We need to discuss the "shock factor" in The 100

If you did not watch the latest episode of The 100 Blood Giant or plan to, please do not read my blog post. If you did welcome and let's get down to what all of us are feeling right now about this latest episode! Anger, frustration, livid, and obviously shocked, but not in a good way whatsoever. The 100 director has decided to kill of one of our most beloved character's in The 100 Bellamy Blake. Are we angry about his death? Yes, but that's besides the point, we're angry about HOW he died! The director made Clarke kill Bellamy! Here's how this transpired. Bellamy was trapped on a planet for about five months give or take. During that time he had somewhat spiritual experiences that transformed his character and made him decide to follow Sheperd Bill. Sheperd Bill has lived for countless years with his body being frozen for a majority of that time. He's back now to make everyone face the last war, but not everyone is willing to go through that nor do they believe in this. Bellamy does, but at the same time he wants to save his friends and believes everything he's doing is in the best interest of everyone. When Shadheida offers to help Bellamy and tells Bellamy to give him Madi's book of sketches this is where it all has just gone to shit! Madi's book contains sketches that Clarke does not want others to see or know of for Madi's safety. Clarke begs Bellamy to put the book down or she will have to shoot him. Clarke is ready to go through a portal and it's about to close. If she didn't shoot him Clarke would've missed her window to go through. In the end of course she shot Bellamy in the chest which lead to his death and very heartbroken Clarke which concluded the episode. This feels like it was just done to be a "shock factor" and not a very good one at that. I could more so understand Octavia or Bellamy killing one another due to their on and off history of hatred towards each other. This whole scene just wasn't fitting for the show! Clarke and Bellamy are the head and heart of the show as stated countless times! Clarke is the head and Bellamy is the heart, both of them making sure that one never outrules the other and keeping each other on their toes. Bellamy even went through great lengths to bring Clarke back to life truly being her heart in season six. Clarke pretty much shot her own heart and that is where she shot Bellamy too making it seem like some sick poetry bullshit. There were so many things wrong with this scene/episode really making this season the worst for me. I, myself am so devastated! This is literally my favorite show, that I followed for six seasons plus some! If you were going to kill one of your main characters this was just not the way to do it. I feel like this was also just a big fuck you from the director to any of us who have shipped Clarke and Bellamy with the famous ship Bellarke! I had high hopes for Bellarke to happen, but I was content if it didn't happen and they just remained friends because their friendship was so damn strong. These two went from not really liking each other to becoming best friends. They shared hugs that really moved us all and were there for each other no matter what! They lived with thinking the other was dead a few times and so happy to discover the other actually was not dead. Now Clarke has to deal with the death of yet another loved one, hasn't she been through enough? Clarke lost her parents, Wells, Finn, Lexa, and now Bellamy! She is always the one who has to go through with killing others and living with that on her shoulders! Time and time again she is put through this while the others maybe go through it once. Now she has to also live with the fact that she killed her best friend. There's been so much us fans have asked for and the director is just being a big dick and giving us none of that! I really feel like he doesn't care about the fans and what we want. He pretty much said that Wednesday night when the episode aired. All I'm going to hope for now is that the conclusion to this show has an amazing ending because with what just happened I'm pretty doubtful right now. Now I'm feeling like how the fans of Game of Thrones felt when that show had it's final season and they were outraged by many things. This season of The 100 needs to be tossed out the window and rewritten. I feel like this whole season just went off the track of how the previous seasons have gone and now everything is just for shock factor. We thought Bellamy might have been dead before in the beginning and now he truly is dead. That was an even dirtier move! We thought finally we have this character back and he'll be here for the rest of the show. Nope. We had him back for three episodes and we saw him for about two minutes in two previous epiosdes. So we hardly saw this character at all and when he was found he just took ten steps back from all that character development we had been seeing. Bellamy was a jerk at first and not very well liked by the others. But he grew to care about his friends and became unselfish. He learned to listen to his people and tried to be the best leader he could be. He cared about more than just his and his sister's lives. Bellamy grew close to everyone and always tried to do the right thing. He believed he was trying to do that this season as well after his experience on the other planet. But this time not everyone's best interest was at heart and that was something he all of a sudden couldn't see? Couldn't we have said that he was brainwashed and found a way to help him and bring back the Bellamy we all grew to love instead of making him practically go back to his season three personality? Bellamy was one of the best character's and I feel like more should've been done with this character's storyline. It had an unsatisfactory ending and like I said the director just gave us Bellarke shippers the middle finger. I know it won't happen, but I really want this season to be rewritten because this one has just been really disappointing with this episode being the biggest letdown so far. With a heavy heart I say R.I.P. to one of The 100's most beloved character's Bellamy Blake "May We Meet Again". Also, there was nothing like that even said before he was shot! That is even more unfitting because the most important character's have gotten some sort of speech or phrase before their death and he gets none? That was another problem with this whole episode and I'm sure I'll think of others and add them to the post if they hadn't made it already.

My Review of the Live Action Mulan

Confession time! I caved and bought Mulan for $29.99 on DisneyPlus after hearing how much my fellow Disney friends loved it! I had been tempted to watch it since I saw the trailer. Also, seeing the film in my own home instead of going to a crowded theater where people may be distracting with their phones or kids who constantly talk was appealing. In my previous post I was pretty set on not buying the film for that price. But let's face it, if I decided to go to the theater I'd be paying that price for my husband and I to go anyway and maybe more with popcorn, snacks, and drinks included. In my home I can have whatever snacks I want and pause the film for bathroom breaks. Onto the film itself! By the way, there's really no spoilers. Mulan right from childhood knows how to fight and wield a sword. So instead of Mulan growing into a warrior she is pretty much already destined to be one. Her mother disapproves because she wants Mulan to be more demure so she can be married off. Her father encourages Mulan's chi, but soon stops for he knows the people in their village will call Mulan a witch. As we know, Mulan displeases the matchmaker and when she finds out her father is called to war she takes his place. In the family there is a difference. There is no grandmother which I did miss since she was such an awesome character in the film! Instead Mulan has a sister. I liked their relationship because you could see how close they were to each other. The film did have a more serious tone to it. There were a few funny scenes and they weren't even laugh out loud funny honestly. That was something I really missed from the animated film. I understood that this film was more focused on the true story and the culture, but I wish the movie was a bit more funny. Also, the hawk from the previous film is now actually a witch in disguise. She has chi just like Mulan and she was banished for it. She convinces Mulan to be her trueself to show her that the army men will turn their backs on her which they do. But Mulan manages to win them over by letting them know there's another attack about to happen and they must rescue the emperor. Mulan takes on the main villain by herself after the other men stay behind and battle the other men so she can rescue the emperor. She proves how much of a loyal, brave and true warrior she is and is offered to be a guard for the emperor. Before Mulan accepts this high honor she returns home to her family and they couldn't be prouder of the woman she has become. Also, there is a "love interest" for Mulan in the film, but honestly this person didn't feel like a love interest to me. There was no chemistry between him and Mulan and I only saw them as really good friends. I have been enjoying the live action films more than the animations lately, but this is not one of those moments. Mulan the live action was good, but not better than the animated classic. I give it 6/10.

Are you going to pay $29.99 to watch Mulan on DisneyPlus?

 

As many of you know by now Mulan is fianlly coming to DisneyPlus! When we found out this news I'm sure many of us were thrilled and thinking, it's about time! The film was constantly pushed back since the expected March 27th release date due to theaters remaining closed. There were hopes for the film to be released in July, but Disney was yet again forced to push the film release back. They have finally decided to put the live action film on their platform! DisneyPlus has released movies such as Frozen 2 and Onward on their platform recruiting some new subscribers who were delighted to see these films in the comfort of their homes! The price was amazing too because it's only $6.99 for the DisneyPlus subscription and you were able to watch these films despite the whole Covid pandemic. This was an awesome idea and I feel this really brightened up the days during all this chaos. But then when Disney announced this exciting news about Mulan, it got less exciting when you discovered the price $29.99. Now some of you may argue and say the price is valid because it's what you would pay to go to a theater for a family of four. Well, some of us do not have a family of four. Also, ticket prices vary depending on where you live. I live in PA and for the theaters near me depending on when you go to a showing range from $8-$12. Let's not forget the kids prices where they can sometimes go for free or for less! There are also some terms with getting this film on DisneyPlus for that price. Do you get to keep the film? Yes. But it's not that simple! You must be an active DisneyPlus member in order to keep the film. That's ridiculous! We are still in a pandemic where people are losing their jobs, the last thing they're going to keep is a platform subscription! Not only that, but digital copies of movies are less depending on what features you want! I paid for an Aladdin DVD for $30, but it came with extras plus the digital copy! This Mulan film is not going to have any of that. Without special features it would be $19.99 normally. As much as I want to see Mulan all these ifs, ands, and buts are really swaying me away. If I have to wait another year for this film to release on DisneyPlus with a normal subscription I will most likely wait. Another part of me wants to cave and buy it because I'm lucky enough to have the means to do so. Disney, if this is your way to try and get more subscribers and get money for this film I think you are going to be disappointed. There is already talk of theaters opening that have a contract with Disney that will be showing the film. Fans are leaning towards just going to the theater because it will be less for the tickets and they are still getting that theater experience that they have been missing for the past five months. It's also a matter of will the film be worth it? Of course we've paid to see movies that we thought could've been better. But with Mulan being such a high price will it be worth it in the end? With the release date of September 4th being nine days away it's unlikely that Disney will listen to the fans and drop that price. So unfortunately, we must come to terms with that it will be $29.99 and you might be better off waiting until it releases on DVD and digital platforms. With that said, will you take the plunge and by the movie anyway, see it in theaters if they remain open, or just wait? For me personally, I'm leaning more towards waiting, but I may cave in if I hear enough good reviews about the film. 

Books I've read this year!

Hello everyone, I know I've been away for a bit, but I am back now for however long I decide to be. I know I haven't talked too much about books lately which is part of the reason for having this blog. Well, I'm going to fix that right now. I'm going to do a recap on some books I've read this year. This post will be about books that I loved and some that just didn't make the mark for me. I'll start off with books from Jennifer L Amrentrout! I discovered this fantastic author this year and she has just really blown me away with her books. I have 11 on my favorites shelf that's just books by her. Thanks to JLA I haven't been in a reading slump and I've been thoroughly enjoying her books. I don't have them all yet, but I'm working on it! She even recently announced the sequel to From Blood and Ash is coming out 09/01/2020 THIS YEAR! It's called A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire and I am so stoked! We'll start with this one since it became my favorite book!
From Blood and Ash by: Jennifer L. Armentrout is about a girl named Poppy who secretly goes out and helps defend her kingdom from invaders. She is expected to be the next ascended maiden, but she discovers more and more that she doesn't want this life. Especially, when she meets Hawke who sees Poppy through the person she tries to be and who she actually wants to be. But there's so much that Poppy doesn't know and that she might not be ready for! 
A trilogy I read by this incredibly talented author was The Dark Elements series and oh my goodness I loved everything about it! Layla is a half Warden and half Demon, but she fights with the Wardens against the Demons because she wants to be thought of as a good being. Layla is pretty much taught to hate her Demon side by the Wardens even Abbot who is like a father to her and her best friend Zayne Abbot's son and her crush. When Layla meets the Demon Prince Roth he makes her question everything. Not only that, but he helps her to love and accept herself. Zayne even realizes he made a mistake and makes his true feelings known to Layla which sets up a love triangle. This trilogy was so good! The world building, the characters, the romance, etc. I highly recommend it if you're into paranormal romance and good love triangles!
Another trilogy by Jennifer L Armentrout that I really liked was the Wicked series. I didn't like it as much as Dark Elements, but it was still a great trilogy. You'll love it if you love kickass heroines like Merida from Brave! And of course if you're a fan of stories with fae like I am. As the series goes on it does get darker so fair warning. 
I've also been reading JLA's romance standalone series. You can honestly read the books in any order and it won't be confusing. I have yet to read the last one, but I'm sure I'll do that in the near future! The books are basically New Adult romances where the couples have certain situations in their past that they need to face and overcome. Some topics may not be for you so another fair warning. My favorites from the series were Wait For You and Stay With Me! Fall With Me and Forever With You were also really good, but not my favorites. Be With Me was okay I really didn't care for it as much as the other books in the series, but regardless I feel that some people really will enjoy it as much as the others. But it does come after Wait For You which a lot of readers including myself said is very hard to top. 
I also read Frigid and Scorched which are part of a romance standalone duology. The character's from these books are featured briefly in the series I just talked about. I didn't care for these books all that much though. I didn't like the love interests for Sydney and Andrea. I felt that these two could've done better in the romance department. But JLA's writing is really good so I did finish the first book, but I stopped reading Scorched after almost 100 pages. But if you are looking for dominant males and hot sex scenes pick these up! 
I also tried JLA's Lux series which I've heard raving reviews about and saw the high ratings on Goodreads. I even tried to the spin off to the series. Unfortunately, I didn't care for either one. I read the first book in the Lux series and read over 100 pages into the second one and then just dropped it. I read 80 pages in the first spinoff book and then dropped that one. Both male leads Dameon and Luc were pretty much the same cocky, arrogant, and just down right rude. I couldn't stand them and even though Katy and Evie seemed like strong girls they still fell for these losers. I expected better for them really. 
I also read a few crazy standalones! Dead List and If There's No Tomorrow! Dead List is a thriller mystery and you will not guess who the murderer is I swear it! If There's No Tomorrow deals with teens drinking and driving and paying for the consequences of their actions. It shows how they all deal with the incident in different ways and it was so emotional and heartbreaking. It really opens up your eyes. I also read Don't Look Back which is another YA thriller about the main character's (Sam) best friend being mysteriously murdered. Sam has a slight case of amnesia and it gives her a chance to kind of start over. I didn't enjoy it as much as the other two books because I didn't feel much of a character connection, but it was still good and the murderer will also surprise you! 
Anyway, I think that's it for what I've read by JLA this year and I'm still not done! I'm going to leave my blog at this. I know it's just books by JLA, but once I got going I couldn't stop. I'll be back with another post most likey next week on more books that I've read this year and give you my honest thoughts and opinions on them! 

New information regarding Bob Morley

New information has come out in regards to the Bob Morley and Arryn Zech story. I feel that it is very important that I speak on this being a victim of domestic abuse myself. The cast and crew are starting to come forward on Instagram saying that it is Arryn herself who actually abused Bob. Eliza Taylor who is the wife of Bob Morley even released her own story on how she and Bob got together. Eliza and Bob started dating one month after he and Zech had separated. Zech made claims that Bob had taken the house they had bought together which is also not true. After Bob and Eliza married after two months into their relationship they bought their own house and farm. Zech had also stated that Bob had discouraged her from making music so she hasn't for quite some time. Bob actually had bought her a humengous keyboard for her birthday while they were together. How is that discouraging her from her music? Zech is still playing the victim on Twitter acting like Bob's fans bullying and or questioning her is completely his fault! How does he have any control whatsoever on what they decide to do with their free time? Every single thing Zech is doing is proving more and more that she is not a victim, she is the abuser. Cast and crew have even stated that she and Eliza were friends. But Zech had tried kissing Eliza and had gotten physical with her and Bob. Everyone is so quick to believe Zech because she's a woman and not only that, but people just want to automatically believe the "victim". Listen closely, men are victims too. Men can get abused as well. If you want any kind of confirmation on this head to Instagram on Eliza Taylor's profile. She has a recent black and white picture where she is wearing sunglasses and she tells the real story as you go through the photos. Also, if you follow her or Bob on Instagram it should show up in your searches. Zech is a lying cunt who just wanted more followers plain and simple.

Update on life and reading goals

Hey everyone, just wanted to give you an update on everything since I haven't been posting too often. I just really haven't had the energy for one thing. I don't want force myself to post if I'm not into it because the posts will not be as good as I want them to be. But I did find something I wanted to talk about right now.
So my reading goal this year was 80 books. I'm already at 65 and I told myself if I ended up with 20 books ahead of schedule then to raise the goal. I have done this and I raised my goal to 105 books! I am very confident that I'll achieve that goal seeing as I'm 10 books ahead of schedule right now. I've been reading a lot of Jennifer L. Armentrout who has become my favorite author this year. 12 of her books such as From Ash and Blood, Dead List, Wait For You, Dark Elements series, etc. have been put on my favorites shelf. So this author has helped immensely with keeping me engaged in reading books. They are just so amazing that I finish them within a day or two depending on how busy I am. A great thing is I still have a ton of her books on my shelves to read and I can't wait for more. I still don't have all of her books, but that will have to wait, kinda unfortunately which leads me to my next topic, my life!
I don't think I've talked about myself too much on here as far as my personal life goes. But I'm married to a wonderful man and have 4 cats. We've been living in an apartment because it fit our budget, but now I'm starting to save up for a house! Hence why I must wait to get the other books by my favorite author. I'm very excited about this because I could potentially be moving back to an area where my bestest friends are! So, I'll be busy in the meantime selling some items off that we won't need to take with us. It'll definitely help get extra money that we can save and of course don't need to worry about lugging so many things with us. So, if I don't blog for awhile I apologize, but between working, family time, getting ready to move, and of course reading and reviewing books I won't have as much time and will likely be pretty tired. Thank you ahead of time for understanding and I will continue to post content when I am able!

My Thoughts on Bob Morley and Arryn Zech Allegations

So, I'm not gonna lie. This blog post is quite hard for me to write. But I feel that I need to since I am a fan of Bob Morley (aka Bellamy Blake from The 100). Recently, Bob's ex-girlfriend Arryn released a post on Twitter, Instagram, and I think Twich. She has basically accused Bob Morley of emotionally and verbally abusing her. Also, Arryn claims that Bob cheated on her with Eliza Taylor six months before their relationship ended which it did on Valentine's Day. That's even worse, but like they say sometimes there's never really a right time for shitty situations to turn up. As a survivor myself of domestic abuse, I feel the need to believe her. But at the same time, I just don't. Some of the things Arryn said haven't added up to me. If she is right, I apologize ahead of time. But also look at the Depp and Heard situation! A lot of people believed Depp and turns out he was the actual victim. Now obviously that's not part of her story. But Arryn said that Eliza and Bob got together six months before she and Bob parted ways. Apparently, she even caught them on a video camera meant to watch her dogs while she was away. Ok, if you knew this was happening and you saw it, why didn't you leave? Arryn confronted them numerous times and had evidence yet she just stayed and put up with it? Not that simple maybe. But also, after Arryn and Bob broke up, Arryn continued to be friends with Eliza and would like/comment on her Instagram photos! If you knew they were cheating behind your back why would you stay friends? This is why this is so hard for me to believe. If Arryn is not telling the truth she is the reason also why victims don't come forward! Some girls out there do lie and play the victim and she may be one of them. I don't know any of these people personally so of course I could be wrong or right. But I feel strongly that I'm not wrong. Bob has mental health issues and people like that usually put themselves down and don't think they're deserving of good outcomes. I know that Bob Morley and Eliza Taylor have not spoken out on this issue yet, but here's the thing. If Bob does speak out and say it's not true, he'll be called a liar. If he does and say it is true and apologizes he'll be called an abuser and face some pretty nasty comments his way! Also, fans of Zech are commenting on Bob and Eliza's pictures saying nasty things like Eliza deserved to lose her baby and such! That is not ok! Whether or not Eliza was involved in this scandal is no reason to say such nasty and cruel comments. Another fact I wanna add to this is that Eliza and Bob have been best friends since they were teenagers. They both have dated other people over the years, but of course finally got together. Arryn says in her statements that Bob claimed to hate Eliza. Um, what? That doesn't make sense to me either! These two have been in so many pictures together hugging, holding hands, etc. I know it could be a face for the camera, but even their own friends said they've been best friends for years. They even have natural on screen chemistry, I highly doubt that these two hated each other. Again, being an abuse survivor myself I don't wanna call her a liar, but this story just doesn't add up right. I hope that I am right and that it is false. But these are my thoughts and currently I'm not posting any episode of the reviews of The 100. Not because of this story, I just haven't felt up to doing it these past few weeks. I will continue to love The 100 because these are fictional worlds and people that I've grown to love. I'll be posting screenshot below so you can see for yourself what I mean and of course you are free to judge for yourself.