and I’m doing what I want now! And, I will merely touch upon what is already established up to Delphini (gen 7). Again, there will be more in the future. Apologies in advance (ง ื▿ ื)ว

Generation one: Valentina Owl. I created her back in December 2019 when I got Discover University for Christmas! She’s a “human” Sim and I created her through a story option in CAS, and immediately started having a blast. I was not a huge fan of such USAmericanised concept of university but the game was fun. She was the only one who lived up to be an elder (and then die) because back then I thought I’m gonna have a game where my Sims age and stuff. That quickly didn’t work out for me because I missed her already and decided that I’m gonna fill my entire save with just Owl family. Valentina studied Communications and worked as a policewoman at the same time. A lonely workaholic with only her lavish garden, she finally settled for a relationship with Lilith Vatore. As I noticed in this post, there was no marriage so my entire bloodline comes from a bastard. Lovely! She died from receiving a flower arragement with Death Flower scent. Now she’s on the Gallery.

Generation two: Herbert Owl. He was the one who directly killed Valentina. He mastered Gardening like Valentina, and then Flower Arranging - unfortunate for her. Because of Lilith, he was a vampire - and to be fair, the consequences are haunting me to this day! So, a few trivia, maybe. He is super smart, lives in Glimmerbrook like the next two generations, and has a small garden in his house where he grows crops for husband’s, Morgyn Ember’s, potions. He prefers black and purple clothes, both in his human and vampire form. He wrote only one book in his life, translating to The Real Story of Valentina Owl - whether it’s to cover the murder or not remains a mystery. He makes flower arrangements to this day. Ah, he’s also immune to Sun thanks to one of his vampire perks! That sort of helped him take a better care of his son whom he loves very much.

Generation three: Harry Owl. There is not that much I can say about him. A perfectionist like his father (Herbert), he’s blond and wears both masculine and feminine clothes like his other father (Morgyn), but this is where the comparisons end. See, in my mind he wasn’t a good person, despite having a Compassionate trait. He cared for his grandmother’s (Valentina’s) garden only because of his father’s (Herbert’s) feelings; later he shun away gardening. As a teenager, he often used to drink plasma without permission even if he wasn’t thirsty. Of course, he was also a really bad father, often berating his son for not being “good enough” or not paying attention to him at all. All Harry cared about were his paintings that he was creating in his private office. He married Miverva Charm, started living with her family, and still decided to only socialise with her. No one really knows what made him choose her.

Generation four: Nereus Owl. Born a vampire, he cured himself out of vampirism as soon as he could and later became a spellcaster. All he ever did in life was seemed like a rebellion against his father - clothes, flacking off during studies, loving gardening and shuning away painting. Well, it seemed to his father that Nereus is doing this to spite him. Despite this borderline abuse (because how abusive can Sims really be?), Nereus claims his childhood was relatively happy. Of course, he has no clue where his Erratic trait came from! Or why he grew to be a Perfectionist as well. All he knows is that having over 11 different plants in his garden is what makes him happy and that he doesn’t care if his father approves of him anymore! You could see him for the first time here. What is more, as he grew older, he found that he loves playing the violin and his wife, L. Faba, supports him in any way she can. His natural hair colour is red; thanks, grey-haired Minerva - that one bit me in the ass for next three generations.

Generation five: Elijah Tane Owl. Vegetarian like his father, he was the first one to attend Foxbury instead of Britechester. His father Nereus claimed it should be Elijah’s choice what he wants to do in life, giving Elijah freedom Nereus never really had. Elijah studied Computer Science but was a man of many talents. He was a fan of Handiness, Cooking (especially grilling), and Fitness. He often played (and sang) serenades on a keyboard for his wife, Alessandra Robles, almost maxing out his Piano skill. What made him date Alessandra was a shared Vegetarian trait. His favourite colour accent in clothing is green. He grew six strawberry plants because he wished to have a daughter (yeah, only in Sims 4 lol). There are more info about him in my previous posts as it was this generation when I started publishing my game progress, starting with this one (although my main focus was on Salem).

Generation six: Salem Owl (previously Lavender Owl). There is tons and tons of posts about her, her wife Luna Villareal (both are adults, calm down FBI), and their five daughers: Amaryllis, Wisteria, Delphini (remember this one), Hemlock, and Poppy. All you need to know about her is that she is a hard-working mother who climbed her way to the top and even higher to secure the future of her daughers. She hoped for three children and played with On the Dark Ley-Line lot trait to perhaps have some vampire offspring. Instead, she had twins (Ama and Wis) first, and then triplets (Del, Hem, and Poppy) later! She taught her daughers instruments/skills like Piano, Pipe Organ, and Violin. Once she realised Wis and Hem were vampires, she started growing three Plasma fruit trees, with time maxing out her Gardening skill. She’s on very bad terms with her grandma, L. Faba, but tries to keep in touch with her grandpa, Nereus. She has a bad reputation because of her Insensitive trait and a handful of enemies. She’s sorry for what happened between Lilith and Valentina in the past but the Vatore twins don’t mind. She’s ginger, workaholic, has spiky ears, and a lot of freckles. She’s still very good friends with Vladislaus.

Generation seven (A): Amaryllis Owl. She’s colour-coded (pink) and her clothes and room reflect that. She wrote at least 10 books, has spiky ears after her mother (Salem), and is the older daugher in the house. Eventually, she married Candy Behr. Ama’s twin sister is Wisteria and they share the same eyeliner type. Despite having a twin, her skin tone is lighter than Wis’ but the same as Hem and Poppy’s. She inherited a feminine walk from her mother (Luna). Doesn’t know much about Vampire Lore despite having vampire sisters. She loved doing everything with her twin sister. Amaryllis used to be a naturally-born/spawned hybrid of a vampire and a spellcaster but settled for the latter.

Generation seven (B): Wisteria Owl. She’s colour-coded (purple) and her room reflects that. As a vampire, she aims for a gothic look, often wearing hats and gloves to hide from the sun (with time, she turned into a heliphobe). She’s an actress and a B-Lister. She has a pet frog in her room. To reach her room, one has to walk through Ama’s room first - and they’re both okay with that. Wis is the only one to have the same skin tone as her mother (Salem) and the same nose as her other mother (Luna). Her vampiric form changes her eye colour to glowing purple. She loved goign to karaoke bars with her older twin sister Ama, which led Wis to maxing out Singing skill. As a fully fledged vampire, she decided to reach out to Herbert - they’re good friends.

Generation seven (C): Delphini Owl. Same as Amaryllis - naturally-born/spawned hybrid of a vampire and a spellcaster but settled for the latter. She’s colour-coded (dark blue) and her clothes and room reflect that. She always knew she’s going to leave the house and eventually create more Owls. She pursued the rich life and moved out to Del Sol Valley, eventually becoming a Global Superstar. She used to work in a Musician Branch but quit after time - blame the Freegan trait. She has three cats and lives with her daugher Morgan, and her [Morgan’s] husband Kaito Kaneko, and their adopted son Leven Owl (all of which I’ll talk about another time). She received a lot of awards (meeting with fans, Perfect Llama to name the few) and is very happy that her daugher lives with her. She used to romance with Flower Bunny, and then Octavia Moon - althought the initial plan was to go after Octavia’s husband, Thorne. Del often drinks but since there’s no alcoholism in Sims 4, let’s pretent she likes to stay hydrated! She owes half of her success (or namely, money for and expensive house) to her mother Salem. Loves to sunbathe!

Generation seven (D): Hemlock Owl. She’s colour-coded (white) and her clothes and room reflect that. She’s a make-up enthusiast and a little spoiled by the rich life. Also, she’s very Squeamish and Noncommittal. Despite being a vampire, she’s not interested in improving Vampire Lore skill at all. In her vampire form, her eyes change to glowing white. Her face as as many freckles as her mother’s (Salem). She’s the middle child in the triplets business and her best friend is Poppy. She used to wear glasses as a child... What more can I say? She’s living the dream!

Generation seven (E): Poppy Owl. She’s colour-coded (red) and her clothes and room (and a neon light) reflect that. The youngest daughter in the house. Wild and a Bro, she’s the perfect candidate to hang out with. She’s the only child to be born a human - which most likely makes Luna very happy. She’s a robots enthusiast - not Robotics skill but only figurines of robots. She’s a Geek so what else should we expect? She has her own TV and a stereo in her room (as well as a bubble machine). Poppy often wears her PJs around the house because they’re the comfiest. Despite being a Bro, she doesn’t really have friends beside her family. She’s the one to walk the family dog, Milk.

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pretend-writer · 4 years

Text

Down Below (Chapter 67)

Summary: After being sent down on Earth with the other prisoners from the Ark, Y/N Reyes faces series of events and learns about survival. With new things happening around her, she is now starting a new chapter in her life.

Pairing: Bellamy Blake x reader, John Murphy x reader, Raven Reyes x sister!reader

Word Count: 2.6k words

Warning: mention of death, mention of violence, swearing

✤ · ✤ · ✤ · ✤ · ✤

It was hard to believe in second chances after all I’ve done down at the bunker. Despite telling myself over the past few years that what I did was for Wonkru and to support Octavia, I knew in my heart that it was a shitty thing to do.

But here I stood next to Bellamy as we looked out the window of Eligius IV, staring at our possible new home that Monty researched for us all these years we were in cryo sleep.

‘Monty did all of this... for us...’ Bellamy mumbled to himself, looking at the new planet in awe. ‘This...’

‘This is amazing.’ The words slipped out of my mouth, enjoying the beautiful view we had from up this ship. Who would’ve known that Earth wasn’t the only livable place in the universe? By the way it seemed, the planet full of green life, it was habitable for humans. But we wouldn't know for sure until we get to the ground.

‘Yeah, I’m really excited actually. I don’t know a life outside this ship.’ Jordan grinned widely, ‘Also, it’s nice meeting you two finally. Monty and Harper talked a lot about you guys.’

It was crazy to think that Monty and Harper had a child, but it was more insane to think that they were both gone. Instead of going to cryo, they’ve decided to live the rest of their lives together.

They had their own family, finally had a life away from war and lived in peace. Now that I think about it, it sounded so beautiful. I knew that Monty and Harper were happy together, they deserved all of that and more.

‘Y/N, before I log off from my final video...’ Monty smiled through the camera, ‘I want to thank you for taking care of Jasper. I always wonder if I tried hard enough, he’d still be with us today. Because of everything you’ve done for him, I know that all that happened at the bunker wasn’t the real you, I truly believe that. Even though you did scare me.’

‘Throughout the times from when we landed on Earth to now, you’ve always done what’s best for everyone. That’s all that matters in the end. I hope that on this planet, we can all do better and look out for each other.’ Monty smiled one last time, ‘I believe in you guys. May we meet again.’

‘May we meet again.’ Bellamy and I whispered as Monty logged out of the video. The tears streamed down my face, not being able to process that Monty wasn't with us anymore.

He was the one that gave me hope; after dealing with Mount Weather, Monty was the one that made me realize that I had to push through to be an asset again. He pulled me out of a dark place that I never thought I'd ever leave. He even realize that Skafaiya had changed, that I was being better.

If it wasn't for him, reassuring that I can do better I would of never realized what I've become and all that bad that I've done. I should be thanking him for that, I wish I thanked him before we parted ways.

'Who else should I wake up?' Jordan asked sweetly. 'My dad programmed cryo to wake us up but not the others.'

My dad. Wow I could never get used to that, I thought to myself. I wish I was able to congratulate Monty and Harper, except it happened a hundred years ago.

'We can't wake everyone, it'll be chaotic. We can get the people who can go down and help us search around. Starting with Shaw, the pilot.' Bellamy nodded, he turned to me and flashed a smile.

I shrugged, not really in the mood to talk to him. After what Raven had told me about Bellamy and Echo, I didn't know if I was able to stand him. 'Yeah. Okay. Sounds good.'

'You okay, Reyes?' Bellamy reached for me to hold his hand, except I took a step back. He cocked his head, confused. Last time I saw him, we were in good terms and wanted to start over again. 'What's wrong?'

'Nothing.' I avoided his eye contact as I left the room. Bellamy followed me into the cryo room, not saying a word as he tried to give me space.

I'd rather not wait and instead, tell him the whole truth about what I knew about The Ring. The problem was the fact that he was acting as if nothing happened, as if he didn't kiss another girl while he was in space. Bellamy made me feel bad about the bunker when the fact was that he was hiding things from his at-the-time girlfriend.

As I worked the cryo machine, I woke up the people we needed to venture down with on the new planet. Each person popped out of cryo, slowly waking up as if they were just taking a short nap.

'No, not her.' Bellamy rested his hand on mine, stopping me from pressing the button. 'We can't wake Octavia up.'

'Why not? Are you still scared of her?'

'If someone is already living on this planet, we don't want Blodreina fucking everything up.'

'Well, if someone is actually down there and if they happen to be savages, don't we need someone who can fight?' Murphy walked towards us, giving me a hug from the side. 'Just saying.'

Bellamy rolled his eyes, didn't know if it was from John being close to me or the fact that he was told what to do about his sister. 'I'm not taking that risk. I'm sure we will be fine ourselves.'

'Alright, you're the boss.' John dropped the conversation, quickly turning to me. 'Can I talk to you, Y/N?'

'Yeah, of course.' I nodded, smiling at him before he walked away.

In the corner of my eyes, I saw Bellamy staring at me. I could tell that he was confused, maybe a bit jealous too. With all that's happened, I didn't know whether to feel bad or let him be. Either way, I left the room.

Following Murphy out of the cryo room, he led me to the hallway. 'I missed you. Even though it feels like I just saw you 10 minutes ago.'

I giggled, feeling butterflies like I did when I kissed him before we headed to cryo sleep. 'To be fair, it's been over hundred years.'

'And yet, your shot wound hasn't healed.' John pointed at my leg, 'Saw you limping earlier.'

'Yeah, I'll be fine. I'm always fine.' I smiled. Wanting to get everything out the way, I decided to talk to him about the obvious topic we had to discuss. 'I haven't told Bellamy by the way.'

He nodded, 'I figured. It's okay, there's no need to rush it.'

'But I feel bad, I don't want it to be a secret or anything.'

'Don't feel bad because whatever we have, it's worth it. I don't mind the mystery either. Besides, sneaking around is kind of a turn on.'

This feeling I had for him felt so right, so nostalgic; felt way better than feeling pressured by Bellamy to be different and to feel bad about who I was. I didn't have to pretend with John, we knew each other majority of our lives and he understood what I've been through.

What I didn't understand was why all this time, Bellamy guilted me about the years I spent in the bunker when he had secrets he was keeping from me.

Jackson suddenly rushed towards me and Murphy, looking at me as if he was very stressed. 'Jackson, what's wrong?'

'We're prepping Kane for surgery. He's awake and somewhat stable for now but-' He paused, I could tell he was scared of my reaction.

'What?'

'Kane wants to see you.'

My heart dropped, not expecting to see Marcus at all. Last time I saw him, he was unconscious and when I spoke my final words to him back at Polis, I said some pretty mean stuff.

'Can I just see him after surgery?'

'Bellamy is preparing with Clarke to go check out the new planet and he told me you're going with. Also with Kane's condition, we're afraid he might not make it.'

'You should go see him, Y/N.' John tapped my arm, 'I can come with you if you'd like.'

Marcus' condition? How bad was his injuries? I knew that one of Abby's patients attacked him but I didn't know it was this critical. No matter how much pain he brought me after all the betrayals, I wasn't ready to say goodbye to him.

'I'll be okay.' I faked a smile to John, but instantly he knew I was lying.

He didn't push it though, instead he nodded in return. 'Let me know if you need me.'

'Thank you, John.' I said before I followed Jackson into a room. Raven, Abby and Bellamy looked up as the door opened for Jackson and I.

'What is she doing here?' Abby growled, staring at me as if I came to kill Marcus myself. 'She's going to trigger him and make his condition worse than it already is.'

'Kane personally asked for her. I think he has a right to see her, Abby.' Jackson replied back, 'We should give them some privacy.'

Raven nodded, 'I agree. We'll be right outside if you need us Y/N.'

'Thanks.' Raven and Jackson left the room, Abby still glaring at me as she stood next to Kane laying on the bed.

'I'm not going anywhere Y/N. I don't trust you for-'

'It's okay Abby. Give us some space, I need to speak to her.' Marcus spoke up, putting his hand on hers. 'We will be fine.'

Abby huffed as she headed to the door. 'If anything happens to him, it's on you.'

Bellamy looked at me with sad eyes, I guess he understood my situation with me and Marcus after I told him before he got into the fighting pit; sorry flushed across his face.

He reached for my hand but I quickly swept it away, I didn't even mean to do it. 'I-I want to be alone with him if that's okay, Bellamy?'

'Ah. Sure.' Bellamy whispered, scratching his temple as he left the room.

I slowly walked over to Marcus' bed, holding my breath. I didn't know what to say or what to feel after everything that had happened.

'How are you?' He whispered, not being able to speak loudly. The patient had stabbed Marcus on his neck, causing him to lose a lot of blood.

'I should be the one asking you that.' The bloody bandage on his neck scared me a little, I've never seen him so helpless.

'Physically, I can tolerate this pain but emotionally I'm not okay.' Marcus' voice cracked, 'I'm sorry for what I did to you.'

'What are you sorry about exactly?' I didn't mean to sound petty, I genuinely needed to know if I was ready to forgive him. It hurt that someone I love so much turned his back on me, but it was hard to keep hating him also.

Marcus paused, carefully turning his head toward me. His eyes started to water and he lightly whimpered. 'About everything, monkey.'

I bit my bottom lip, trying to hold my tears in. It made me feel sad for him, but for what? He betrayed me not once but twice; The first time in the bunker after he never believed that Abby blackmailed me and when he turned against Wonkru to work with Diyoza.

His betrayal made me angry but it made me even more upset at myself for still caring for him. Just like he told me at the fighting pit, I tried to stop him for a reason. And that reason was that no matter how much pain he put me through, I cared for him.

'You know, Octavia came to me and told me what happened when the Dark Year began. That Abby had told you to shoot those people. I didn't want to believe that someone I love did those things to you. I also couldn't believe what I saw when you shot and killed Wonkru.'

'But you chose her over me, even when I came up to you about Abby. All those years you took her side and left me in the dark, made it mine and Octavia's fault that the Dark Year happened.'

'I know... I know...' He breathed, 'I just didn't want to admit that Abby would do that. I saw what you did and I didn't wanted to believe that she was behind all of this.'

'So you were okay with blaming me and not her?'

'No, I wasn't. Not at all.' Marcus held his breath, gently wiping his tears that were streaming down his face. 'I was confused, I felt like everything was falling apart. I chose the easy way out, turned you into an enemy. I never even considered how you felt at all.'

It made me mad, knowing that he knew he was wrong for blaming everything on me. All I wanted was a hug, an "I love you" or just any support from him. 'You made my life a living hell.'

'I know Y/N, I know.' He reached for my hand, his hand shaking from weakness. 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.'

Leaning in closer to him, I felt his touch on my cheek. It's been a long time since I've been this close to Marcus. 'I was just a kid, I was scared what Abby was going to do to Octavia. She had a gun... and I knew her drug problems and I-'

'I'm sorry, Y/N.' Kane sobbed, caressing my cheek. 'I'm sorry.'

Gently and carefully, I wrapped my arms around Marcus. Making sure not to put my whole weight on him, I hugged him as I buried my face into his chest. Tears fell down my eyes, staining Marcus' shirt with tears which added to the blood stains from his injuries.

'I just wanted you to believe me, that's all I wanted.'

'I'm sorry.' Marcus repeated over and over again. 'I'm proud of you okay? For overcoming this without me, without Bellamy or your sister.'

'Octavia was with me. She helped me through everything.'

'Oh, baby.' He shook his head, holding me tightly as he can with all the strength he had left in him. 'Why did I do this to you again? I told myself after what happened at the Ark, I wouldn't ever do anything to lose you again... Why... why?'

Even though I hated that he took Abby's side, it must've been hard for him to see her in that way. I can never justify or maybe even forgive him when he turned his back on me but I can understand the confusion he must of had.

Everyone knows I was not innocent in this at all. Not at all, not even close.

'Thank you, for apologizing.' I mumbled into his chest, hugging him a little bit longer.

'No, thank you for even coming to talk to me.'

Taking a deep breath, I recollected all my thoughts. I tried to wipe my tears off of his shirt but it all sank in. 'Sorry your shirt is wet now.'

Marcus laughed lightly, shaking his head. 'Don't worry about it. I need a new one anyway.'

Placing my hand on his cheek, I wiped his tears. 'Don't leave me again.'

'I'll try not to.'

'No, promise me you won't. You can't leave me again. Not after all that's happened.'

He looked at me, smiled as he nodded. 'Okay. I promise Y/N.'

Nodding in return, I gave him a kiss on his forehead. 'For good luck.'

'Thank you, monkey.'

'May we meet again.'

Marcus smiled once again, 'I'll see you soon kiddo.'

#bellamy blake x reader #the 100 rewrite #the 100 series #down below series #bellamy blake series #raven reyes x sister!reader #the 100 fic #bellamy blake

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bellamygateoldblog · 4 years

Note

i will never be over the way this show has continuously tried to frame bellamy and clarke as heroes and good people, or the way the fandom has almost completely embraced and supported that narrative

the amount of times i’ve read “[clarke] saved everyone’s ungrateful asses” makes me seriously consider turning evil. like aren’t y’all bored? don’t you have a different sentence you would like to say for a change?

i want to talk about this but i probably don’t remember a lot of the details of this show so if im forgetting something or get something wrong i apologise, but i never have any desire to rewatch past s2.

clarke isn't even the hero of her own side, she took power of them using the military force of the grounders, someone else’s people, she’s forced them into alliances without their knowledge that weren’t in their best interest (while she literally had no idea what they were even going through because she’d abandoned them after upsetting their entire political structure, and this leader she’s bowing to is responsible for the slaughter of their children, has broken an alliance previously with them, has hung the threat of genocide over their heads, and who isn’t even wanted in power by her own people- dragging skaikru into that conflict, too), she’s sacrificed them and what’s best for them in order to cater to/concentrate on the grounders newest demands or pursue her own personal mission, she’s lied to and patronised them, she’s abandoned them and surrendered them to die while they were under her protection and responsibility, and in Book 2 (and these aren’t her people but in canon she’s their leader anyway apparently despite trying to blow them all up a few days before...) she’s abandoned them again, and is speaking for them without consent or any connection to what’s happening with them again,.........her inner circle/her ‘friends’ have to be extremely careful to remain important to her or on her team or they’ll be sacrificed, harmed or become acceptable losses to whatever her newest goal is too (but hey at least she says she cares about them) all while acting very ‘woe is me’ about the whole crushing weight of responsibility she shouldn’t have.

but she’s the hero, she’s beloved, she’s special, she has relationships that were never built, she and only she saved everyone again and has all the lines telling us so no matter how dishonest those statements are.

like this is where i personally see what you said in your ask most: when it concerns clarke.

bellamy on the other hand...i don’t place him at all on the same level as clarke when it comes to this. clarke has privilege that bellamy just never had as a character. and i think that does probably play into why i like him.

him being a hero to the delinquents/the 48 is completely believable to me. he was the original leader, he got them through a tough time, he chose to put himself on the line for them, and he’s the one who stayed. i also think it’s reasonable that fandom might romanticise him this way because he is one who has been shown to value the one life as well as the many of his people, a guy doing his best and making big mistakes along the way, a mixed complex bag of good and bad, i find him very likable and i love the toxic/pained/vulnerable ones lol but more than anything i find him to be one of the more interesting/entertaining characters on the show (Book 1).

we also see him torment himself with his own mistakes instead of just having other people do it for him/remind him like we see happen with clarke- and we all know fandom loves equating that with a “redemption arc” and as much as i personally dislike seeing pity parties i do like self-awareness and responsibility in characters that goes beyond a 3-second-long puppy dog look or straight dismissal of someone else’s pain, and for the most part bellamy’s expressions of this don’t come across as demanding sympathy from others but from genuine self-loathing and an honesty to himself, internalising the effects of his actions/childhood.

i know i personally prefer The Flawed Protector over The Tortured Saviour nobody asked for (same white male hypocritical moral hero in a woman’s body).

i don’t believe in assigning “hero” to any of them though like that’s the whole entire point of the show lol “there are no good guys.” and i also think a major chunk of fandom/shippers have warped bellamy’s character so much that it isn’t even him anymore, so this man they’re celebrating as a hero/good person isn’t even bellamy sometimes.

all of the genuinely “good” and kind people are dead.

i don't think i'd say bellamy was ever framed as a hero. like he was just never important enough to be, he’s just not put into those positions (despite being the male lead), clarke is. as the protagonist ig. bellamy...he’s the protector/knight of the heroes, but not the actual hero himself (applies to octavia too i think, where she acts and he reacts).

like take mount weather, clarke becomes empowered by her “wanheda” status, bellamy’s (and monty’s) part in that is lost...clarke is “bearing it so they don’t have to” (rme) which simultaneously strips the other boys from claiming the ‘victory’ of saving the 48 while still leaving them with the guilt, like it suits how i see clarke perfectly that she’s the only one to refer to the genocide (and shutting down the CoL, i realised) as “i” while monty and bellamy say “we” and it was clarke’s actions that got them to that point in the first place, but this is one of those times she’s clearly The Protagonist. if that makes sense lol.

bellamy is on the opposite side to clarke in s3 and s7 and he needs to be moved to her side in order to be on the ‘right’ one. now i don’t agree with that one bit mind you (when it comes to s3, idc about s7 lol) and i didnt see it that way but imo that’s how the show wrote it, to the point he was either demonized endlessly by fandom or woobified in a way that denied him his own agency. during s5 i don’t i think anyone was framed in a good light. i can see this applying in s6, though- where he was his absolute worst self yet, betraying his own development, failing at every point to “do better” despite claiming it, but still was given that reasurring line that they did better and saved people and was in that “heroic” position i guess? but is that because he was back to being clarke’s “good little knight” tho? (but do we claim s6??? do we really??? do we claim it ladies???)

s6 was 100% dedicated to making clarke look good/like a 'good' or sympathetic person. the bodysnatching plot (and the s6 sheidheda plot because if it was supposed to be about bellamy and address his s5 actions he would’ve been present to experience/observe those consiquences himself but he wasn’t lmaoooo. instead it was to tell the audience ‘actually clarke was right last season and here’s another reason to feel bad for her and how those ungrateful bitches were treating her’) has no other purpose for existing. clarke's character has consistently been elevated at the expense of everyone else's. but im not sure the writing did a very good job convincing me she was a good person if it was trying to do that LMAO like my interpretation of her is so fitted to canon, and no amount of throwaway lines telling me how good she is did anything to change what i saw yk? and in s6, combined with being patronised by the writers, i found her to be at some of her most obnoxious.

i don’t agree with placing bellamy and clarke in the same boat tbh. like they just come from completely different places and come across differently, especially in the way they interact with other characters.

in my experience this fandom (on tumblr) is extremely skewed in favour of clarke, like ive never seen a fandom so obsessed with their protagonist. there’s A LOT of clarke stans who stan her for being one of those “deserves better :(” characters, selfless and heroic, and support that view that she’s the superior character, entitled to other character’s devotion, love and validation yet doesn’t have to reciprocate any of it. the CL/BC ship war was just a bunch of people fighting over clarke, who deserves her more, which character is more toxic to her, which other character would 100% be her bff supportive of that relationship, treating her as a passive whose actions don’t take affect. im not sure how much i blame the writing for that because if so many of us are capable of recieving her character in this way then...why aren’t so many other people? how is there such a massive disconnect between the ways we see her?

and imo a lot of the bellamy love in this fandom comes from shipping him with clarke too rather than being because of who he actually is.

#the 100

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pawprinterfanfic · 4 years

Text

fic writer asks

Tagged by the lovely @burninghoneyatdusk ! This was so much fun, thanks for the tag!

Name(s)?

Pawprinter (AO3) pawprinterfanfic (Tumblr)

Fandom(s)?

SO MANY

I’m currently having the best time in the Julie and the Phantoms fandom, especially with Willex, Juke, and found family fics.

I’ll always have a home with the 100 and Bellarke though, and I’m excited to continue to write more for this fandom!

Where you post?

AO3

Most popular multi-chapter (by kudos)?

Title: Paint me in Trust

Rated: Explicit

Summary: Clarke is on the run. It's 1997 in Britain, during the height of the Second Wizarding War. Voldemort is wreaking havoc in the Wizarding World, fear is weighing heavily on everyone, and anyone who doesn’t side with the Dark Lord is in danger.

Clarke was expected to side with him. She’s from a pureblood family that has decades tangled with the Dark Arts, after all. But, she didn’t.

So, she ran.

Somehow, she finds her way to a safe house where she meets with other wizards and witches on the run.

All Bellamy wanted to do was keep his sister safe. Instead of saving her, he’s stuck in a safe house with her. She’s a Slytherin and the daughter of a Death Eater. He doesn’t trust Clarke; why should he?

Now, he’s stuck with her as they roam around the country, looking for places to stay safe and stay hidden. He quickly realizes that things could be worse. And… maybe Clarke isn’t as bad as he thought

Words: 326k

Kudos: 2248

I could talk about this fic forever because it’s the fic I’m most proud of. I worked so hard to write pmit and the response on it has been amazing. I don’t think anyone has ever been so supportive and excited about anything I’ve written before, so that was so, so cool.

Favourite story you’ve written so far?

Title: Paint me in Trust

Fic you were nervous to post?

Title: Simple Pleasures

Rated: Mature

Summary: Clarke is a medic from District 6. More importantly, she’s a dangerous criminal in the eyes of the Capitol. It isn’t a surprise when she is reaped for the 45th Hunger Games; it’s the only way for the Capitol to silence her.

Bellamy spent his life protecting his younger sister. When Octavia volunteers for the Games to honour their district, he knows it’s his responsibility to follow her into the arena. He would give anything for her to become the Victor, even his safety.

When they meet in the Capitol, Clarke can’t deny the connection she feels to him. He makes her feel more than a sacrifice. He makes her feel hope. She knows it’s dangerous to trust others, especially when in the arena, but why deny herself some final few simple pleasures?

Words: 367k

Kudos: 1250

I was so nervous to post this one because it was my first long multi-chapter fic I had planned! I used to write multi-chapter fics a long time ago for other fandoms and always struggled to finish, so I was really worried about that. AND I had just come off a several year long hiatus, and this was the biggest project I decided to tackle in a long time. AND I was super new to the Bellarke fandom when I started writing (I watched the show in May 2017-ish and I started writing this in July 2017), so I didn’t know what to expect. I had such a good time though and I am still super proud of this fic.

How do you choose your titles?

A lot of my titles are song lyrics or quotes. This and writing summaries are the BANE of my existence. @thesunwillshineclearer can vouch for this. I’ve cried to her for several nights this week about choosing titles and writing summaries because I suck at it.

Do you outline?

YES! I wouldn’t be able to write without it. Someone actually asked me about my outlining process recently, so I’ll go more in depth when I answer that ask (I’m still trying to figure out how to word it all). Basically, I outline every event by chapter, I include certain quotes that come to mind, I make notes about character arcs and emotions, etc. My outline for All That Remains is 13k words... just to give you a snapshot of how detailed I go.

Complete works?

96 on AO3

In-progress works?

2 multi-chapter fics that I’ve already begun to post. I have many other one-shots partially written in my drafts.

Coming soon/not yet started?

Here are some quick snapshots on one-shot ideas I’ve been working on:

Willex and dogs

Paint me in Trust fluff

Bellarke in the Star Wars universe

JATP soulmate AU

Willex exes

Prompts?

Not right now! I recently had them open to celebrate 1.5k followers on Tumblr, so now I’m working through those prompts!

Tagging: @eyessharpweaponshot @carrieeve @probably-voldemort @thelittlefanpire @sparklyfairymira @stealing-jasons-job @reggiesjams @mobi-on-a-mission @queen-of-the-wallflowers15 @queenemori @icantloseyou-too @animmortalist & anyone else who would like to participate (feel free to say I tagged you!)

#tag game #about me #essie rambles #THANK YOU FOR THE TAG #this was so much fun

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catherdrashepard · 4 years

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Red Rising/Persona

I’m a huge fan of the Persona series and pretty much anything Atlus has done. I am ALSO a huge fan of Red Rising (blame that on @hyena-frog) So, the natural conclusion is that I should determine which Persona the main RR POV characters would have. As well as a couple extras. Pictures will be included with credit to the artist when applicable. Please let me know if I forget to credit someone. (https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Persona_5_Royal_Personas) Here is the website I’m using. Spoilers for the first three books and probably a little of Iron Gold. Also a spoiler for the Faith Confidante in Persona 5: Royal. Avoid the Lysander paragraph if you want none of that. Disclaimer: I have not finished Dark Age yet so some of my thoughts might be lacking complete information.

Darrow: The main characters of the Persona series always start with a Persona from the Fool arcana. It doesn’t necessarily stay that way depending on the players personal preference. That being said, Darrow does fit the Fool arcana very well. It’s considered to be the beginning arcana or one without a number. It represents innocence, divine inspiration, madness, freedom, spontaneity, inexperience, chaos and creativity. These traits I think describe Darrow pretty accurately, especially in the first two books. Considering the story revolves around his journey, it makes sense to label him as a character of beginnings. Persona-wise, I think the one that fits Red Rising and Golden Son Darrow would be Satanael. This Persona is basically the equivalent to Lucifer, the angel who led a rebellion against God. But also that isn’t all that Darrow is. I also think the Death arcana is fitting for him, from Morning Star and beyond. Death is an arcana roughly in the middle of the tarot deck and it’s one that represents metamorphosis and change. Literal interpretation aside, Darrow experiences a change in himself after his capture at the end of Golden Son and his rescue in Morning Star. Not to mention, his entire purpose for becoming a Gold in the first place was to provoke a change in the current system of government. For his Death Persona, I would give him Thanatos. Because he’s my favourite, but also he’s considered the harbinger of death. Perfect for the Reaper. I don’t think Darrow completely loses Satanael in favour of Thanatos; I could definitely see him using both depending on the circumstance.

Virginia/Mustang: By Persona standards, because Mustang is Darrow’s main love interest, she would be the Lovers arcana. However, and this was incredibly difficult because she could really fit more acana, I think she could be both the Judgement and the Empress arcana. The Judgement arcana, I feel, fits her Sovereign persona (ha). It’s associated with a deep understanding of life, a balance of light and darkness, and characters who are well-aware, and intelligent. Not that this doesn’t fit her in her private life as well, but it seems more prevalent in her dealings as the Sovereign. The second arcana is the Empress. This one is more associated with mothers and women of authority. As we saw in the first trilogy, she went to great lengths to protect her family, i.e., working for Octavia, being with Cassius, the whole incident in Lykos. Choosing her Persona is tricky, mostly because Personas can shift arcana depending which game they are pulled from. I think the one to go with is Astarte. This is more of a feeling rather than definitive “proof”. She is identified as the goddess of war, hunting, love, sex, horses and possibly the morning star; her symbols are thought to be the lion, panther, and an eight pointed star. This is also the ultimate Persona of Haru in Persona 5, who awakens her initial Persona in defiance of her father and his corruption, which also feels apt. That being said, Astarte is from the Empress arcana and I could not find a Judgement arcana Persona that I felt fit her well enough.

Credit for the picture of Astarte to: Machia McMadlass on Amino

Sevro: Sevro was very easy to choose a Persona for. One in particular stood out to me. I think Sevro could fit both the Fool arcana and the Devil arcana. I think the aspects of the Fool that Sevro embodies are the madness, freedom, spontaneity, and creativity. The Devil arcana represents the urge to do selfish, impulsive, violent things. However, it also can represent a healthy bond and commitment. Sevro is a wild card from the beginning, killing Priam in the first book being a prime example. Both he and Darrow were very unexpected successes in the Institute. This is something that also describes the protagonists in the Persona games as well. They all just kind of show up out of nowhere and completely shift the paradigm, especially in Personas 3&5. As for the Devil arcana, Sevro reminds me of the Devil confidante in Persona 5. Their goals are not the same, but both characters are very focused on what they want and make every effort to push through despite any obstacles in the way. As for the Persona, the one I chose was sort of picked for superficial reasons; Bugbear. Its name comes from the Celtic word bugs which means evil spirit or goblin. It’s also considered to be something of a boogeyman, a creature that lurked in the woods to scare children. Also, it’s essentially a stuffed bear filled with skulls, which seems to fit Sevro’s weird tastes.

Victra: With Victra, one arcana stuck out in my mind immediately, the Chariot. This arcana represents victory, conquest, self-assertion, self-confidence, control, war, and command. When first introduced to Victra, she does seem very sure of herself and what she wants. She strikes me as a shoot first and ask questions later type, which is something she has in common with the video game characters who share this arcana. Like Sevro, she could also fit the Devil arcana, especially during certain events in Dark Age that she pursues very single-mindedly. Although, I would say Victra is more Devil leaning than Sevro. As for the Persona, I think Pazuzu would fit her style pretty well. What really struck me as fitting Victra was the description of Pazuzu as an evil spirit that drives away other evil spirits, and protects humans from plagues and misfortunes. Also, despite trying to stick with the arcana placements of Persona 5 Royal, I think it’s worth noting that Pazuzu was summoned by a character in Devil Survivor who seeks revenge for death of a loved one.

Cassius: While perusing the arcana descriptions, the one for the Lovers immediately reminded me of Cassius. The Lovers is usually reserved for the “canon” love interest in the games, barring player preferences. However, Dassius jokes aside, what really made me think Cassius is that this arcana symbolises two paths a life could lead to and, standing at a crossroad and needing to make a decision. I think this describes Cassius’ personal journey throughout the books to a T, especially in the climax of Morning Star where he makes the decision to join Darrow in taking out Aja and Octavia. The other arcana that Cassius would be is the Star. This arcana is said to represent hope, self-confidence, faith, altruism, luck, generosity, peace and joy. I feel like self-confidence, faith, and altruism fit pre-end of Morning Star Cassius very well. He was considered the pinnacle of Golds and I think, at least until he learned what was actually going on, that’s all he wanted to be. The game characters with this arcana are teachers or mentors to the protagonist. Characters that are very good at what they do and offer some form of training. A sort of outlier to this is Teddie, from Persona 4. While he does have more experience than the main character dealing with the enemy (both Cassius and Teddie are part of the group the protagonist fights against), Teddie doesn’t take a combative role until later in the game. This is only possible because Rise, who replaces him as support, makes him question his identity or the “real” him. This is very similar to what happens to Cassius in the first three books. Darrow becomes what Cassius thought himself to be and it causes Cassius to question who he really is. Although, unlike Teddie, I think Cassius chose to heavily lean into being the perfect Gold specimen until the end of Morning Star, where he makes a choice to be the “real” Cassius. As for the Persona, I could easily see him with Sraosha, who represents the highest virtue of humanity, obedience to and submission to Divine Law. I think his motivations for using this Persona would change, however. I imagine at first, he would use it to keep the Society functioning how it always does. But, after Morning Star, I bet it would shift to be more about protecting his own ideals and the submission aspect would relate to Cassius’ personal morals and sense of justice.

Lysander: I really wanted to avoid using the arcana that are not present in a standard deck, and added for a specific game. However, one of the arcana that stood out to me for Lysander is the Faith arcana. This arcana symbolises, in the positive, belief in others and in oneself. Negatively, it represents blind faith misplaced in something that does not deserve trust. From what I understand of Lysander’s story, his personal journey seems to mirror that of the game character who shares his arcana. It is revealed later that she is a fake, and her memories were overwritten by another character. I have not finished Dark Age as of writing this but, I am under the strong impression that Lysander has been brainwashed and that some of his memories have been replaced or erased entirely. And while he does have some misgivings about the Society, I believe he is blind to how fucked up it really is. But it also holds potential for Lysander to overcome this indoctrination. I had a bit of trouble with what the second arcana would be but, I think the Moon fits Lysander pretty well. You could say he’s a….Moonie. But in all seriousness, the description that struck me as Lysander-esque was "They often tend to have trouble accepting themselves for who they are and, because of that fear, try to correspond to an ideal person. And like the arcana, there is a hidden depth as to why they act in their behaviours." Lysander was definitely sheltered and isolated, by both Octavia and Cassius (he tried his best). And perhaps by Atalantia to some degree. He is a fed a narrative and doesn’t really get a chance to analyse his own perceptions and why they may be incorrect. The characters of the Moon arcana in the game often struggle internally with themselves which, to be honest, is a trait most of the POV characters have. But what I think Lysander lacks in that case, is self-awareness. As for the Persona, I ended up going with Cendrillon. This Persona is based on Cinderella, which is a little different from some of the other ones. As much as I like to make fun of Lysander for his poor choices, it’s hard not to see him as a victim. I don’t necessarily think he’s a hero or that he’s entitled to the kind of happy ending Cinderella gets. However, I do feel that, like the fairy tale princess, some of his circumstances were as a result of situations that were out of his control. Also, a line really stuck with me from the initial awakening for the Persona that really made me think Lysander; “Well, if those really are the shoes you've chosen... Then we'll dance to the end.”

Ephraim: Ephraim suffers a lot throughout the books, and I feel like that reflects heavily on what arcana he is. I think the first one that fits him well is the Tower arcana, which is associated with a fall from grace. His story reminds me a lot of the Tower social link character in Persona 3. Both Ephraim and the game character lose their family and turn to substance abuse to numb the pain. People of the Tower arcana seems to suffer a lot of internal pain which they fail to cope with healthily and thus turn to less savoury means until and outside force steps in to help steer them in a better direction. The other arcana I believe fits him well is the Hanged Man. What makes me think Ehpraim is that the appearance of the Hanged Man can be seen as advice to take the time to reflect over one's upcoming actions, which is something I think he needs to learn how to do. They can also be self-sacrificial and are often notable for being stuck between two different stages of life. Also, much like the Tower arcana characters, their journey seems to revolve around some kind of loss that they are failing to cope with. As for the Persona….this was a bit tricky. I have a few I like but one comes with a bit reluctance because of how it plays into the plot of Persona 4 and how it would reflect on Ephraim’s character. But, my gut is telling me that Magatsu-Izanagi is the way to go. What is making me think of Ephraim when I see it is the symbolism behind this Persona. It represents emptiness, impulsiveness, poor judgement, obsession and frivolity. There are also some similarities between Ephraim and the character who wields this Persona in Persona 4. They both exhibit little tact and seem to be playing some sort of game with the other characters. However, Adachi (Persona 4 character) seems to do this because he’s a psychopath whereas I think Ephraim is this way as a terrible coping mechanism. In Persona 4, the arcana where this Persona fits in is meant to be the reversed Fool. And while I’m trying to stick with the Persona 5 Royal placements (which for Magatsu-Izanagi is the Tower arcana), I think the implication here is that Ephraim has a lot of potential to be something so great if he can just reverse the path he is going down.

Lyria: I love Lyria. I think she’s a wonderful and interesting character. I love that she highlights the ramifications of undoing a toxic form of government. She gets so much development that it was easy to see what arcana she fit into. The first one I thought of was the Hermit. It represents wisdom, introspection, solitude, retreat and philosophical searches. In the beginning, she has very strong opinions about Darrow and the rest of the Rising. Which is entirely understandable considering her entire way of life was stripped from her without a way to cope with the changes. But, unlike Lysander, she’s willing to re-examine herself and her perceptions as she is presented with new information. She also tends to try and keep under the radar if she can, which is another trait of the Hermit. What’s interesting to me is that other characters of the Hermit arcana are victims of circumstances out of their control, but they see their own victimization as a result of a flaw in their character. The other arcana is very tricky for me, as there are parts of Lyria’s character that I don’t know yet. After much discussion and deliberation with my resident expert, the second arcana for Lyria is the Priestess. This arcana is a symbol of hidden knowledge or other untapped power, wisdom, female mystery and patience. The characters of this arcana also take more time to open up to the protagonist than others. Which also fits Lyria as she needed time and introspection to really understand Darrow and Mustang. As for the Persona, I’m actually going to cheat a little with my choice. I try to keep the arcana placements from Persona 5 Royal but for Lyria, I’m choosing Hariti whose arcana is Priestess in Persona 4 and Persona Q. Hariti is a protector of children and childbirth after going through a significant change in perspective which, from what I understand and have been told, is also something that Lyria does.

#persona #red rising #my thoughts

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fishylife · 3 years

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Thoughts up to HBO Rome Season 1, Episode 3

- Vorenus and Pullo are great characters. There’s nothing new about the kinds of characters they are, but they are rather fleshed out in the sense that everything they do makes sense and is in line with who they are. All of their mannerisms and dialogue contribute to telling us what kinds of people they are. I looked up Vorenus and Pullo and found out that they were based on real people, though of course history gives us not much about them.

- Vorenus is a huge stickler for the rules. He doesn’t know anything else. Everything is supposed to be as it should be, and if it isn’t, well, it should be. He has no people skills, he only knows discipline, and that’s why he scares his wife and his daughters. I am surprised that he threw his pride away to seek help for his marriage, but I suspect that that’s because he is a pretty simple person and doesn’t actually value pride as much as he seemed to.

- Pullo may be kind of annoying as a coworker if you hate chatty coworkers, but he’s far more street smart and people smart. He has vices, but at least he gets his job done. And even though he may not be learned, he is savvier than Vorenus in basically everything. He understands politics better, he understands people better, etc.

- I am surprised that Vorenus and Niobe reconciled, but it was kind of nice that they did. Vorenus’ speech about how he’s cold but he’s not made of stone was rather sweet. It’s as poetic as you can get from a gruff soldier like him. And Niobe who’s never received an ounce of affection from him is moved and she feels bad for being the one who broke the sanctity of marriage (though it was because she thought that Vorenus was dead). I do suspect that there will be some drama for them when Niobe’s lover comes to fight for her and the truth behind the baby is revealed. I also suspect that Vorenus will return to the army because being a soldier is what he’s good at.

- The family dynamics between Atia, Octavia, and Octavian are pretty interesting. Atia is super tricky. She values power over everything. I don’t think she sees her children as people to be protected, but rather, people to be raised into political allies. Obviously very messed up in real life but interesting to watch.

- I don’t think Octavia is naive, but she just values her feelings over power unlike her mother. I don’t think she’s dumb, she just cherished her love with Glabius a lot, because it’s probably difficult to find love when you have the potential to be a powerful political pawn, like Julia was for Caesar. Anyway, in this episode, Glabius was killed on Atia’s orders. Of course, Octavia was very upset, and for a moment, she suspected her mother, but her mother denied it and it appeared that Octavia believed it by hugging her. But I don’t know if she really does believe her. Maybe she believes it now, because she’s in a difficult spot and she needs the emotional support. But I think she’ll find out sooner or later. If she has a few clues, I think she could piece it together.

- Octavian is probably going to be the psychopath child of this show. He’s a bit bratty but that’s just him having grown up as the son of a noble family. But he’s also quite sharp when it comes to politics. When Atia was comforting Octavia, Octavian asked Atia who she though the murderer was. Atia brushed it off being like “it could be anyone!” But I wonder if Octavian was trying to provoke her into slipping up. I do think that Octavian is more of an ally to Octavia than his mother. We shall see if that becomes a point of conflict in this show.

- The Caesar vs. Pompey showdown is portrayed well, but at the same time, there’s nothing super innovative about it.

- The production quality of this show is high. I read on Wikipedia that it ran out of money and I can see why. The show was filmed at a studio, so the environment is very immersive. This show’s not relying on computer graphics, and it must rely on setting and props to build the atmosphere, and it delivered in that regard.

- After watching Cdramas, I am very glad that stuff happens every episode of this show. It’s a show I can put on for 40 minutes and it will keep my attention for 40 minutes because the plot moves.

#thinking out loud #tv #hbo rome

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ears-awake-eyes-opened · 4 years

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Now or never

(Hayffie ff ❤️. I initially shied away from this prompt because I didn’t think I could write it in a way that felt interesting. But I ended up having a great time with it, so much fun that this became one of my longest one-shots. — I make no apologies for the length of my posts in the feed or in the tags. I don’t apologize for any aspect of my free expression. For personal reasons, I write on my phone using the tumblr app, and the limitations are what they are. Like the limitations of my disabled body are what they are. For prompts, I reblog the prompt along with the link to my fic in case anyone wishes to reblog something shorter. — I write for myself, for my love of the characters and the process. When people comment on, like, or reblog my posts, I view those interactions as unexpected gifts. I have such love for writing that I’d do it old-school like Anne Frank, without any audience beyond my journal itself. This blog has been that for me for over 5 years, my space for coming of age and processing intensities in a strained and oppressive midlife. — I’m inspired now by prompts much more than I have been in past fanfiction efforts. So, thank you to everyone who offers them. And when people are willing to slog through my long fics and other posts, that is fabulous devotion to the characters/issues that are important to me, and I feel good to know I’m not caring alone. — 💛 Kim)

***

His facial hair was rough against her lips. The sensation triggered fantasy which played out more readily if she didn’t have to look at him. So she kissed him with her eyes closed whenever they fucked around. He was the same height as Haymitch. When she wore 5-inch heels, those added to the feeling of intimacy. It wasn’t entirely real, but it felt better than loneliness.

Their relationship was discrete, of course. Mutual discretion was a condition she established before getting involved with anyone, especially someone as high-profile as Seneca Crane.

As far as Capitol society was concerned, their connection was primarily professional, with occasional dinners at expensive restaurants. It was an image they’d been comfortable projecting, and it wasn’t far from the truth.

In moments that weren’t overly physical, she enjoyed his eyes. Blueish-grey with a streak of emotion, they were familiar enough to help her pretend. That’s why she’d first invited Seneca up to her apartment in the fall — to have sex with Haymitch in fantasy.

The sex was good enough. He was gifted with his hands, though he smelled too much like her. She wondered if he wore the same cologne as she did. And his body frame was smaller than the one she actually wanted intimacy with. By November, they’d become a regular *good enough* thing.

A dozen years earlier, they’d been schoolmates at the Academy. He graduated two years before her. She was softer then but already a force to reckon with. He was shorter in those days, sharp, obsessed with tech design. Ambition was an attribute they shared, perhaps the only one.

By 30, he’d become one of the youngest Head Gamemakers in history. He enjoyed the rush of adrenaline he experienced when executing the Games, and he relished the opportunity for artistry. The thrill and beauty he saw in death made Effie uncomfortable, but she viewed it as part of the job. He carried out the president’s wishes, though he confided in her that he didn’t fully agree with the way Snow ruled Panem.

On an evening in late December, they walked along a garden path covered in trellises draped with strands of fairy lights. Effie kept her hands warm in her pockets. It had been a long day, and she was ready to be home in bed, asleep, alone.

“What do you think about marriage?” he asked. The question was slightly more inspiring than if he’d asked her what she thought about the weather.

“I haven’t given it much thought,” she answered honestly, leaving out her occasional ludicrous fantasies about having babies with tiny purple wigs and predispositions for alcoholism.

“A union could be advantageous for both our careers. The publicity could improve your chances of promotion to escort for an inlying district.”

“And what do you stand to gain from a *union*?”

“You’re iconic, Effie. You represent the Capitol with style and positivity, and you execute your work flawlessly. You’re in good favor with the president. You could be a wonderful ally for me,” You could be a buffer for me, he didn’t say.

“Is there anything more?”

“Like what?”

“Really, Seneca, is THIS how you’re proposing??”

“Well, our families would support us. And there’s the matter of sentiment.”

“Sentiment?”

“I like you. I care for you, of course.”

She thought of Haymitch’s words from last summer, the night they almost... but didn’t.

‘I like you too much,’ he’d said, ‘I can’t fuck around with you and pretend it’s nothing. And that’s how it would have to be. That’s the only way it could be.”

Venia and Octavia insisted Haymitch loved her, but she believed that was still a pipe dream. She could keep waiting in vain, or she could choose a more sensible path.

“And there’s this...” From his coat pocket, Seneca pulled a black velvet box and flipped it open. Effie’s jaw dropped. The diamond was huge. It was far and away the loveliest ring she’d seen. She looked in those blueish-grey eyes that reminded her a bit of everything she wanted that wasn’t accessible to her.

Seneca pressed, “Say yes, and the wedding can be one of the biggest events of the year, rivaling even the Games.”

She imagined what her dress would look like. He was saying the right words to tempt her. They didn’t love each other, but maybe she could look past that inconvenient reality. Sometimes people married for other reasons.

“The press would go crazy,” he continued, “There would be red carpet interviews. We could invite everyone who’s anyone: stylists, victors, even Snow.”

Victors... Would he show up to watch me get married? 6 months ago, Haymitch had asked her what she wanted. He’d unzipped her dress and touched her body. He’d taken off his shirt and shown her his scars. Then he effectively told her a relationship between them was never going to happen, and he held her hand as she fell asleep.

Damn him.

She took her left hand out of her pocket. “Let’s see how it fits.”

Seneca had investigated her ring size, so the fit was perfect.

“Let’s show him,” she said.

“Show who?”

“Them. Let’s show them all.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes. Let’s get married. ...This spring.” She could plan a wedding in 5 months, no problem. Isn’t this the time couples usually cry and leap into one another’s arms? Shouldn’t this occasion call for a show of passion?

“This spring it shall be then.” When Seneca kissed her, she closed her eyes and embraced the same fantasy as usual.

***

Haymitch rarely received mail beyond his compensatory income from the government. In March, when the post delivered an envelope addressed to him in gold ink, he almost tossed the thing straight into the trash, recognizing it as an invitation to a Capitol party. Then he saw the name “Trinket” and the return address of Effie’s family home.

What’s this? He opened it right there on the porch with uneasiness gnawing at his stomach.

“You are cordially invited to celebrate the marriage of

Euphemia Rosalind Trinket -and-

Seneca Lucius Crane

Saturday, the first of May

At 3 O’Clock in the afternoon

Palazzo Annaeus”

What the hell is THIS! His stomach churned, and he vomited up a pint of white liquor on the ground beside the porch.

Memories flooded in... tracing up the seams of her stockings, unhooking her garters, feeling her body without a corset, running his fingers through her hair as she curled up in bed, so soft. So damn soft. Fear had screamed warnings about getting attached to her. Fear was always screaming.

When those Games were done, he’d left the Capitol with a strained sadness between them, like a rubber band stretched too long. Today it snapped and smacked him in the face. He felt the sting of annoyance and regret.

Damn her.

He couldn’t fix this. The only thing left to do was decide whether or not he was willing to watch it happen. He would have burned the invitation in the fireplace if not for the P.S. in her obnoxiously perfect handwriting.

***

Seneca had been right about one thing. Effie’s parents were thrilled that she’d decided to marry one of *the Crane boys,* especially the Head Gamemaker. Historically the Cranes had been part of the old guard of the wealthy from the Capitol, and they’d successfully diversified their financial interests in the years following the Dark Days.

Her parents spared no expense for *the wedding of the decade.* Effie spent the winter so caught up in the comfort of validation and the thrill of event planning that most of the time she evaded the sense of dread that nagged her when she startled awake in the mornings.

When she’d addressed the invitations, she considered adding a postscript to Haymitch’s, either “Fuck you�� or “I love you.” Both feelings were nonsensical and nonetheless true. In the end she’d written,

“H — Please come. — E”

She checked the mail each day for his response card among hundreds, but it never showed up. Figures. He probably threw it away.

She didn’t need anyone to *rescue* her from the fate she’d chosen. If she wanted to call off the wedding, she’d simply come up with a logical explanation to save face; she’d apologize to Seneca and her parents; she’d put a stop to all plans, and that would be that.

The phrase “Mayday mayday mayday” was a distress signal used by Capitol troops during the Dark Days. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d subconsciously scheduled her wedding on the first of May because, apart from the fine details, opulence, and attention, her heart wasn’t in this.

***

“We’re here at Pallazo Annaeus,” Claudius reported from the red carpet which had been rolled out along the walkway to the galleria of the Crane family mansion. “Just a short time from now, fashion icon and District 12 escort, Effie Trinket, will wed two-time Head Gamemaker, Seneca Crane.”

“Isn’t this exciting!!” Caesar was in typical form. “The air is positively electric!”

“So much so that my hair is standing on end!”

“As is mine!! Thank goodness for hair products.”

“And wigs! We’re seeing all of the ABOVE as the guests arrive. What a crowd!”

Their interviews with attendees were concise, asking which stylists designed their gowns and suits, and if they had particular wishes to share with the couple.

“Now here comes... Is that?... It is! Haymitch Abernathy, victor of the second Quarter Quell.”

“How touching. One advisor for District 12 supporting the other on her special day.”

“I LOVE it!! Haymitch, do you have any words for the happy couple?”

Haymitch stomped past them without pause. He hadn’t entirely sobered up from the bottle of whiskey he drank on the train, and he didn’t even try to resist flipping Caesar off when asked the question.

“A man of few words,” Claudius covered for a shocked Caesar. “We never know what to expect from that one.”

“He certainly does keep us on our toes.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we have stylish shoes!”

“Indeed!” Each of them spun around on tiptoe, and the cameras zoomed in on their footwear as a distraction from Haymitch’s persistent middle finger.

Just beyond the entryway, the galleria was packed already. Guests were dressed in yards of fabric and large hats. Floral arrangements lined marble walls covered with paintings, some of which were probably older than Panem itself. Haymitch slipped into the first empty chair he spotted, ignoring the usher who asked him, “Are you here for the bride or the groom?”

The question pestered. The bride. Shit. I’m here for the bride.

***

With every detail attended to, Effie curled her fingers around her father’s arm in the vestibule. Flower girls and bridesmaids entered the galleria first, then it would be her turn.

“My princess is getting married in a palace.” Her father kissed her cheek.

“Daddy! Careful of my makeup. Photos aren’t being taken until afterward.”

“Of course. It’s YOUR perfect day.”

Effie had certainly made everything perfect, except for this unrelenting nausea and desire to run away. She forced herself to breathe slowly. The last thing she needed right now was to throw up, ruin her white gown, and have the press start a false rumor about pregnancy. She had no desire to have children with Seneca. She’d made that clear, and he agreed.

“Are you alright, sweetheart?”

Her father calling her “sweetheart” made every discomfort worse. Clearly she thought of Haymitch.

“I’m trying to be alright... but I don’t know,” she confessed.

Her father wasn’t sure what to say. “It’s almost time to walk down the aisle. Is that what you want to do?”

He asked it like she had a choice, but it was too late for choices.

“Let’s go pay the piper!” As Effie started down the aisle on her father’s arm, she didn’t notice the splendor and fullness of the room, nor the oohs and aahs from standing friends and family. She didn’t notice the rose petals on the floor, nor her fiancé sweating like a pig about to be roasted alive with an apple in its mouth.

All she saw was Haymitch.

He stood at the edge of the aisle, in the middle of the room. In the years that she’d known him, he’d been clear about his disdain for Capitol events, yet here he was, no RSVP and very much himself in his regular clothes from District 12. She’d probably be irritated if she hadn’t missed him so much. He was standing right here, and she was still missing him. It took every ounce of restraint to not tell him so.

“Great dress, sweetheart.” He offered a subdued smile as she passed.

She looked back at him once, and her eyes felt like old glass, holding tears too hardened to fall. Then there was nothing to do but look forward.

***

Fear was screaming different words now at Haymitch. Stop this. This wedding. Stop this!

As she walked away from him, he could see that her dress had an open back from her waist to the top of her shoulder blades. The gap was bordered in ornate jewels, stitching, and fancy shit. But he couldn’t take his eyes off her skin, and he couldn’t stop thinking about touching her.

She glanced at him again as she handed her bouquet to a bridesmaid. Her eyes were pleading. He knew the look because of all the times he’d tried to ignore her feelings for him ...and his feelings for her.

The officiant addressed the audience, “We are gathered here today to join Effie and Seneca in matrimony. Family, friends, and honored guests, do you support this union and affirm that these two should be married today?”

Haymitch looked around as the audience responded in unison, "We do."

I don’t.

The officiant continued, “Will you surround this couple in love, offering them the joys of your friendship? Will you support this couple in their relationship? At times of conflict will you offer them the strength of your wisest counsel and the comfort of your thoughtful concern? At times of joy, will you celebrate with them, nourishing their love for one another?”

The automatons responded together again, "We will.”

Like hell I will.

“If any of you has a reason why these two should not be married, speak now or forever hold your peace."

Haymitch sighed and shook his head. Someday he’d be the death of her, or she’d be the death of him. Maybe today was that day.

This felt like now or never. The bit of whiskey still in his veins helped it be now. He stood up and moved quickly down the aisle to the sound of gasps and murmurs all around him.

***

“What are you doing?” Effie was stunned as he gripped her wrist.

“Excuse us,” Haymitch said directly to Seneca, then he pulled Effie out of the room down a long hallway.

She went willingly, chastising him in hushed tones along the way. “Haymitch! This is highly inappropriate!”

“More inappropriate than us having this conversation in front of the entire Capitol?”

“What conversation?”

He pulled her into a room down the hall.

“Not so tight!”

He loosened his grasp on her wrist but didn’t let go.

“What are you doing, Effie?”

“Do I need to state the obvious?”

“Marriage?? Why are you even WITH him?”

“I don’t owe you explanations — or anything else for that matter.”

She was right. She owed him nothing. His edge softened, and he stroked her wrist with his thumb. “Why are you marrying somebody you didn’t even look at as you walked down that aisle?”

“I LOOKED at him.”

“For about five seconds, and what did you see?”

She hesitated, “He’s wearing a tie, not an ascot. We had a dispute about it this week, and I insisted he wear the tie.”

“That’s what you’re thinking about on your wedding day when you see the man you’re about to marry — a goddamn tie?”

“Why are YOU giving ME the third degree! What are YOU thinking about on my wedding day?”

“I’m thinking about how much I hate Seneca Crane. I don’t want him marrying you. I don’t want you fucking him.”

“Well, that ship sailed! We’ve been having sex for months, not that it’s any of your business!”

“Not my business?”

“Absolutely not!”

He was burning with a mix of emotions: anger, jealousy, frustration, confusion, desire, fear. “If it’s not my business, then why did you ask me to ‘please come’ today? What am I doing here? ...If it’s not my business, then why did reading your wedding invitation make me puke. Why can’t I stop thinking about you? ...If it’s not my business, then why do I want to be the one to take this dress off you. I keep holding your wrist because if I let go, I’m gonna touch you, and what would your *fiancé* think about that? What would YOU think about that?”

He’d never confessed so much to her all at once, and she was in a mild state of shock about it. “Last summer you told me if we ‘fucked around’ then you’d have to pretend it means nothing. You told me you can’t pretend that, so where does that leave us?”

“I don’t know, honey.”

“I think you do. ...Let go of my wrist.”

“I told you what’s gonna happen if I let go.”

“Then let it happen.”

In a duality of reluctance and eagerness, he let go of her wrist and caressed her through the open back of her dress. She shivered and leaned into him. He wrapped his arms around her, touching every inch of skin he could reach.

The wig she wore resembled her actual hair color, light golden, like wheat before harvest. In this moment, she was an angel. He’d kiss her if she’d just shut up, but she had things to say too.

“If it’s not your business, then why am I still here with you instead of out there marrying Seneca?” Her tone softened. “Why do I close my eyes and picture you every time I kiss him and every time we have sex? ....If it’s not your business, then why do I miss you so much?”

“Jesus, Effie. What are you doing to me?”

“I don’t know, honey.”

“I think you do.”

***

From the doorway, Seneca cleared his throat. He’d been listening awhile. Effie tried to pull away from Haymitch, but first he had to untangle himself from the back of her dress.

“This isn’t quite what it looks like,” Effie laughed nervously.

“It looks like unfinished business,” Seneca said.

“Then it IS what it looks like,” Haymitch told him.

“Will you please excuse us?” Seneca asked, proper as fuck. “Effie and I have some things to discuss.”

“I’m not leaving.” Fear and desire for her wouldn’t budge.

“I’ll handle this,” she insisted. “Please wait in the hall.”

This was the Gamemaker’s house, his wedding, and his girl for god sake. What else could Haymitch do? Pull out his knife and slit the guy’s throat?? This was Effie’s world, not his. Without another word, he stepped out of the room, and he hated that she closed the door behind him.

Seneca confronted her, “I’ll say this quickly because our guests have already waited long enough. A marriage of convenience is prudent when the motivations for such a union are stronger than the desire for love. I’ve realized that’s not the case here. For me, and apparently not for you either.”

“Are you in love with someone else?”

“Someone my family regards as unsuitable. I’m sorry I didn’t speak about it sooner. I was afraid you wouldn’t understand.” He glanced at the door, “But I see that you do. Frankly, this interruption is an enormous relief.”

Effie was slightly miffed to realize that Seneca would not be pining for her, but the interruption did lift her feeling of dread. “I apologize as well. I haven’t been forthcoming with you, or with myself. What do we do now? The Capitol is expecting a wedding.”

“The Capitol is expecting a show, and they’re getting that. Let’s walk out there together and announce that we’ve decided to cancel the nuptials and move straight to the reception. It can still be the party of the year.”

“But my parents...”

“I’ll reimburse your father for his investment in this. It’s the right thing to do. I do care for you, Effie, but I should never have discussed marriage as a hypothetical, let alone proposed and let it get this far.”

He held out his hand. “Shall we? Before any more time passes.”

She threaded her fingers with his in solidarity.

When the door opened, Haymitch was still there in the hall, fuming now at the sight of them holding hands.

“Seneca, give me another minute,” she said.

He let go of her and took several steps away.

She touched Haymitch’s arm and spoke into his ear, “The wedding is off. But we need time to appease our families and everyone else. Meet me at 9 o’clock at The Popina on 6th St. Do you know the place?”

He’d never been there, but it was a good call. He doubted the press would look for him at a swanky wine bar. “I know the one.”

She whispered, “I said I don’t owe you anything, and you don’t owe me anything either. Regardless, this feeling between us isn’t going away.”

Seneca told him, “Keep following this hallway as it bends to the right. You’ll eventually reach a side door you can take out of here if you want...”

Haymitch didn’t trust him and didn’t want to leave.

“...Unless you’d prefer a walk back down the red carpet with the other guests.”

I don’t.

Effie urged him to go. “I need to set this right. Please don’t make this harder for me than it already is.”

“I don’t wanna run out in the middle of a pile of shit.”

“Language! This wedding is not a pile of anything. It’s an event we need to finish differently than expected. Will you trust me?”

“Fine.” He answered without conviction, turning away so he wouldn’t have to watch them link hands again. Holding the handle of the knife in his pocket, he followed the hallway to the side door and left all that nonsense behind him. Did he trust her?? If she walked into that bar tonight without a rock on her finger, then maybe he just might.

***

Afterward, the red carpet commentary indeed made for a more interesting show.

“The only thing more exciting than a wedding,” said Caesar, “Is a kiss at the altar between the bride and groom after they’ve CALLED OFF the ceremony!”

“You may now kiss the woman in white who is no longer your bride!”

“Oh, Claudius, you’re so cheeky!”

“I can honestly say I’ve never seen a couple more happy to be NOT married.”

“Did somebody bring the sun INSIDE the palace? Because they were positively glowing.”

“The reception is still on, and did you hear their words about it?”

“Caesar, I was on the edge of my seat, and I couldn’t miss them, but say them again.”

“Seneca began, ‘May 1st, May Day, is not just one of folktales. Mayday was a cry of distress during war, terrible war. The Capitol responded and transformed that distress into peace.’

“Then...”

“Then Effie continued, ‘Instead of celebrating a wedding, we’ve decided to transform the reception we’d planned into a festival honoring the glory of the Capitol. Panem today, Panem tomorrow, Panem forever.’”

“Don’t you just love that?”

“I DO! I absolutely do!”

“Well, that’s the only ‘I do’ that we’ll be hearing this afternoon!”

Hysterical laughter ensued between the two.

“Claudius, the question on everyone’s mind revolves around the influence of a certain mentor from District 12.”

“Yes. Haymitch Abernathy interrupted the ceremony.”

“He pulled Effie away, and Seneca followed. When the couple returned hand-in-hand, they called off the wedding. The mystery is, what happened in between?”

“As you said earlier, we never know what to expect from Haymitch. That one is a wildcard.”

“We’ve been waiting for him to emerge from the palace so we can ask him, but as we noted before, he is a man of few words.”

“Maybe we’ll catch him at the reception.”

“The festival!”

“The festival, of course!”

***

By 10 o’clock, Haymitch had read the sign on the wall a hundred times. “Hedone says, ‘You can drink here for one; if you give two, you will drink better; if you give four, you will drink Falernian.”

‘Hedone’ he recognized as the Roman goddess of pleasure. He thought pleasure would be a fine devotion if it wasn’t pursued at the cost of other people’s lives or pursued to chase away demons. He was already chasing one bottle of Falernian with another. “Damn Capitol wine doesn’t get you drunk unless you chug two bottles. And this is the best they’ve got?”

He’d been there a couple of hours. During that time, his attention was divided between that sign reflecting on hedonism and the screen showing footage of Effie’s non-wedding reception.

They were *saving face* alright. Haymitch had rarely seen Effie kiss anyone, and tonight he’d watched her kiss her *former* fiancé every time someone clinked a glass. The kisses were pecks mostly, a game they were probably playing to host a fun party and show the Capitol there were no hard feelings between them. But as the kisses added up, Haymitch’s dislike for Seneca Crane became more palpable.

“Slide a bit,” she said, showing up beside him. She was hiding in a simple dress and a light layer of makeup. Her hair was pulled back beneath a scarf instead of a wig.

He scooted over, making room for her at his booth in back. “You’re late, sweetheart. Did Crane kiss all that makeup off your face?”

“And you’re drunk.” She caressed the back of his neck, content to be with him right now, drunk or not.

“Wasn’t drunk an hour ago after the first bottle of this Falernian shit. But the more you drink, the better it tastes.”

She drank from his glass, and he didn’t object. From his perspective right now, she could drink straight from his mouth or off his body.

He encircled her waist, pulling her as close as the setting allowed. He was relieved to see that she wasn’t married. His inhibitions were reduced, so she could do just about anything to him right now, and he wouldn’t object. He tried not to think about her having that kind of power.

She stroked his arm wrapped around her. “There’s a rumor circulating about you.”

“Oh yeah? What is it?” He kissed her neck after each question. “Do they think I’m fucking you?”

She giggled because the hair on his face tickled her skin and because she was anticipating his response. “Not quite, honey.”

“What then?”

“They think you’re fucking Seneca.”

“What the hell?!!”

“Caesar and Claudius predicted ‘the mentor from District 12 is having a torrid affair with the Head Gamemaker,’ and you pulled me away from the wedding in the hopes of taking my place at the altar.”

“They’re lunatics.”

“It’s a risky move breaking up a wedding. Who knows what people will say.”

“What do YOU say?”

“I say you look at my breasts far too often for you to be interested in Seneca Crane,” she chuckled.

“And what do you say about me breaking up your wedding?”

As she looked into his eyes, there was no approximation, no almost. It was a relief to not have to *pretend* that he was the one she wanted, but to just KNOW it. “I say, thank you. ...Sweetheart.”

What fantasies and real desires would be accessible with him? She’d know more in time.

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