Civ Prompt - Movie Night
You’re up watching your favorite genre of movie. For whatever reason the movie has really gotten to you; you can’t quite shake the feelings or thoughts that it brought up. This has inspired, or scared, you into taking some kind of action. What are you doing now or how are you dealing with the feelings?

Examples: A romantic comedy might inspire your character to try online dating. A horror film might scare your character so much they need to sleep with the lights on and build a safety fort. A period drama might get them interested in learning about the past or their own heritage.

It was finally summer break and Kit had finally graduated from Hillworth Grammar School. He had long finished moving everything from his dorm room to the new apartment he had rented out. It was kind of pricy without a roommate to share the rent with, but it was a small place and he was just managing to make ends meet so far. That was what the adult experience was all about, right? Supporting oneself and being independent. That's what he had left home to do and he wasn't about to give up now.

It was finally summer break and Kit had finally graduated from Hillworth high school. He had long finished moving everything from his dorm room to the new apartment he had rented out. It was kind of pricy without a roommate to share the rent with, but it was a small place and he was just managing to make ends meet so far. That was what the adult experience was all about, right? Supporting oneself and being independent. That's what he had left home to do and he wasn't about to give up now.

With a heavy sigh of relief, the teen jumped onto his couch and draped his long-limbed body across the cushions. Reaching under his back where he'd felt something of a lump, he pulled out the remote to the television and switched it on. Then he took his pc tablet from the coffee table, propped it open in his lap, and pulled up Netflix.

What to watch, what to watch...he didn't really have a favorite genre. Action and adventure was pretty cool, but so was suspense and drama. Romance and comedy were nice now and then if they were done right. Sci-fi and futuristic plotlines, whether utopian or dystopian, could be pretty neat. His favorite movies, though, were those that had characters exhibiting determination, resolve, and courage - readily doing something even with the knowledge that one was likely to lose.

At last, Kit settled on watching the movie called V for Vendetta because the stories he'd heard about the eloquent comic book character and even the character's iconic Guy Fawkes mask intrigued him. It smiled mischievously, sinisterly, even though it was supposed to be the face of a so-called villain. There was only one way to find out if the character who wore it was really all that mask made them out to be.

The movie intrigued and resonated with the teenager in many ways. The character, V, was clever and had a way with words. He inspired a society of fearful people to question and then stand up with him against the government. He was careful in his methods and was, as many of Kit's favorite characters, of the opinion that there were no such things as coincidences. He was a vigilante which made him chaotic-aligned.

Best of all was that for all his planning, cunning, confidence, daring, and cool and calm nature, V was still thrown for a loop when a girl saved him. He had to choose between taking her with him back to his secret lair or leaving her to be tortured and killed by the men after him. Either way, she was caught up in his business against either of their intentions.

Once the girl, Evie, was in the secret lair, V couldn't let her go until he could make absolutely sure she wouldn't endanger his plans. To be sure of this, he had to 'kidnap' her after she tried to escape one time by tricking him. V then proceeded to make her believe she had been caught by the government by interrogating and torturing her to get her to reveal V's secret lair.

No matter how scared, depressed, or desperate she became, though, Evie didn't talk and didn't betray V. After a certain span of time - several days and perhaps weeks - V, still posing as the government men, told her that if she didn't talk soon, she would be executed. At this point, Evie, stubborn in her resolved, said she was ready to die. V responded that if that was her answer, then she was free to go, and left her cell door open.

When Evie left her cell, she realized that she was actually not with the government but in V's secret lair. She realized that he had made her think she had been caught and that it was actually him and not the government men who had interrogated and tortured her. She became angry and upset with him and he told her he felt horrible for having to do that to her because that had been what he had gone through. However, in having her go through that, she was now free - not just physically, but in spirit, because now she knew that no one could break her.

The movie made Kit think about his little sister, Tymiko, and how she hated him. They hadn't seen eye-to-eye for a long time. It had started when he had gone to middle school, so by the time he left home to live in Hillworth's high school dorms, they had stopped talking to one another. He loved his little sister a great deal and missed her, but she had seemed convinced that he had been trying to make her grow up against her will. Kit had only been trying to prepare her for the real world because he didn't think she saw that by wanting to stay a kid, Tymiko was being a burden on their parents by not being responsible for herself. She wouldn't hear anything he said, though, because she was too stubborn to listen to any talk of being responsible.

Watching this movie, however, gave Kit an idea. Before this whole dilemma about him being a teenager and growing up while his sister wanted to stay little, he and her had been very close. They had done everything together like draw, listen to music, sing, read, and watch movies. Because of this, Kit knew Tymiko's tastes in things like movies and stories and he was sure she would have liked V for Vendetta as much as he had. He got the idea of sending a copy of the movie to his old home address with a letter addressed to Tymiko. He wouldn't sign the letter with his recognizable name or put it on the envelope and since he had just moved into his new apartment, neither his parents nor Tymiko would recognize the address.

If he got Tymiko intrigued enough with the movie and mysterious letter, perhaps she would write back to him and they could talk as they used to without any arguments about the things they disagreed on to get in the way. They could be friends again. As he wrote the letter and posed as a mysterious stranger suggesting the movie to Tymiko, he knew her curiosity would keep her from being too cautious about a random person contacting her. She was adventurous in that sense, at least.

Kit hoped that, through V, Ty would be able to understand him and his intentions better. Like Evie, she might have hated him for putting her through whatever he had, but perhaps she would see that ultimately he meant to do it for her own good. He did it because he cared about her, but that meant that if he had to make her see him as a monster to help her, then so be it. At least by retaining some anonymity through writing letters, though, he could talk to her as a neutral party without whatever bias she might have had against him as her older brother.

Pleased with his idea to make up with his little sister, Kit posted the letter with the movie at the post office and waited for a response. One actually came about a week later and it delighted Kit to find that his assumptions had been correct. Tymiko had watched the movie and written back excitedly about how much she loved it. She was also eager to know how this mysterious new pen pal of hers knew that she would have liked it and wanted to know more about him in return. Amused and happy that he could talk to his younger sibling again without the hatred she usually used to deal with him, he quickly wrote back a response.

Kit didn't tell Ty how he knew, but he told her that he was aware she was the sort of person who knew how to appreciate amoral and morally ambiguous people. He'd known she loved tricksters and people that weren't considered either 'good' or 'bad', but somewhere in the gray between. He explained that, like in the movie, sometimes people had to seem like 'bad guys' or do bad things for people they cared about in order to help said people. He asked her if she thought that was wrong or evil to do.

Tymiko's next letter came with something else - a Guy Fawkes mask. In her letter, she told him she didn't think that it was wrong or evil and that instead she thought it was incredibly brave. It was scary and painful to have to hurt someone you cared about or have them hate you when you were doing something for their sake. It was even worse when you couldn't explain your true intentions but you had to take on the role of the villain or bad guy to turn the person you cared about against you.

She said she wasn't sure she would have been able to think of a situation where something like that would have been acceptable, but seeing the movie V for Vendetta had given her a good example and she thanked him for giving her that new perspective. Kit wasn't sure, but due to her having sent him the mask, he was fairly sure by then that she knew the true identity of her new pen pal.