#fic: si deleamini deleamur

[felixravinstills]

weird somehow i ended up yapping in ur inbox again

anyway. on my drive home i got to thinking about your boy max and what he might have been like as a president before the rebellion. (and i might just be misremembering so if i am just delete this and save me the humiliation) i was wondering if you had any thoughts to spare?

also on a somewhat related note- what do you think his childhood was like? (which is probably a weird question but i feel like your blog is a safe space to dissect the ravinstills)

I always love to talk about my good friend Max! What a guy! I hope you all understand that I know he's awful!

Anyway, thanks for the ask! You're always welcome here! I got pretty out of control while rambling, so if you want me to elaborate on something just ask!

I mention this in Si Deleamini, Deleamur, but the Ravinstills got on the wrong side of the presidential administration before Max's and his family basically got decimated (kind of like what's going to happen in the future *gunshot*)

As I offhandedly mentioned in the same fic, Max', Albanus (his brother), and their mother got to live because their mother was related to the secretary of health.

Max is the older brother so he feels a lot of responsibility towards Albanus.

Max also kind of idealizes his brother even before he dies of an illness after Max becomes president. To Max, Albanus is this sweet kid who doesn't understand the harsh realities of the world, but the truth it that Albanus does! And what he doesn't understand, he probably could! But Max just thinks it's his duty to not get Albanus involved too much which damages their relationship (Max will do the same thing to Felix)

I do like to imagine parallels between Felix and his grandfather, so Max isn't totally making things up when he's seeing similarities between the two. He's just also not seeing either of them clearly.

The time that Max grew up in was pretty tumultuous with politics happening (in the form of violence) in the streets or in the Districts through proxies. I imagine this sparked him to want to kind of tame that chaos (the answer... backdoor politics and assassination? max... please....)

He's internally angry and resentful and his origins kind of parallel a certain Coriolanus Snow in that his family has had a fall from grace

They aren't financially struggling (although they've lost money) but the drop in influence and standing is frustrating

During his Academy years, he meets Volumnia, and they match each other's freak a little too well

He has ideas for control and power, and everything he says is proving her right about the world: humans are selfish and savage

I imagine Gaul being from a less influential family (in my hc) means he doesn't feel threatened by her as he would others and that is why he lets her be his actual friend (this will carry on into their adulthood with the more fucked up, she needs him to exert power.)

Max has a face/presence that makes you think he's judging you. His classmates saw him as levelheaded and smart, but his stoic face had them jumping to conclusions that they were wrong about something

He likes watching them squirm trying to correct themselves when they are already right <- Volumnia sees through him and is immediately like 'oh? he's just like me for real!'

His rise to power was rife with murder as well. Volumnia thinks it's a great way to amass power! Albanus thinks it's about revenge and while a little disturbed lets it slide. They are both equally right about what it's about for Max.

Pre-Rebellion, I don't think he's a great guy (but at least not complicit in sending 23 children to their deaths every year? the bar is in hell)

Max runs the country like he accidentally runs his family by being emotionally unavailable and having people clamoring for his attention. (this applies pre and post rebellion to me, but post rebellion Max is also just... tired)

Like... I imagine that unlike Snow who kills off his competition (which Max does for sure too but directly? only if they've done something or are caught red-handed about to do something.) He avoids really having competition by having potential rivals in competition amongst themselves

He bestows political favor readily to someone and then stops and does it to someone else. These two will be in competition trying to outperform each other (yields good results and if they get too distracted by each other than Max will find some other person to replace both). If one succeeds so much that they may challenge Max politically, well... usually the other one will take care of it before Max gets his hands dirty.

[felixravinstills]

you: here is my happy au!!

me: is physically tense while reading it

slay!

Writing this fic was like if Felix Ravinstill was holding my hand and Dr. Gaul's hand, and I was trying to lead them to the light, happy ending, but Gaul was like "no, I actually see your point, Abyssal! Felix is really interesting, and he needs to come with me on a corruption arc," and then, Felix surprised both of us by leading us down his own path.

Me and Volumnia: Uh, Felix, where are we? Felix: This is the story you guys wanted, right? :)

...

All this to say, I was also tense (and confused) halfway through, wondering how I got here.

[felixravinstills]

I did a really weird 5k+ word fic... This was supposed to be a happy au fic for my oc fic, and it instead, became not quite a murder mystery fic as told by Felix to Gaul. Like technically, it's a happier au because Felix isn't dead at the end (spoilers?) but... It doesn't really focus on happiness?

[felixravinstills]

you know after thinking about it, I think the turn my "this was supposed to be a happy au" oc fic took could actually be easily explained by the fact that my background noise while writing was Slay the Princess playthroughs...

[felixravinstills]

okay so your response to the president felix au got me thinking about the failing upward au again- poor felix just wants to settle down with his partners but noooo, now he’s in the running for presidency and every attempt to drop out keeps backfiring (suffering from success 😔😔 lol)

Hi, Backpacks! You know funnily enough, I also thought briefly of the failing upward au when answering that ask!

What does Failing Upwards even look like with Festus and Artemisia as his partners? Hmmm. Random additional thoughts below:

I'm sure plenty of the stuff I wrote for the Failing Upward AU is still true

Artemisia probably actually thinks him becoming president is a great idea (after her initial reservations of it potentially putting him in danger of assassination)! Festus probably thinks it's pretty funny.

Felix's supporters having learned of his love life from the extensive coverage gossip rags and the news are doing decide "omg, that's so romantic" and on mass write letters of support urging him to change the law. The bill passes through the Panem Senate in record time

Everyone in Panem actually really ships Festixia now. They're not only the President, First Gentleman, and First Lady, but also the It Couple (Throuple?) of the country.

Years in the future, Diana has her own weird romance where she doesn't want to follow in the footsteps of her father and become president but by the rules of this AU, all of Panem demands a Ravinstill president, but it works out when she meets Alma Coin from District 13 (which if you remember arbitrarily rejoined Panem because they thought Felix was that cool).

Coin does want to be president and their cringefail love story ends with a marriage that allows the people of Panem to accept Coin as their new president (Coin is a better person in this AU... mostly because she wasn't raised in a nuclear bunker and because her family didn't die from an illness was exacerbated by the close quarters habitation and probably weaker immune system due to isolation? she's still a politician tho, so take that as you will)

Diana probably also has a little brother in this AU who becomes the Creed family heir. (I imagined she'd have on in Si Deleamini, Deleamur too but I never named him since he never got to be born by the time the fic ended)

It seems since Diana kind of gets what she wants by not being president, the Ravinstill "luck" is actually a form of luck for her. It seems only Felix must suffer a role he hates 😔 It's what he gets for being named "fortunate"

[felixravinstills]

Ask Game!

Okay, doing a little ask game just for me, because it's fic: Close Your Eyes' (my original Felix/Festus/OC fic) 6 month anniversary! Basically, send in AU of that fic's universe/an AU of already existing AUs, and I'll try and write something short about your suggested AU!

AUs can range from divergences from fic canon plot points to something more akin to the TLT fusion AU I did that one time!

If you just put happy/happier AU, I will redirect you to fic: Si Deleamini, Deleamur because that was my honest attempt, and uh, it backfired.

(@persephoneprice since you're the only one that I 100% know would be interested you're getting @! honestly, i half expect you shall be the only ask, so if you have more than one idea, feel free to send in more than one lol)

[felixravinstills]

this is the best thing I've ever seen... also I felt like I knew they'd be taking a moral drift into uh... even more questionable than they were before but! I thought I could keep it lighthearted! A little lighthearted death and then Felix had to drag Gaul into the mix...

you: here is my happy au!!

me: is physically tense while reading it

slay!

Writing this fic was like if Felix Ravinstill was holding my hand and Dr. Gaul's hand, and I was trying to lead them to the light, happy ending, but Gaul was like "no, I actually see your point, Abyssal! Felix is really interesting, and he needs to come with me on a corruption arc," and then, Felix surprised both of us by leading us down his own path.

Me and Volumnia: Uh, Felix, where are we? Felix: This is the story you guys wanted, right? :)

...

All this to say, I was also tense (and confused) halfway through, wondering how I got here.