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changingplumbob · 1 month ago

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Chatting about Dating Deanna - Shay Edition

Shay: So a little birdie told me you wanted a sneak peek of the villa?

Deanna: I may have been worried about living conditions

Shay: Oh honey you've not seen extreme living conditions until you've lived in my job. Don't worry, I may have been on Mad About Dodo but I used none of that in this build

Deanna: You built this yourself?

Shay: *remembers how the last time she tried to explain that she's living in a simulation the sim kept resetting* Yes?

Deanna: Well it looks like it belongs in Tartosa

Shay: YES! Let me tell you one time I was in Africa and asked where the wood was and everyone on the crew looked at me like I had two heads *shudders* apparently bricks were the better option

Deanna: So can I see inside?

Shay: Sure! Follow me!

Shay: This is the entryway. Felt like some nice green touches by the stairs. Then near the entrance to the hall to your room and a couple of contestant rooms we have some modern art with some more... historical pieces

Deanna: Is that a chinchilla by a skull?

Shay: Dire chinchilla I believe. Responsible for unspeakable amounts of death

Deanna: Is this my room?

Shay: I know it's a bit simple but you really won't be spending much time here beyond sleeping. Now, do you want to see the watcher's favourite part?

Shay: Did someone say split level kitchen and lounge???

Deanna: No

Shay: Well the watcher did! Isn't it glorious? I love the amount of light we were able to get in here. And the modular couch *squeals*

Deanna: It does look spacious

Shay: Well in the bigger rounds we will need to fit in you and six contestants at a time. Pus Devin and whoever is proposing the challenge

Shay: So the lawn on the right is... under construction? I mean there is a small area for when you do some group hangouts but the other side of it is empty so we can fit in some of the larger equipment for challenges

Deanna: Larger equipment being?

Shay: Oh you know, things the watcher can't be bothered building another lot for. Now back inside beyond the lounge we have what I like to call the wiggle room

Deanna: Wiggle room?

Shay: Not all the solo challenges need large equipment so this space is going to be swapped around for whatever it needs to be. Some might say the watcher just hates building but meh, this is why she has me

Shay: To the left of the lounge of course we have-

Deanna: THE POOL

Shay: Correct. Now there isn't any swimming challenges but there will be down time between the weeks where everyone needs to relax so we wanted a nice space. Don't tell anyone but the watcher is actually over the moon about how it came out

Deanna: Is that a contestants room I can see through the windows?

Shay: Yes. Except of course sims don't peer through windows so no one will actually notice during the challenge

*Deanna resets*

Shay: Fudge! Yes, contestants rooms. All are the same since they'll be swapping around a bunch. But they've got a bed, wardrobe and mirror. Computer of course for the skill building times

Deanna: Do we all have to share bathrooms?

Shay: With a villa this size? No. Ensuites for everyone! Now come inside and see the upstairs. It has my favourite view

Shay: Oh wait, do you like the kitchen?

Deanna: I like the idea of other people cooking for us

Shay: Sorry honey. While the contestants skill build you'll be on cooking and repair duty

Deanna: Really?

Shay: No pain no gain. Okay see the balcony up there? That's where we're going, using the stairs from the entry

Deanna: Okay, this view is nice

Shay: The watcher, I mean production company, still need to think of some scenes that can be up here. But yeah through the arch is more contestant rooms

Shay: So what's the verdict?

Deanna: It's cute! But... what if the contestants don't think I'm cute enough to stop watching tv for?

Shay: Are you kidding? You're adorable. It's going to be fine. There will be set times for socialising but yeah here and there it will just be up to contestants as to if they want to talk to you. We can't make them chat but... we can lock them out of their rooms for a bit

Deanna: *laughing* Let's not do anything that could get us sued

Dating Deanna has 5 spots left!

Interested in joining the chaos? Check out the below links for all the details and register interest by Christmas!

Contestant List, Challenge Overview, Joey's Contestant Creation Walkthrough, F.A.Q, All In Guide

@daedriyth, @cawthorntales, @igglemouse, @corrienteallita please let me know if you will be a couple of days late. On my 26th/USA's 25th I will be contacting those who have offered to do filler sims for empty slots and don't want to give away the spot for your sim if your game is just playing up (like the game does). But you are of course allowed to submit your sims up until then, so you still have a week for final touches. @abbysimsfun you have told me your sim is queued so don't worry, I know she's coming.

#DatingDeanna #I'm getting excited #I hope you like the villa #I do not consider myself a builder #but I'm weirdly proud of it

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heavensbeehall · 17 days ago

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Real or Not Real?

"After the anthem, they show President Snow drawing the envelope for the second Quarter Quell. He looks younger but just as repellent. He reads from the square of paper in the same onerous voice he used for ours, informing Panem that in honor of the Quarter Quell, there will be twice the number of tributes. The editors smash cut right into the reapings, where name after name after name is called. By the time we get to District 12, I'm completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of kids going to certain death.

There's a woman, not Effie, calling the names in 12, but she still begins with “Ladies first!” She calls out the name of a girl who's from the Seam, you can tell by the look of her, and then I hear the name “Maysilee Donner.” “Oh!” I say.

“She was my mother's friend.” The camera finds her in the crowd, clinging to two other girls. All blond. All definitely merchants' kids. “I think that's your mother hugging her,” says Peeta quietly.

And he's right. As Maysilee Donner bravely disengages herself and heads for the stage, I catch a glimpse of my mother at my age, and no one has exaggerated her beauty. Holding her hand and weeping is another girl who looks just like Maysilee. But a lot like someone else I know, too. “Madge,” I say.

“That's her mother. She and Maysilee were twins or something,” Peeta says. “My dad mentioned it once.” I think of Madge's mother.

Mayor Undersee's wife. Who spends half her life in bed immobilized with terrible pain, shutting out the world. I think of how I never realized that she and my mother shared this connection. Of Madge showing up in that snowstorm to bring the painkiller for Gale. Of my mockingjay pin and how it means something completely different now that I know that its former owner was Madge's aunt, Maysilee Donner, a tribute who was murdered in the arena. Haymitch's name is called last of all.

It's more of a shock to see him than my mother. Young. Strong. Hard to admit, but he was something of a looker. His hair dark and curly, those gray Seam eyes bright and, even then, dangerous. “Oh.

Peeta, you don't think he killed Maysilee, do you?” I burst out. I don't know why, but I can't stand the thought. “With forty-eight players?

I'd say the odds are against it,” says Peeta. The chariot rides — in which the District 12 kids are dressed in awful coal miners' outfits — and the interviews flash by.

There's little time to focus on anyone. But since Haymitch is going to be the victor, we get to see one full exchange between him and Caesar Flickerman, who looks exactly as he always does in his twinkling midnight blue suit. Only his dark green hair, eyelids, and lips are different. “So, Haymitch, what do you think of the Games having one hundred percent more competitors than usual?” asks Caesar.

Haymitch shrugs.

“I don't see that it makes much difference. They'll still be one hundred percent as stupid as usual, so I figure my odds will be roughly the same.” The audience bursts out laughing and Haymitch gives them a half smile.

Snarky. Arrogant. Indifferent. “He didn't have to reach far for that, did he?” I say.

Now it's the morning the Games begin.

We watch from the point of view of one of the tributes as she rises up through the tube from the Launch Room and into the arena. I can't help but give a slight gasp. Disbelief is reflected on the faces of the players. Even Haymitch's eyebrows lift in pleasure, although they almost immediately knit themselves back into a scowl. It's the most breathtaking place imaginable.

The golden Cornucopia sits in the middle of a green meadow with patches of gorgeous flowers. The sky is azure blue with puffy white clouds. Bright songbirds flutter overhead. By the way some of the tributes are sniffing, it must smell fantastic. An aerial shot shows that the meadow stretches for miles. Far in the distance, in one direction, there seems to be a woods, in the other, a snowcapped mountain. The beauty disorients many of the players, because when the gong sounds, most of them seem like they're trying to wake from a dream.

Not Haymitch, though. He's at the Cornucopia, armed with weapons and a backpack of choice supplies. He heads for the woods before most of the others have stepped off their plates. Eighteen tributes are killed in the bloodbath that first day.

Others begin to die off and it becomes clear that almost everything in this pretty place—the luscious fruit dangling from the bushes, the water in the crystalline streams, even the scent of the flowers when inhaled too directly—is deadly poisonous. Only the rainwater and the food provided at the Cornucopia are safe to consume. There's also a large, well-stocked Career pack of ten tributes scouring the mountain area for victims. Haymitch has his own troubles over in the woods, where the fluffy golden squirrels turn out to be carnivorous and attack in packs, and the butterfly stings bring agony if not death.

But he persists in moving forward, always keeping the distant mountain at his back. Maysilee Donner turns out to be pretty resourceful herself, for a girl who leaves the Cornucopia with only a small backpack.

Inside she finds a bowl, some dried beef, and a blowgun with two dozen darts. Making use of the readily available poisons, she soon turns the blowgun into a deadly weapon by dipping the darts in lethal substances and directing them into her opponents' flesh. Four days in, the picturesque mountain erupts in a volcano that wipes out another dozen players, including all but five of the Career pack.

With the mountain spewing liquid fire, and the meadow offering no means of concealment, the remaining thirteen tributes — including Haymitch and Maysilee — have no choice but to confine themselves to the woods. Haymitch seems bent on continuing in the same direction, away from the now volcanic mountain, but a maze of tightly woven hedges forces him to circle back into the center of the woods, where he encounters three of the Careers and pulls his knife.

They may be much bigger and stronger, but Haymitch has remarkable speed and has killed two when the third disarms him. That Career is about to slit his throat when a dart drops him to the ground. Maysilee Donner steps out of the woods.

“We'd live longer with two of us.” “Guess you just proved that,” says Haymitch, rubbing his neck.

“Allies?” Maysilee nods. And there they are, instantly drawn into one of those pacts you'd be hard-pressed to break if you ever expect to go home and face your district. Just like Peeta and me, they do better together.

Get more rest, work out a system to salvage more rainwater, fight as a team, and share the food from the dead tributes' packs. But Haymitch is still determined to keep moving on. “Why?” Maysilee keeps asking, and he ignores her until she refuses to move any farther without an answer.

“Because it has to end somewhere, right?” says Haymitch.

“The arena can't go on forever.” “What do you expect to find?” Maysilee asks.

“I don't know.

But maybe there's something we can use,” he says. When they finally do make it through that impossible hedge, using a blowtorch from one of the dead Careers' packs, they find themselves on flat, dry earth that leads to a cliff.

Far below, you can see jagged rocks. “That's all there is, Haymitch.

Let's go back,” says Maysilee. “No, I'm staying here,” he says.

“All right.

There's only five of us left. May as well say good-bye now, anyway,” she says. “I don't want it to come down to you and me.” “Okay,” he agrees.

That's all. He doesn't offer to shake her hand or even look at her. And she walks away. Haymitch skirts along the edge of the cliff as if trying to figure something out.

His foot dislodges a pebble and it falls into the abyss, apparently gone forever. But a minute later, as he sits to rest, the pebble shoots back up beside him. Haymitch stares at it, puzzled, and then his face takes on a strange intensity. He lobs a rock the size of his fist over the cliff and waits. When it flies back out and right into his hand, he starts laughing. That's when we hear Maysilee begin to scream.

The alliance is over and she broke it off, so no one could blame him for ignoring her. But Haymitch runs for her, anyway. He arrives only in time to watch the last of a flock of candy pink birds, equipped with long, thin beaks, skewer her through the neck. He holds her hand while she dies, and all I can think of is Rue and how I was too late to save her, too. Later that day, another tribute is killed in combat and a third gets eaten by a pack of those fluffy squirrels, leaving Haymitch and a girl from District 1 to vie for the crown.

She's bigger than he is and just as fast, and when the inevitable fight comes, it's bloody and awful and both have received what could well be fatal wounds, when Haymitch is finally disarmed. He staggers through the beautiful woods, holding his intestines in, while she stumbles after him, carrying the ax that should deliver his deathblow. Haymitch makes a beeline for his cliff and has just reached the edge when she throws the ax. He collapses on the ground and it flies into the abyss. Now weaponless as well, the girl just stands there, trying to staunch the flow of blood pouring from her empty eye socket. She's thinking perhaps that she can outlast Haymitch, who's starting to convulse on the ground. But what she doesn't know, and what he does, is that the ax will return. And when it flies back over the ledge, it buries itself in her head. The cannon sounds, her body is removed, and the trumpets blow to announce Haymitch's victory. Peeta clicks off the tape and we sit there in silence for a while."

-- Description of the 50th Hunger Games from Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

In the press for SotR, Collins has talked about how the question of "real or not real?" is integral to the story. There's the element of the Capitol creating this fake Arena-world for the tributes, and things not being what they seem. But I think it's also safe to say that the narrative the Capitol put on tape for Katniss and Peeta, is probably different than how Haymitch would tell it himself.

Where do you think things are real and where are they not real, you know? We never see anything from after Haymitch's victory, like interviews with Ceasar or him getting crowned. I'm also super curious as to why the Gamemakers decided to set bird mutts on Maysilee (why her and not him?).

#sotr #catching fire #i'm getting excited #haymitch abernathy #maysilee donner #peeta mellark #katniss everdeen #sunrise on the reaping

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