#long con***

[defiledheartsblog]

My headcanon is that Hati wasn't going to the library after Marcus, they were just searching for what Vestial Virgin means, Marcus just happened to be there (I've adopted the deep denial mindset Hati has going on)

Hati and Marcus getting married, buying a villa together, Hati is still dead set on claiming that it's all part of the Plan™️.

[gingergofastboatsmojito]

It's a fake restaurant but... it's a real legend about lovebirds.

Source: mdbooks.com

Fairest Creatures

Fairest Creatures was a Shakespearean trap Storer set up in S1 and he's still long conning it.

The obvious interpretation of the name of that restaurant that doesn't exist is that it's named after the Shakespearean sonnet #1 and the meaning behind it is that the protagonist must leave a legacy so their ephemeral beauty will live on. Lovely. Totally in sync with the leitmotiv of the show and where the show is going, etc... #Boring

BUT

Fairest Creatures exists in CA as a very special winery

Source: FairestCreatures.com

As the legend goes: they are lovebirds.

The red and the blue are in her jacket and in the napkins too and in everything Sydcarmy because those colors represent THEM. She's his red, his fire. He's the blue, the sad boy who through his love for her re-discovered his true purpose in life.

The meaning behind that award that was shown to us to get to know Carmy's background a bit better is not letting us know he was a talented young chef, not that the restaurant was called fairest creatures because it had a Shakespearean connotation, the reason why Storer planted that in plain sight back then was because the fairest creatures are Carmy and Syd, THE LOVEBIRDS, according to the Chinese poem. Shakespeare has nothing to do here. He was nothing but a smokescreen in this case.

Also, this could be a foreshadowing of Syd winning the JB Award too, eventually, as I have been predicting for a while now. S4 sounds like the best timing for that award to happen, to put the "bad review" behind.

Bonus track: I think the whole cast of Fairest Creatures is this:

Remember to follow my tag #Gingerpovs 💋

[moreespressoformydepresso]

Was thinking about how in Electric Rebels (great fic from @ylvisruinedmylife go read it if you haven't) the tributes all fake their death and then I was thinking about all the 'tributes escaping the zoo' AU's and my dumb little brain mashed them together.

What if, after escaping the zoo through whatever means you decide to go with, the tributes realize that they can't just walk out of the city? And while going through the sewers or the tunnels is certainly an option, they have to get down there in the first place and they are 24 starved children with worn down, ragged clothing completely covered in dirt and grime. And they can't just rock up at someone's house to use their shower and steal their clothing. They're in the middle of the city and they have a few hours before their absence is discovered. Then there will be an all-out manhunt and, again, they're a big group of children who all stand out like sore thumbs in this city full of rich snobs. Also, someone brings up the splendid point that they'll never be able to truly live even if they make it back home. Either they leave all their loved ones and live in the wilderness, or they go home and risk death every day if they're caught. So, they come up with the perfect solution: Fake their deaths! No one will look for dead kids, after all. Except they're not on camera, they'll be doing it irl, so they have to be very careful about how they handle this.

Wovey and Bobbin mention a warehouse in the city where peacekeeper uniforms are kept, and a plan is concocted. Some of the bigger guys pose as peacekeepers, because due to their frame they're more likely to pass. As soon as they wash off the dirt and grime and slightly restyle their hair, no one will recognize them. Then they get to the fun part: crafting everyone's death scene. There's fake bullets and blood, there's some more grizzly physical fights, there's a nasty fall down the river, and there's a poisoning. They pick a spot where they'll hide out once they're "dead" and the tributes pretending to be peacekeepers have dragged them off and then the show begins. Marcus, Facet, Reaper, and Jessup easily infiltrate the peacekeeper ranks while Circ and Teslee fuck with the cameras around the city. Every "death" is caught on camera, and every time the four have a partner to patrol with the moment where they knock them out is mysteriously missing...

All of the video footage is used by the Capitol as proof of how strong they are, and while the president gives a speech about how any attempt to fight against their might is futile, the tributes laugh from the comfort of their homes, reunited with their families and loved ones as they hide away until they age out of the reaping system and are forgotten by anyone who cares.

PS: That poisoning is Treech. He will never not be an actor to me, so he gets a more public and emotional death scene that has several witnesses. I might write that scene because I have it clearly in my head. It's got hints of a full fix it too, because what happens could inspire the Capitol to reevalute their morals and cause them to stop the games altogether because a citizen actually tries to help Treech and a "peacekeeper" (lets go with Reaper) rips them off of him to keep up the ruse and also show the citizen how district people are treated on the daily.

[realwallamaybungya]

will tumblr ever hear about the great fake dating scheme of 2024

oh????? tumblr do your thing

[thecursedquoteshop]

(via "Life is a Long Con" Magnet for Sale by Cursed-Quotes)

Most things are long cons... including LIFE

[astoriachef]

The thing about Dracula is that it’s actually a pulp noir crime story.

The short con operator from the sticks comes to the big city to take a shot at running a long con. He’s aces at first, but then he meets the dame. The wrong dame, you dig? He gets on the bad side of the big bosses, but he just can’t give up the girl, and the bosses hire a button man to rub him out. He dies like a sap. Ashes to ashes.

Jim Thompson could have written this in an afternoon.

[delightful-to-be-read]

The Talented Mr Ripley - Patricia Highsmith

Technically a re-read but I first read it when I was thirteen and have been meaning to read it again. I finally got round to it after watching Andrew Scott play a 20-year-older version.

A down-on-his-luck aspiring con artist, Tom Ripley, is hired to fetch a wealthy and unwilling acquaintance, Dickie Greenleaf, back to New York from Atrani by the acquaintance’s father. Dickie is living an idyllic, relaxed life and Ripley quickly becomes attached to his lifestyle and him.

I really loved the adaptation, more than I like the book, so it’s hard not to reflect on that and compare them.

Things I like:

Another book where the main character hasn’t realised they’re the bad guy

Things I noticed:

You get a fair amount of Tom Ripley’s internal monologue and he is governed by a low self-esteem that enables him to justify to himself pretty much anything he does. It’s not a very interesting mindset, but it’s certainly a recognisable one.

He should qualify for the sympathy I would normally give to the self-loathing queer, but he doesn’t somehow. I don’t like him but I don’t need to like characters to enjoy books.

I watched the adaptation when visiting my parents and we discussed how little dialogue there was because he spent so much time on his own. This translates in the book as quite large blocks of prose, not split into paragraphs at least in my edition, which made concentrating quite difficult for an ADHD brain.

[meyerlansky]

don't know what you're talking about. a shark did this. 🦈

[alicenpai]

princess tutu: die jahreszeiten 🌸

kind of a companion piece to my 2022 ptutu drawing | it's on inprnt

this print was at anime north; next con is otakuthon!

oops so my hand slipped and i made another princess tutu drawing. i admittedly don't watch that much anime so my catalogue of work is gonna be the same 5 animes LMAO. what can i say, i love "dark" fairy tales, and i've been really enjoying the more fine art approach to a lot of my drawings as of late (and the watercolour brush i've been using has been so perfect for that...!)

as my first princess tutu drawing is now 2 years old, there are some areas i've grown to have ... qualms with... although both drawings as a whole are pretty much exactly what i envisioned, and that's always satisfying!

both of these were drawn in roughly a week's time (yes really...) for con crunch period (and i went back to this drawing after the con to touch up some areas that were a bit rough!). i wanted a different approach to this new pt drawing, with the focus on the line work, rather than on colours and lighting in the 2022 drawing.

this drawing had 2 goals: to continue the style i adopted in my witch hat atelier "lantern bearers" drawing (which i promise i'll post in full soon as soon as all of the zine artists get their go-ahead to post their pieces!), and to emulate the art nouveau movement's heavy emphasis on line work, albeit not a 1:1 style replication of course.

the seasons also aren't a 1:1 representation, as i didn't necessarily pick flowers or colours that are most strongly associated with the season (e.g. summer being a dark tone is a bold choice?). but it's kinda whatever, as i said before i drew this in a week, there may be more appropriate flowers with better meanings. i couldn't spend too too much time drafting and researching.

FLOWER SYMBOLISM:

- spring: apple blossoms, tulips - the apple blossom is a quintessential spring flower, and thus symbolize the arrival of spring. spring is a season of change, which ahiru/princess tutu is a force of, instigating change in her friends and unravelling the story around her. the flowers below her are tulips, and there are many meanings to tulips depending on the colour, due to their ubiquitous nature. i narrowed on one, and intended for them to symbolize happiness. princess tutu's pose is one in which that is open, inviting, and warm - reflecting her nurturing nature in the series, and her willingness to help others achieve happiness.

- summer: deadly nightshade flower, yellow rose - i chose for rue/princess kraehe to symbolize a fiery summer's night instead of the typical dazzling heat of a summer's day, a rather bold and unusual choice. the warmth of sunshine didn't quite fit, as the character is quite dramatic and passionate, with her intentions often hidden in shadow. next, the deadly nightshade - atropa belladonna - has a lot of mythological associations, a lot to do with poisoning, as the flower is toxic. the flowers bloom at night (another reason why i picked a nighttime backdrop for "summer") and also outwardly match rue's dark design scheme, as the cherry on top. yellow roses, at the bottom of her frame, are the archetypal flower depicting jealousy (as with many yellow flowers are), and at one point in the story, rue only wished for her own happiness at the misfortune of others.

- autumn: douglas fir needles, orange calla lily - autumn is another season of change - although much more tumultuous, as this season is traditionally taken to prepare for a long winter ahead - fitting for fakir as the role of the storyteller. the douglas fir is not a flower of course, but is a tree - with many different parts of this tree offering many benefits in advance of the winter season. i wanted the versatile nature of the douglas fir to reflect on fakir's dependable personality. next up, the calla lily is a flower with a dual meaning - on one hand you have life, on the other you have death. a storyteller quite literally can grant both at the tip of their fingers.

- winter: birch tree, snowdrop - winter is a rather still and unchanging season, a lull in the passage of time. this symbolizes mytho's passive nature at the start of the series, especially with his doleful pose here, as if almost in hibernation. to contrast, mytho is perched on the branches of a birch tree, which means new beginnings and renewal - as mytho is one of the characters that undergo the most change throughout the series (i'd argue the most?), regaining pieces of his heart. under mytho's frame is the snowdrop flower - and if you've read my witch hat atelier: seasons piece symbolisms, one of the snowdrop's meanings is rebirth, with connotations to the bible, bringing hope, when all had forsaken eve. the snowdrop is one of the first flowers to bloom even when the snow has not yet fully melted, further echoing mytho as an analogy for rebirth.

[defiledheartsblog]

Not me imagining my hati making marcus jealous by having an affair with both the legate and floyd and getting pregnant by floyd and claiming that the child is the legate child then getting married to the legate to stir some drama between the family then after having the legate wrapped around my finger I break his heart by telling him that his child is floyd child and order my child to kill marcus and his family leaving the legate alive but takes his fortune away from him then divorcing him to marry floyd then making him my pet so I can have them both dilfs what a vile but marvelous revenge 😈

[soysaucetime]

We all pretend to be the heroes on the good side

does anyone remember that one trailer for KH3 where they showed a quick shot of Aqua (evil) in the realm of darkness........... I lost my mind back then over 3 seconds of content

[thoughtsandmusingsandideas]

Furina, who while devoted to the creator, knows that they are not all powerful nor all knowing- after all, they still referred to her as Focalors, they still treat her as an archon and one of their acolytes.

Furina, who regularly questioned her faith and her loyalties- after all, she was attempting to fool the Heavenly Principles, the loyal attack dog of the creator, but at the same time, why didn’t the creator try and stop the prophecy? If the creator had the power, and truly loved all their humans and archons, why let Fontaine drown?

Furina, who when an impostor appeared, received the same order as every other archon- hunt down the imposter, the heretic who defied their revered creator, and destroy them and their treasonous behaviour.

Furina, who during the search, wondered if she would be hunted down with the same vigor if others would learn of her duplicity.

Furina, who found you in a grotto only able to be accessed underwater, who saw the way the creatures of the sea attempting to help you patch up the wound in your side, spilling golden blood, and realized her faith was misplaced with far more ease than any other archon could have mustered.

Furina, who helped her creator heal in that grotto, apologies soft and regretful on her lips. She should have realized sooner; After all, she knows how easy it is to impersonate a god.

[erabu-san]

Burning going to be my new gender i afraid

+ a doodle i made yesterday before sleeping

[ningadudexx]

thank you to alejandro saab for being so kind!!! it was awesome to meet you :) i was so excited!!!

stuff i forgot to post and monkeys ^_^ monkie kid... so epic....

[aardvaark]

i love parker’s early grifts that are just like:

i am a waitress who is meant to be here :) i’m an fbi agent and the story im recounting is definitely about chasing a thief and not about *being* the thief :) i have had real live human friends before :) let me into your workplace

[bidonicart]

never tell your weeb boyfriend you know six languages including Japanese

more snotacon at the comicon