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russosafehaven · 1 year

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william thurber with a writer s/o who he does illustrations for. the two of them spend hours working on books together and spending hours in stationery stalls. dates to libraries and parks to find inspiration. they spend hours in the city figuring out the best way to portray the worlds they build together.

billy russo with a writer s/o who he encourages to quit their job to focus on their novel. offering to supply them with whatever they need. buying first class tickets to places like paris so that the scenery can be accurate.

the darkling with a writer s/o who’s also a fabrikator. they bind their own books and that’s how the darkling discovered them. his copy of “Lives of Saints” was damaged and Fedyor suggested a Fabrikator who specialised in books. he finds you working on your own novel in your chambers. you’re shocked at first to see him but when he gives you his request you’re more then happy for help. aleksander sits there while he watches you work, finding a page of one of your novels and reading it. by the time you’re done he’s asking for a copy to read on his next deployment

logan delos with a writer s/o who works for delos. they always have a book on hand and write the best storyline’s for westworld. in fact this specific writer has written logan’s favourite storyline’s. they catch his eye in the elevator where they’re reading a beat up copy of little women. later logan shows up in their office, prying into their personal life and somehow they end up on a date to westworld.

caspian x with a writer s/o who works in the royal library. they know every book off by heart and are full of random facts. when caspian is first crowned they’re the one who gives him a book on old narnian traditions. this leads to caspian begging them to come work in the narnian royal library. reluctantly they agree and they’re astonished by the size of it. caspian finds them writing one moment and he asks about it, they talk for hours about the world they’re writing and caspian offers to bring them on the dawntreader to add depth.

benjamin greene with a writer s/o who’s a friend of leo’s and that’s how they meet. they spend most of their time with leo, curled up with him watching the while they write. one day benjamin asks about it and they give him the journal. he returns it the next day gushing about their writing and even leo can see that they’re a better match for benjamin then his mother is. leo confronts benjamin, telling him to break up with julia and ask reader on a date. telling the bespectacled man that they’re a far better suit for him. that night benjamin goes to bed thinking about leo’s words. a few months later reader is getting their first novel published thanks to benjamin’s help.

ryan brenner with a writer s/o who he meets on a train one day. they get to talking and it turns out they’re both drifters. reader tells ryan about what they’re working on at that moment and they end up in a small town somewhere. ryan works on his music while reader works on their novel, it all flows together. eventually they just fit into each other lives perfectly. the lines between friendship and romance are blurred but it works for their unconventional lifestyle.

#billy russo #billy russo imagine #billy russo x reader #billy russo headcanon #benjamin greene x reader #benjamin greene #ben barnes #ben barnes headcanon #benjamin green headcanon #caspian x #prince caspian x reader #king caspian x reader #king caspian headcanons #logan delos headcanons #william thurber headcanons

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lily-avenue · 8 days

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Musings on Gold Digger (2019)

** Warning contains major spoilers **

** Also warning: massively long-winded ramble **

Julia Ormond, Ben Barnes and an exploration of a may-december romance in the midst of complicated famillial dynamics and an underlying unease.

Both leads are very good. We see Julia Day (Julia Ormond) reclaim herself as she moves out of the roles to which she has been assigned, or perhaps more accurately, has assigned herself; while Benjamin Greene (Ben Barnes) treads the fine line of someone who is not entirely what he seems to be, and who in pursuing the path he has chosen, is moving both closer to, and further away, from what he needs. We all, or many of us at least, want to be known and loved for who we actually are.

The supporting cast are uniformly excellent, with each episode putting the spotlight on one of Julia's now-adult kids (Patrick, Della and Leo), her ex-husband (Ted), her ex-best-friend (Marsha), and her new lover.

The series poses a range of complex, thorny questions, such as what it means to take a much younger (or much older) lover; the immediate and long-term aftermath of domestic violence; the loss of confidence and trust following betrayal; the ripple effect of those pivotal moments that each of us have in our lives; and the small (and large) lies that we tell ourselves and each other.

Nearly everyone in Julia's life is openly and vocally "concerned" when she introduces the much younger Benjamin into her life, and the series also explores the cost of pursuing your own happiness in the face of others' disapproval.

For the most part, the two sons (Patrick and Leo) are Not Very Nice. While they are not necessarily unjustified in their concerns about Benjamin, and are each grappling with the fallout of their parents' shared history, how they act upon those concerns is rather unpleasant. (And slighly nonsensical. Patrick is a well-heeled lawyer, surely he would have hired a private investigater to do some digging?) Della, her daughter, is the most open of the three to their mother's new relationship. And while for the most part that isn't saying much, Della's growing acceptance and support of Julia's right to be her own person and the strength she demonstrates in doing so, make for a lovely subplot - particularly as it starts to positively impact her own life.

While the series asks a lot of questions, it doesn't necessarily answer them in a way that fully satisfies. We see Benjamin and Julia's attraction in numerous sex scenes, and it is fabulous to move from the early scenes, in which she turns off the light, to later scenes in which she has pushed aside some of her insecurities. But we don't see enough of their intellectual attraction, of the non-physical side of things, and of how they navigate the fact that in terms of cultural milieu, he has far more in common with her children than with her (sort of, that too is complicated). There are some lovely glimpses - the book of walks he gives her as a gift, for example, rather than ubiquitous and offensively-generic flowers. But their growing closeness is mostly given in montages of them walking around holding hands in various locales - we are rarely privvy to the intimate discussions that would show a deepening relationship.

Much goes unquestioned by Julia, which given her intelligence and life experience seems somewhat implausible, although perhaps newly discovered and unexpected love can make fools of us all? Her lack of curiosity about Benjamin's past, which clearly continues to affect him, or his financial situation (mid 30s, professional job, but about to be hounded by bailiffs?) is hand-waved away at one point. This is one of those instances where I cannot tell if it suboptimal writing (maintaining suspense at the cost of characterisation) or very clever writing (Julia tends to avoid conflict; her reluctance to ask questions to which she doesn't necessarily want to know the answer has precedence). Herein lies the dilemma of suspense-based drama: in keeping Benjamin an relatively unknown quality we lose the opportunity to get to know him and Julia as a couple, and that becomes problematic later on.

We experience Julia's growth as she takes responsibility for her own destiny, eventually starting to question what it is that Benjamin isn't telling her, and taking the necessary steps to find out more. And when she finds out more, and it is rather confronting, she still chooses to listen before coming to her own conclusions. But we don't see the same for Benjamin. His journey is more opaque, and because we only get very few snippits of his life before Julia, is largely for the viewer to infer, or only becomes evident after the fact. He wants to run away when things start to close in on him, but he doesn't. Ultimately his hand is forced and he breaks a long-held agreement with his brother to put his own needs first. (There is a small subplot about an engagement that didn't happen; a former girlfriend broke up with him the day he proposed, and one wonders if it was because he also told her the truth about his past.)

There are interesting contrasts between Benjamin and Ted. Both are outwardly well put together, but neither are what they seem. Ted is successful, wealthy and enmeshed in entitled middleclass-ness, while Benjamin is not, despite his facade of the urbane younger man.

But the outward trappings hide the fact that Ted is controlling and violent, while Benjamin - despite what the criminal justice system would say - is neither. And that contrast is backed up by the scene with Ted in the forest on the morning of the wedding, compared with that with Benjamin on the beach (in which Julia asks him to not touch her, and he listens and respects her wishes instantly). Even throughout the argument with his newly re-emerged brother Kieran, which escalates into low-level violence, Benjamin only ever reacts, never instigates.

And it would be entirely remiss of me not to mention Marsha, who has made her own bed, unfortunately with Ted in it. We meet Marsha just as she is beginning to realise the extent of the poor bargain she's made, and it really only gets worse.

I am still not sure whether the series simply had very high expectations of the viewer, or whether the script spread itself too thin and undercut itself. The distrust and deception that flows throughout the series was almost catching, and in the face of it I wanted stronger closure, a deeper resolution of the issues that came to light late in the piece. In the absence of that, Kieran's words after the fight with Benjamin resonate just a little too strongly for me. Are they actually in love with one another, or are they in love with what the other represents to them?

Is Benjamin a gold digger? Not, I think, in the traditional sense of the term. He sees in Julia an embodiment of the life he wants to have, but had always been excluded from. My take is that the attraction and burgeoning love is real, but that it is also inseparable from her aura of wealth, education and intellect, which are an integral part of who she is and how she moves through the world.

He was certainly not honest with her, and that also poses an interesting question about how much of our ourselves, and our actions, we can mask, ignore or conceal before sliding into deception or disaster. Alongside Benjamin editing his past to hide a terrible act (in which he played a supporting role but shouldered much of the consequences), we have a younger Julia peddling the fiction that all was well with her (first) marriage, Ted hiding his violent streak, Patrick having an affair, Leo knowing about Ted and Marsha but not telling his mother. The list goes on.

The lingering disquiet of how much of Benjamin is a performance, and how much is real, never quite leaves. We do see sharper edges to him at times, which are in keeping with what is revealed about his past (you couldn't come out of young offenders unscathed, and you certainly wouldn't get through it without developing some pretty decent survival mechanisms), although Julia herself is not privvy to them. It is in the rawness and desperation of a couple of his reactions that a measure of confirmation is provided that his feelings towards Julia are genuine. There is a two-fold element of unreliable narration with Benjamin, yet it feels not entirely unreasonable to conclude that Benjamin the construct is underpinned by a longstanding and deep-seated need, and has largely become Benjamin the actual. But how recent was this process, and was it a legitimate one? We don't ever really find out, and that matters when it comes to our central conundrum.

But as may have become evident throughout this long-winded ramble, one of my own personal failings is that I like my fictional endings to be happy, and unambiguously so. I want Julia to enjoy her 'after', just as much as I want Benjamin to revel in the safety and belonging she provides. So holding onto a suitable measure of optimism (or perhaps of wishful thinking - our characters may not be alone in their penchant for self-deception), let us now return to their wedding reception and one of my favourite scenes. Watching a truly beguiling Julia invite Benjamin to dance, and an utterly charming Benjamin follow her onto the dance floor, made me smile. A lot. And with that in mind I am going to find myself a glass of champagne, ensure my best smile is firmly in place, and head out onto the dance floor to wish the two of them my very best.

#gold digger #gold digger 2019 #julia ormond #ben barnes #will I still agree with most of this on a rewatch? Who knows.#gold digger series #julia day #benjamin greene #long-winded ramble because there can be no other type

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ben-barnes-world · 8 months

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#ben barnes #benjamin greene #gold digger #william thurber #cabinet of curiosities

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the-purity-pen · 8 months

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Happy 42nd Birthday Ben Barnes

Art created by me with procreate, ipad and apple pencil.

Shared on instagram here.

Do not reshare or repost without credit.

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marvelmusing · 2 years

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Ben’s Boys Headcanons #1

A/N: a new casual little series were I do little headcanons for a few Ben Barnes characters (Billy, Aleksander, Logan, and Benjamin)

Night Robes

Billy Russo

I feel like everyone has the dream of having a robe like this at least once in their life. It’s like the very rich wife aesthetic from classic films. Billy has spent his entire life trying to get the perfect rich life that he grew up watching on TV and films. And now he has it. So coming home to see you sitting at your vanity table wearing this would drive him utterly insane.

Aleksander Morozova

I feel like Aleksander would just completely malfunction if he saw you wearing this. He loves it when you wear his colour, like it’s some subconscious claim on you. He also thinks you look utterly regal in silk. The first time you wear this, he would drop to his knees and kiss his way up your thighs as he tells you how divine you are.

Logan Delos

Logan loves anything short. Short skirts, short dresses, short robes. It makes it easier for him to grasp at your legs and pull you into his lap - amongst other things. He loves being able to see your body beneath the patterns of the lace, and feel the texture of it as he runs his hands over you. I feel like he would regularly use some form of ‘unwrapping you’ line as he pulls at the ribbon.

Benjamin Greene

Benjamin is an absolute cutie and would 100% want matching couples robes. Every time he sees you wearing yours his entire face lights up and he just beams at you. It’s soft, and cosy, and perfect for snuggling up together in. They probably came with matching slippers as well.

#ben barnes #ben’s boys headcanons #billy russo #aleksander morozova #the darkling #logan delos #benjamin greene #billy russo x reader #billy russo x y/n #billy russo x you #aleksander morozova x reader #the darkling x reader #logan delos x reader #benjamin greene x reader

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