#LIKE SPOILERS FOR WHAT DOESN'T HAPPEN IN THE MOVIE BUT WHAT I REMEMBER FROM THE END OF THE COMIC

[dizzyrobinsims]

Just watched Nimona

The fact this movie never got a theater release because of Blue Sky's closure and Disney deciding to nix it once acquired will forever break my heart holy shit.

Like up front it is BEAUTIFULLY animated, the writing is tight as hell, the story is genuinely moving and amazing. By that alone it deserved to be in theaters.

*deep breath*

But BOY HOWDY am I SALTY AS FUCK that a animated movie that is accessible to kids, especially queer kids, got knocked out of the process to reach theaters when

IT JUST CASUALLY HAS A INTERRACIAL GAY COUPLE WITH A (metaphorically) ADOPTED (literally) TRANS CHILD AS THE 3 MAIN CHARACTERS IN THE MOVIE THE FUCKING HELL WE COULD'VE HAD ALL THIS PERFECTLY DONE QUEER MEDIA ON THE BIG SCREEN AS A COHERENT AMAZING STORY FUC-

[timeloop-angel]

Yooo csm movie announced just some days after i finished the manga!!! Lets gooooo!!

[cheapshrimpysheep]

Meaningful Kiss 2

SUMMARY: Would they make Public Displays of Affection? If not, are they protective instead? And how do they show you how much they truly love you through their kisses? 💋

CHARACTERS: Freshmen (Ace, Deuce, Jack, Epel, Sebek)

TAGS: Fluff; GN Reader; Romantic Relationship; Kissing; Flirting

WARNING: Spoilers from Ace Suitor Suit Card Vignettes

WORD COUNT: An average of 330 words per character.

COMMENTS: The first Meaningful Kiss with the Overblot Students went so well and so many people liked it that I thought about doing another one with the next most popular group, the Freshmen. And according to a poll more than 80% of the votes were for "OMG! YES PLEASE!" So here it is.

I hope you all enjoy 😘

Meaningful Kiss 3 (Ruggie, Jade, Kalim, Silver, Lilia)

Meaningful Kiss 4 (Cater, Trey, Floyd, Rook)

CONTEXT: For some of them I needed to think first about what the beginning of the relationship would be like. But this would already be how they would act in an established relationship.

Ace is kinda into PDA, but more to tease you and mess with you. He is very comfortable with you. He has no problem putting his arm around your shoulders or waist with a playful smile. Often to try to convince you not to be the voice of reason and join him in trouble.

In public he may hug you a lot, but the only kisses he gives you are on the forehead or cheek. Because on the lips, those are the special ones! And those are reserved for your private moments.

You two are usually alone in Ramshackle Dorm, mainly in the Lounge. You would have many movie sessions where you would make popcorn and snacks together. And it is in these moments, where there is a high chance of you messing with each other, like throwing flour at each other or smearing each other's noses with chocolate, that his most meaningful kisses can happen. In a fun atmosphere.

His most meaningful kisses are playful and grateful. He hugs you like he never wants to lose you. His kisses are passionate, not in a sense of desire, but in a sense of gratitude. You know those moments when something happens that makes a person remember why they love someone else? These are those moments and those kisses. These kisses mean "thank you for being in my life".

However, there are also certain other times when kisses like this can happen. Imagine him getting into trouble and you ending up in trouble too. But of course, instead of handing Ace over, you protect him, help him hide or even hide with him. It is in these moments that you can also receive a passionate kiss from him. “Thank you for being my partner in crime” kisses.

Deuce is very new to these things, so he's not a fan of PDA. But even when he's gotten used to your relationship, he doesn't see PDA as something necessary. You love each other and you only need to prove that to each other.

BUT if you really like it when he hugs you or gives you a kiss on the cheek, he might do it for you. On the lips, those are the special ones and he is very embarrassed to give them to you in public because he needs to be comfortable to kiss you properly.

At first, he will still get flustered easily and probably blush a lot. It's all very new to him. So, even holding your hand will take a little while for him to get used to it. But once enough time has passed, he won't have any problems even linking his arm with you. And also given enough time, he will start to be that boyfriend who gives you a kiss on the cheek every time he greets you and every time he says goodbye.

For his most meaningful kisses there will be special places. Places where he will take you on his Blastcycle (Magical Wheel). If he takes you on a date. These kisses can also happen in sporadic moments where he feels so happy to have you that he forgets everything else.

His kisses are passionate, urgent, like it's something he needs to give you. You know when he gets so angry that his ex-delinquent self shows up? Now think about that intensity and lack of control, but with love and affection. He is more sentimental than rational, so I believe he is the type of person who is not ashamed to tell the people closest to him how important they are. And he won't think twice to decide whether to show you how much he loves you or not in a romantic moment.

Jack tries not to do PDA, or at least he tried more in the beginning. It's all still very new to him and he knows that you are his partner for life, so there is plenty of time to get used to the relationship.

Wolf beastmen only have one special someone, ever. They choose a single partner to care for. He chose you, the same way you chose him and now he is committed to you for life. And both he and you expect this to be a long time, so there's no need to rush anything.

He's not much into PDA, but eventually he'll feel more comfortable holding hands with you or letting you link your arm through his. At first, any kiss was still awkward in public, but after a while he ended up having no problem giving you a quick kiss on the cheek if you asked, or if he was very happy. And only some time after this phase, he will feel more comfortable giving you a quick kiss on the lips, usually to say goodbye.

Why are all his kisses in public quick? Because the slow ones are the private ones. Despite his tough wolf exterior, with you, especially in private, he can be a puppy. Rare are the times when he isn’t wagging his tail when he's with you. Or smiling, even if it's just a little. He likes to cuddle! The best moments alone with you are when you can rest in each other's arms. You can pet him. Please do.

He gives you sweet, light and lingering kisses on your cheeks and lips, but the most meaningful ones are a mix of gentleness and excitement. Do you know when dogs are so happy that they get excited? Think of that excitement, but gentler, more caring, more careful. He wants to show you how much he loves you, but he is also aware of his strength and that you are a human, less strong than a beastman/woman.

Being faithful to the character and his complexes, I don't believe Epel would have a relationship with someone more masculine than himself. So I believe his significant other would be more feminine than him or a girl.

If you're not a girl, it might take longer for him to get to this stage. But if you are, at first he may see you as a bit of a trophy, just a little. You will find him more cocky than usual and he won't have any problems with PDA, quite the opposite, he wants to show everyone your relationship. He'll put his arm around you a lot, whether it's around your shoulders or your waist. He'll try to get over the fact that you're taller than him if you are, but if you're shorter, he might feel like the protective boyfriend he so wants to be.

It will be a rocky start. And you will have to have a talk with him about the sudden change in attitude towards you. He will apologize a lot and reveal that yes, he is proud of himself for being in a relationship with you, because he is proud to be someone you can trust and fall in love with. The last thing he wants is to be disrespectful to you. This is still new for him, so can you help him be better?

After this beginning of learning, you will discover that yes, he genuinely likes PDA. He is a prideful person. Proud of himself for the person he is becoming with you and proud of you for... everything. And he wants to show everyone how much you deserve his affection.

He can hold your hand, hug you, and give you kisses on the cheek, but kisses on the lips are special, and less confident, at least at first. He has no experience and he doesn't want to ruin the moment. But once he gets used to it, you'll find that his kisses are just as sweet, cute and delicate as the appearance he's learning to embrace.

Good Luck! Sebek is... intense, but slow. Especially because he follows Lilia's “advices” too much. According to Lilia, once he falls in love with someone, he must pen them a letter. With a fountain pen since that and stationery are the true weapons in matters of love. He shall pen his feelings, slip a photo of his smiling visage into every third missive, and repeat this until the twenty-fifth full moon.

Of course you won't be able to bear this for long and you'll have to have a talk with him and Lilia. He’ll ask Lilia what to do from now on, and seeing that things are real now, he'll probably just reply: "Whatever you feel you should do. Trust your heart, but never overlapping yours with (Y/N)’s. That's it! Good luck."

Just like he does with Malleus, Sebek's way of showing that he likes someone is by admiring and protecting them. So, at first it will be just that, he will be close to you and you will receive many words of affirmation.

However, even after he becomes more comfortable with you, you will find that he is indifferent to PDA. At least PDA initiated by him. But if you say you want to hold hands, a hug, a kiss, whatever it is, your wishes are orders! Literally!

In that case, he will never have any problem doing any of the things you ask. Do you want to walk hand in hand? He will extend his hand like a gentleman asking his date to dance. Do you want a hug? He'll open his arms and let you in, maybe even give you a kiss on the forehead if you're feeling down.

Do you want a kiss? What kind of kiss? On the forehead? Granted! On the cheek? For sure! On the lips? Then you have to be careful. Remember that he never hides how much he likes and admires someone. He doesn't exactly have one kiss more special than the other. he will give you any kind of kiss you wish. Like I said, your wishes are orders and you will feel it in his kisses. His most meaningful kisses are all, because they are all to make you happy.

If you would like to read more from me, you can find it in my pinned post: INDEX

[camilledlc]

I think Wade Wilson is way more intelligent than people give him credit for. Or, another character essay no one asked for :

This will be based both on comics and movies. Also, spoilers for Deadpool and Wolverine.

I think it's often said that Wade doesn't know how to read situations, as he often acts inappropriately during them. He doesn't seem to sense the mood of the person he's talking to, angering them more often than not, and he doesn't really care about watching his mouth around children, etc. There are tons of examples of Wade being 'stupid', and 'immature', blah blah blah. But I don't think that's quite true.

Wade has also numerous moments where he perfectly reads a situation. He is extremely aware of how others may perceive his scars, he figured Negasonic Teenage Warhead pretty easily during the first movie (when talking about sarcastic comments or whatever, if I remember correctly). He knows how people act and think, and he definitely knows how to assess a situation. When he got Johnny Storm killed, he knew what he was doing. He was into a dangerous situations, just having been kidnapped and he couldn't fight, not even knowing how strong and what powers Cassandra Nova had. But by turning her against Johnny, not only was he able to assess her, but also prove that he wasn't here to cause her trouble. It was a cruel and ruthless action, but it was smart nonetheless.

Besides, people often forgets very important facts about his skills. Wade is an extremely good fighter, and that's partially due to the fact that he's a master at almost every martial arts. He knows a bunch of them, and he is capable of practicing them with impeccable form. He's also a master at espionage, infiltrations, cover missions, etc. He knows how to handle a lot of different weapons, and he is canonically one of the best fighters in the entire Marvel Universe. All of those skills require a certain level of intelligence. Fighting demands to remember the different styles and techniques, as well as enough practice to switch between them easily. Espionage, infiltration, and cover missions demand someone who is capable of discretion and and ability to judge a situation, notice details that no one else would and invent on the spot creative ways to do things. All in all, he has to be extremely smart to be able to do all of that. That's also without counting the fact that he knows how to speak fluently five different languages.

With all of these proofs, it's impossible to say that Wade is dumb. But why does he acts like it?

There is no official answer as to why Wade is this way. The most you can get is that he is extremely mentally unstable. This is the result of both a bad childhood and very traumatizing experiences as a superhero. It is said he was already mentally unstable during his childhood, so I'm inclined to believe that it also has something to do with his brain in general.

What I personally believe is that Wade is someone who gets bored extremely easily. He has ADHD (not really official in the movies, but canon in the comics), and he always seems to jump from one topic to the other. His mind is often considered a mess, and he himself sometimes has trouble keeping up with it. I think that someone like him has to be stimulated at all times, because boredom is definitely the worst thing that could happen to him. Even in the last movie, he seemed to hate his job because of how boring it was, not hesitating to go back into action and becoming more and more himself again as he just do exciting things. He has always been like this, even before he got his regenerating factor. When he did his job, he wasn't always careful and often loud-mouthed. It didn't interest him to just kill people, he wanted a fight. He wanted a back and forth, a sort of game. He needs to feel in danger, needs the thrill of it.

But then he gets his mutation. Suddenly, he can't die, he can't be seriously hurt, nothing has any real consequences. And so the games became boring. What is the point of putting himself in dangerous situations if he's never really in danger? How boring it is to do a job where you're perfectly safe? The only kind of thrill he can find anymore is by having the back and forth verbally. That's when it has consequences, and people actually able to surprise him, to beat him even. Attacking by talking his is one way to not feel bored. He surprises, he shocks, he annoys, but it's always different. Even during the last movie, when he was with Logan, he clearly said they didn't need to fight, yet he couldn't stop edging him verbally, always finding ways to push his buttons.

Wade is a very bored person, with a great understanding of where the limits are. And because he's so good at finding the limits, he's even better at crossing them willingly, sometimes at the expanse of the people he loves, because he can't be bored.

(I also like the interpretation of him just needing to be at the centre of attention, but I think it's a bit more classical and has already been done and re-done. So, this one is a bit trickier and way funnier for me.)

[fluffyk97]

Sonic 3 spoiler rambling about Sonic and Shadow under cut !

Y'know something that I feel might go lil under-appreciated is how well they made Sonic and Shadow mirror each other in the movie.

Like something that always can easily irk me are people boasting one of the two over the other because from the very beginning of his introduction to the series, Shadow's character is meant to reflect Sonic. They're meant to be equals that are so similar and complete opposites at the same time.

With the movie, I honestly wasn't expecting it that much. Sonic actually has a backstory that is just like Shadow's: powerful little hedgehog that is wanted for his power, so the one he's known his whole small life that he loves sacrifices herself to save him.

I fr fully expected Sonic to learn about Maria and be like "I lost Longclaw, I know you're pain, but-" blah blah blah- BUT they don't do that??

Of course, we have Commander Walters first telling Sonic that Shadow's story is a lot like his but wasn't able to find family and friends, and Sonic does find Shadow had a family from finding a picture of him and Maria together. He never gets told what happened exactly though, although it wouldn't make too much of a difference with the fact they did change up Shadow losing Maria just a little bit.

Since they didn't live up in space, Maria didn't have a capsule to send Shadow off with sacrificing herself and instead they made it an accident. WHICH- can be understandable if people don't like that, however personally I don't mind it that much because honestly the intent to shoot Maria was there, but she ended up being lost from an accident caused by Walters.

Which, ties in to Shadow hurting Tom...

Walters in trying to help save Maria's, Shadow's and Gerald's lives unfortunately led to Maria's death and watching Shadow be put in stasis for 50 years where all he thinks about is that painful memory burned fresh in his head. So of course when Shadow sees Tom disguised as Walters, he takes his anger out on him by hurting him while also stealing the key for the ARK. Leading to unfortunately another scenario of where the intent of harm is there, but someone still got hurt from an accident because Shadow never really meant to hurt Tom. But he does anyway..

Which of course in turn, makes Sonic mad just like Shadow was 50 years ago. Only difference is Sonic doesn't get immediately captured by GUN and forced into stasis. Letting him able to go straight to Shadow afterwards for hurting his family.

We have Shadow take note of all of that himself, telling Sonic he's feeling exactly the pain he felt and Sonic being the one to say "I'm nothing like you!". Just like how I thought Sonic would tell Shadow about Longclaw in hopes of redeeming him, but reversed and both sides full of anger and grief.

One awesome super fight later though, we come to the talk on the moon. Probably my favorite part in the whole movie. outside of the super fights and Live and Learn playing lol

After mentioning Tom and getting uppercutted straight to the moon by Sonic, Shadow loses his super form, leaving him vulnerable, easy for Sonic to take his revenge on him. Only for all of that to be stopped because of Shadow pointing at his own chest which reminds Sonic what Tom told him at the beginning of the movie and calm down.

"You didn't let pain change who you are."

This completely baffles Shadow, with him actually wanting Sonic to finish it, but of course Sonic just refuses saying "No one wins with revenge". It just leaves silence between them, finally giving Shadow his own moment of remembering Maria outside of her death by looking at the stars he used to gaze upon with her.

He mentions it to Sonic how all he knew and felt was just the pain, and now finally- FINALLY, Sonic mentions how he shares that feeling of loss from Longclaw. Not in a moment of trying to just redeem Shadow without the full weight of it, but in a moment of understanding.

A strong moment of these two looking at each other in a mirror, eye to eye. Sonic, who was allowed to grieve all those years ago after losing Longclaw, telling Shadow the pain of loss will never go away, but the love will always remain.

"The light shines, even though the star is gone."

And through that shared pain and loss, now coupled with empathy and understanding one another through it. They truly connect.

Sonic and Shadow's dynamic was just done SO WELL in the movie and I couldn't be happier with it...

[jennaaswife]

🚨 Everything we know about Wednesday season 2 (possible spoilers and trigger warnings for violence — don't read this if you don't wanna know anything about season 2. Also, remember that none of this is confirmed yet, everything is from a leaker supposedly working on the set)

1- Xavier left school so his character is completely forgotten

2- Enid is craving affection and attention a lot

3- Enid's scars healed (I'm so sad about that... bye bye our hopes of Wednesday comforting her about it)

4- Enid's hair is a bit shorter, closer to Emma's real haircut. It's still blond. They also talked about giving her a black streak, but they didn't do it. They will possibly add it next season

5- Ajax broke up with Enid because she kept missing their dates and wasn't really involved in their relationship

6- Ajax disappears through the season but is found at the end

7- Enid has a new boyfriend, Maxim (played by Owen Painter)

8- Maxim is predicted to be loved by the fans

9- Maxim is abusive towards Enid (he grabs her a lot and leaves bruises)

10- Wednesday hates Maxim from the start

11- Wednesday is really protective of Enid during this season

12- Enid breaks up with Maxim in episode 4 (I suppose, as it says mid-season) and it doesn't go well (he's really mad and they almost physically fight. Enid uses her claws)

13- After the break up, Maxim becomes very obsessive

14- Wednesday initiates a hug after Enid comes back to the dorm after the break up

15- Enid and Wednesday will investigate together in every episodes except the first one

16- Maxim takes over the Nightshades and kick Bianca out. His father is said to have old views (I guess similar to Crackstone)

17- Bianca will have a lot of scenes. So does Thing

18- Tyler is back and will work with Wednesday. He's not the villain of this season

19- Tyler has a lot of scenes with Bianca's mom

20- Wednesday, Enid, Morticia, Maxim and Barry (Maxim's father and Nevermore's new principal) have the most screentime

21- Enid meets the Addams and Morticia thinks her relationship with Wednesday is stupendous

22- Enid's relationship with her mom changes a lot (good or bad, we don't know)

23- There will be a camping episode taking place at Camp Jericho, where Enid and Wednesday will share a tent

24- There will be a musical number

25- Christopher Lloyd (original movie Uncle Fester) will come back as, apparently, a music teacher

26- Enid will have a major fight against around 5 creatures

27- One of Enid's fight is to protect Wednesday (who is immobilised during the scene)

28- Wenclair share another hug at the end of the season

29- Enid and Wednesday are very close friends at the end of the season. Wenclair is not comfirmed yet for season 3 but they said it's still possible

30- Jenna is producer this season, so everything that happens between Wednesday and Enid has gone through her. She and Emma are most likely the ones to decide if Wenclair will happen or no. Considering they both said in an interview that they would be good together, that the whole cast ships them and that so much fans does too, we are on the right track!

All of this is not officially confirmed. A leaker working on the set posted all this on Reddit in June (from what I understood). Recently, bts pics of Camp Jericho has been shared, confirming what the leaker said about it. So all of this is most likely true, but again, nothing comfirmed.

I really hope it is true, because holy shit, the plot is INSANE. I literally told my best friend I needed a camping scene in season 2 and more drama... well, there we are 🤌🏻 All this informations I have shared are from the leaker (the post has been deleted on Reddit but you can find some screenshots on @zstronz78's Twitter account)

What are you theories and thoughts about it?

[moldybonessmell]

"Deadpool and Wolverine": queercoding analysis of Poolverine in the movie

// SPOILERS

//Disclaimer: This is NOT a hate post to Vanessa/Wade shipp, but if you ship them, this post is probably not for you.

I've seen a few queerbaiting allegations and, frankly, don't agree with them. Now I'll explain why.

Starting with the fact that movie begins as a typical reasoning for a character to get a new love interest: we find out Wade and Vanessa broke up after roughly 7-8 years together.

Either we don't know (or I just don't remember lol) for how long they've been separate, but it was enough time for Vanessa to get in a new relationship.

And we know that the reason for this breakup is the core differences between the two. In the previous movie they wanted to get a child and Wade's entire motivation was based around Vanessa. In this movie tho, it seems like even if Wade is still not completely over breakup, he seems to be compliant with the fact they are not together anymore. You would expect Wade to go and do something silly to Nessa's new guy, but he doesn't. He respects her decidion.

Wade has more of an existentioal crisis than just hurting from the breakup. So I would assume he's not over because he feels like he messed up and keeps giving sad puppy eyes holding on this romantic relationship with Vanessa. Tho they are still soulmates and friends no matter what.

I don't know about you, but for me this exposition doesn't look like a foreshadowing of Vanessa and Wade getting back together. Vanessa is happy and self-actualised on her own, even if Wade is not.

I don't see Wade trying to change as an act of trying to get back with Vanessa. He reacts like this because his family member pointed out his flaws.

Secondly, the only other "hints" for a relationship between Wade and Vanessa is him remembering how they kissed and in the end Vanessa holding Wade's hand. Which, let me point out, is not a typical trope to show characters are back together. You know what's typical? A KISS! Which never happened btw.

Not to be this person, but we all know Disney/Marvel haven't got the balls to show a canon queer relationship. So the only "hints" for Vanessa/Wade seem to either read as platonic, or purely as an attempt of Disney to be like !look! female love interest!.

Now, other important part. If you really think about it, referencing the first part of the post, the movie follows an enemies-to lovers romantic movie formula:

(optional) breakup with previous partner;

annoyance first (previous deadpool movies);

admiration upon actual meeting (even if Wade acts cocky, when you listen to him telling the story about how his universe's Logan saved Laura, you can clearly see he adores the hero, who, as we know, is relatively similar throughout multiverse. Wade knows this Logan has the same morals as other ones, hearing how he regrets not being able to help his x-men);

"having to" go on an adventure/quest together even tho they are annoyed at each other;

enemies bickering and fighting because they have differences (which are actually similarities between the two which drive them insane when they see this mirroring);

the breaking point and confrontation (the Logan monologue in the car scene);

*the close proximity tention* hate fucking as a spicy way to get over the argument (in the car scene they are shown to fight just for the sake of letting out steam);

the cold period when characters ignore each other because they are still pissed (when Laura got the two to her base);

getting over it and working together, trusting that the other got their back;

saving the world with the power of love brotherhood with romantic soundtrack on;

both staying alive and having a heart-to-heart conversation;

one wants to leave, but the other stops them (usually it would be followed up with a kiss but oh well);

officially meeting a parental figure of one of the characters and moving in together as in an established relationship.

I don't think I'm delusional if I say I haven't seen brotherhood media (ones without queerbaiting or actual siblings) that would follow this formula. But I did see romantic storylines.

All in all, Wade and Logan go through a development and establishment of a relationship. And I'm not even talking about the obvious "one being there when other lost everything and giving them a new family and home".

In the movie there are so many romantic tropes of these CANONICALLY QUEER CHARACTERS, which make it safe to assume that queercoding is in fact happening. I would argue about it if both of them were straight in the source material, but this is the best and most important part, they are not :)

And this is why "Deadpool & Wolverine" is actually a romcom. Thank you for reading!

[paper-mario-wiki]

alright look i know my following is not the target audience for this kind of post but i wanna at least point something out about a scene in the Fallout show that i haven't actually heard a single person point out or comment on.

spoilers ahead.

in the scene where the ghoul is rewatching his old movie, specifically the scene where he originally protested about killing the villain.

the first layer is the obvious one: he is talking directly to himself. "you were strong, ugly, and you had dignity. i'll give you two out of those three." he remembers what happened at that shoot just as clearly as we did, and after he literally tells himself to his face "you're strong, ugly, and have no dignity" followed by him killing the man he originally wanted his character to save. this, of course, coming DIRECTLY after the person he sold into slavery earlier that day sparing him with life saving medicine while he's on the ground and telling him to his face that he only lives on because someone stuck to their humanity. very heavy! i bet he feels like shit, which he probably should because he's kind of a jerkoff! (but in a cool way that i like to watch)

the SECOND layer is the one i find way more interesting. the phrasing of his final line we didn't hear before was so dripping with importance that it felt like i was reading RPG dialogue and story relevant words were highlighted. "i hope you like the taste of lead you commie son of a bitch". as we'd already seen in episode 3, he despises vault-tec for everything he knows they are responsible for while he was their face. moreover, it's made clear that he doesn't just resent himself for being used for their image, but he resents the fact that he was the face of the propaganda which drove the war fever that caused the end of the world. the wild west ideal caricature of masculine wisdom from the movies as the spokesperson of the company who stood to profit from the purposeful decimation of the human race. he became The Ultimate Jingo.

and i really enjoyed how brief yet informative that detail was! i really enjoyed how the directors tell you what the characters are thinking intuitively and effectively through the camerawork and those little details make the whole thing a lot more fun to mull over and consider as a part of the whole of Fallout! i think it's neat.

[rovingotter]

SPOILERS for Wicked the novel and the musical.

...

When I first read Wicked as a teenager I remember finding Book Fiyero kind of boring because Elphaba is this cool anti-government rebel doing shadowy resistance activities and getting involved in assassination plots. And Fiyero, despite being a prince, feels like just Some Guy. He's disturbed by the injustice around him but not really taking any kind of action about it. And at the time, I wanted her to be with another committed rebel. Which is what we get in the musical and movie, more or less, since their relationship there is a lot more based around political allyship.

While I love all incarnations of the Wicked characters I've come to appreciate Book Fiyero and what he represents to Elphaba a lot more in subsequent rereads.

Elphaba joining the resistance when the diplomatic approach fails is a choice that costs her a lot. As a terrorist/freedom fighter, she lives alone in the Emerald City. She has no social life because she doesn't want to endanger anyone. She doesn't even really know who her comrades are outside of one or two contacts so that if she's ever captured the information can't be tortured out of her. She's connected to something bigger, but as a result, her own life has shrunk to almost nothing.

This Fiyero is appealing to her because he's a normal guy, because he's not a hardened fighter, because he reminds her that there's life outside of the resistance. His doubts and questions, his challenges to her rigid morality and the way his presence reminds her of her previous life prevents her from completely losing her own identity to the cause.

Which, of course, makes his fate all the more tragic. In the movie/musical he chooses to sacrifice himself to help her. In the book, it's not his choice, he's just caught in the crossfire, which makes the guilt all the more potent for her because she knew there was a chance this would happen and she got involved with him anyway because she was that desperation for a human connection.

[ellestra]

Beyond the Wasteland of Vengeance

I just watched Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and I loved it. It was hard at times as this is a harsh world and the rule of prequels tells us who has to die. But it was so worth it. We already know this is story of hope in the end. We know how Furiosa's Fury Road ends. It's starts with the same unrelenting determination (like the way she makes sure no one could tell of her home).

The cast is great (even if Chris Hemsworth fake face is somewhat distracting) but I think the most impressive was Alyla Browne who is Furiosa much longer than I expected for a film marketing Anya Taylor-Joy so heavily. She has some of the most badass parts (if you thought you hated Immortan Joe's sons before... well, thinking of their deaths is even more satisfying now). She is also made look so alike Anya that I initially missed the moment they switched.

But Immortan Joe and his band of monsters are just background creeps showing the decay of the world in general. The main villain is the one who took everything she loved from Furiosa. And didn't even remember half of it because he destroyed so many lives hers was nothing special. The one who set her on this path.

There is something sad about Dementus. You can almost feel, not compassion, but at least pity. You can see glimpses of a person he used to be before children died and you see how the end of the world destroyed him. It's like the voiceovers at the beginning describe what happened to his mind and soul when everything fell apart.

He's embodiment of that rot (and him going through white to red to black phases makes it even more clear). And he destroys everything he touches. At least the lords of Citadel, Bullet Farm and Gas Town built something. Something horrible and cruel but something. He can only destroy. He thinks finding Abundance will save him but he will only destroy that too. As I said, allegory.

Furiosa is his opposite because she doesn't let the cruelty of the world destroy her like this. She doesn't let the rot take hold of her and use her to spread. She never trusts the monsters surrounding her and she doesn't believe any of their promises. There is no safety in just letting them do that one thing. The cruelty will not end and will not be just that one thing.

I loved how she never stopped fighting. Not during her kidnapping. Not during her imprisonment. And then she found a way to escape one into another and then escape that one too. Using the very way those men wanted to poses her to plan her escape. Even when she loses her way home (figuratively and literally) to have her revenge it doesn't last. Even if she needed help in to follow her dream.

It's hard to trust in this world because a single act of kindness may cost you everything. But not everyone is evil. Even in Wasteland she finds someone who actually gives her help she needs. Someone she wishes to share her goal with. This films actually did "not all men" and it was great because it was earned but also because it helped explain why she would trust Max eventually. She already knew there are ones you can trust.

I tried to be pretty generic so far but behind this cut are SPOILERS for the very end (even though I don't say what it actually is - you can watch it yourself).

That ending was perfect both as foreshadowing who she will become but also as a callback to the beginning of the movie. Dementus tried to make her his daughter and use her to replace his children but she rejected him completely. Even if that was just swapping one monster for a bunch of even worse ones. And here at the ends he gloats about turning her into his daughter anyway. One in spirit anyway.

That like him she becomes creature of revenge and cruelty that nothing will ever satiate. Someone so obsessed with vengeance she will never stop even when the other side just want to leave (the mirroring of all the time he chased his prey and her chasing him was pretty nice). He thinks his death would just seal the deal because his suffering will never be great enough to soothe her pain.

You know, your standard - you will become like me spiel a villain does in moment like these. And lesser movies have heroes let villain go to prove them wrong (and then he tries to kill the hero anyway so the hero can have “my life was in danger” excuse to kill them anyway).

And she does lets him live but she doesn’t let him win. Once again she rejects him just like she did as a child. She remakes him into a symbol of her new purpose. She creates life out of a rotten man who did nothing but destroy lives of those around him. She makes him suffer for all the suffering he caused but that suffering is to build something new. And to create hope and future for those who have been abused by men like him.

And just like he asked she made it epic but as one last “fuck you” to him trying to control her story no one knows (well, almost no one). It’s epic and it’s a secret.

There is also something poetic that Furiosa eventually took over the Citadel - something he wanted so badly and never achieved. It retroactively made ending of Mad Max: Fury Road even better. And since it only took few days of them being gone he’s probably still there as she remakes it into the new Green Place.

[lizaluvsthis]

SMG4: The PuzzleVision Movie

[SPOILER ALERT and more into the ship]

VERY.

MAJOR.

SPOILER.

PLEASE.

Its funny enough how i predicted spongebob squarepants in my theory

(It even also has the ship I had a true pairing with. Squidbob.)

When old fandom meets the new fandom I'm currently in be like-

I see how they got each other's backs...

Suprised that SMG4 has done this- because last time we remembered, Smg3 is the one who comes risking his own life to save his buddy.

Now it's giving the DEJA VU moment but this time SMG3 is the one who gets saved by smg4.

"You saved me!"

Notice how different they act around their partner when they get saved?

Smg3 during wotfi 2023 AND in his recolor design during the 10 year anniversary.

He himself has pushed those things away or pushing out the soft stuff saying— "yeah yeah" or "I'd like to see you die otherwise"

BUT HIM? He still couldn't accept himself with the softness he's gained alot. He still calls his FRIEND. Baka.

(Hah idiot.)

One thing to say that it WAS AWKWARD SMG4 just looks at our guy. My man... my homie... buddy chum pal old fella amigo-

You. Are not. Okay. My man. (GAY PANIC SAYS OTHERWISE)

I know its not relevant but I drew this back in march 25 believe it or not I may have predicted this as well

Me and my brain goofing around telling me what if the gays did do that.

Anyways- back when Three lets Four carry him, as much as they both hate each other they atleast had to do it somehow inorder to escape.

Yet four could ever care less and he was still grabbing his waist at that time, and Three not giving a sh-t just looking up at the sky noticing how pretty it is.

Three... DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHOSE GRABBING YOUR WAIST RIGHT NOW??????????

Two siblings getting both of their fingers broken.

And its even in the right hand! Since Mario is immune to broken bones, Meggy however gets to be on the same place Mario has been in IGBP. NOW she gets to feel the pain what Mario may had felt.

-

And thus at the near end where SMG4 hits PV with a meat hammer or aka luigi- HE LITERALLY KICKED THE HEAD OUT- AND THE ANIMATION THAT MADE IT SO SERIOUS.

I think I understand his anger so much from this clip that everyone would agree.

Ever since PuzzleVision gave back everyones conciousness- he showed the Western Spaghetti and IGBP act of the crew on how emotional things became.

"And SMG4... who knew you could play an antagonist so well! High ranks for me!"

He felt so guilty. He looked down. He knew what PV was talking about.

By an antagonist' actions.

Just like how he was possessed by the goop itself, he started going crazy during that time and he let his anger get on to him.

SMG4 DID NOT WANT TO BE THE BAD GUY.

He was so scared and felt pity to himself because of that. And it was all ruined because of PV himself.

Smg4 didn't want to remember what happened during that encounter and never will.

Besides on the deal with PuzzleVision. SMG4 and Meggy's traumatic experiences weren't talked enough from their problems during the movie.

So much things are happening from the show that no one is talking much about it while watching.

"Is... is it over?"

Smg4 proceedingly cried emotionally because of the torture. He was apparently too blind enough to notice now that he realized it was him to blame. He was so dumb enough and so angry that he could cry.

Three didn't even slapped him or shut him off, he lets him cry over there due to the fact that he may need to release his emotions.

Because he knows how sentimental Smg4 became when it involves with dealing his own emotions that HE couldn't even give an advice for. But could only stay quiet.

Because at what hell of a state would he even say to SMG4 when they're trying to escape from this hell of a nightmare?

Four still doesn't accept himself, and neither does Smg3 too. From everything that happened.

Our boys are suffering enough and its hurting us like hell.

[runningfrom2am]

in this life or the next

summary: It's the seventy-fifth annual Hunger Games, and you were just unlucky enough to get picked; but lucky enough for this Quarter Quell to feature pre-selected teams. You get paired up with District One's pride and joy, the one and only Rafe Cameron.

pairing: rafe x fem!reader

wc: 15k (oh my LORD)

tags/warnings: its the hunger games so like... yeah... violence and gore and stuff. definitely swearing, spoilers for the og Hunger Games movie I guess (but also not bc i changed it up a bit- you'll see), reader has a special talent that i won't spoil here, Rafe is lowkey a dick at the beginning, Ward being a shitty dad (what's new). also this isn't thoroughly edited bc.. its 15k words and i'm lazy.

masterlists // nav // requests

join my taglist here

a/n: hello lovelies!! oh my gosh i have been slowly chipping away at this for actual literal months, and i am so proud of how it turned out!! i’m really glad i could finally post it by my birthday!! (i’m 23 wtf??)

thank you so much if you're going to put in the time to read this, but it honestly means a lot to me that you've made it this far. reblogs and likes would be so appreciated and let me know your thoughts in the replies! i really, really hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it. let me know if you want a part two of what happens post games, bc i think i left it at a minor baby sized cliffhanger. anyway, i’m off to eat cake now! enjoy!

Staring blankly out at the crowd in front of you, you attempt to process the echoing of your heartbeat in your ears.

"I'd like us to give a round of applause for our brave, brave tributes this year, and wish them the best of luck in this year's quarter quell!" Your attention is drawn to the woman next to you, the District Five escort, Opal, dressed head to toe in bright yellow. A universally happy color- what a joke.

The crowd is mostly silent and you can't bear the thought of even glancing in the direction of your parents. You turn silently as you're ushered back into the building from the stage, tripping slightly over your feet as the shock sets in. People are talking, possibly to you, but you can hardly hear a thing. You almost made it. You were almost eighteen- one more year and you would have been free.

You were granted the briefest of goodbyes to your family, but you were tempted to even turn that down. An action you regret not taking as your parents walk into the room, your mother with tears already coating her cheeks and your father trying to keep a strong resolve for you and your siblings.

"We'll see you soon, Bug. Remember we love you," He whispers into your hair as you sob into his shoulder. You know he doesn't necessarily mean in this lifetime.

Your tunnel vision settles back in as you're walked out of the room, glancing one last time over your shoulder only to see your dad's shoulders shaking from his silent cries as he turns his back to you.

You are quickly pushed onto the train taking you out of District Five, ignoring the other three tributes and your mentors as they talk. You just stare out the window with tired, red eyes and say a silent goodbye to the home you're already sure you'll never see again.

"Y/N..?" The girl next to you says, tapping you on the shoulder and making you jump.

"Hm?" You hum your acknowledgment, looking at the girl beside you. She's only a year older than you, and you went to school together for years; Maisie, you remember.

"I just wanted to make sure you hear them," Maisie whispers, gesturing to Opal as she starts to explain what the premise of the games is this year.

"So," she claps her hands together, clad in tacky yellow gloves. "I'm sure you have noticed that this year there are four of you, and you'll each be paired up with another tribute to compete. Not necessarily from your own District, but, anything is possible, I suppose. The exciting news is that there's a possibility for two winners this year! You and your teammate will be given a score throughout the games, and if your score as the final two is above ten, you will both be crowned victors!" The woman says excitedly- like it's a good thing.

"And if we don't have over ten?" The boy sitting across from you asks flatly.

"Well... the games shall continue," Opal explains vaguely, but you know what that means. You've seen it before.

"Okay, well, how do we get a good score?" The boy asks.

"I-" The escort starts, hesitance clear in her tone as she's quickly interrupted.

"You kill people," Your female mentor answers. She's leaning her elbows on the end of the table, standing with a knife in her hand, spinning it around like it's some kind of toy.

Your eyes drop from her form, staring down at the table in front of you, suddenly remembering your glass of water and quickly grabbing it when you realize your mouth has gone completely dry just from the idea of what's to come.

You arrive at the Capitol in the middle of the night and despite this fact, the crowds are still there. You didn't expect this, even though you've seen it on the beat-up television in your living room every year. It feels less real, somehow, when you're the one getting pushed through the crowd, not knowing what to do besides give awkward smiles to people yelling your name.

Your room is beautiful. You've never seen anything like this, but you can fully customize it at will with a remote, and this level of technology fascinates you. You spend hours flicking through different images that can appear on the walls, surrounding you in another world. Exhaustion and the sound of an artificial thunderstorm put you to sleep with the remote still resting in your palm.

"Up, up, up, my dear! We've got a big day ahead!" Opal's cheery voice startles you awake from your less-than-cozy spot on the floor. "There's breakfast on the table then we've got to get you down to prep, so hurry up, please." She says, and just like that she's gone, no doubt off to wake the other District Five tributes in a similar fashion.

"You're going to be meeting your teammates for the first time today so you can train together- gosh isn't that just so exciting!" Opal claps as you all stand in the elevator. There's a silence that follows as you and Maisie just nod, not excited about the whole idea. You're about to meet someone who will either be spending the last days of your life with you, or be killing you themselves, and you're not fond of either.

"This way you'll get to train together first, which I do believe to be a very generous act on behalf of the game makers." She adds, making you roll your eyes. How considerate. The most you can hope for is someone who is capable, and preferably someone who isn't in the twelve to fifteen age range, having seen that there were several drawn from different districts.

You shift on your feet as you try to adjust to the uncomfortably tight catsuit they squeezed you into, covered in what must be sapphire and diamond rhinestones, pinching your skin with every slight movement. Gold accents line the seams of the suit, extending out into something that resembles wings and lightning bolts protruding from your back. District Five; power. You get it, but we're the diamonds necessary? You hardly take note of the varying outfits you're surrounded with from the other kids in your district, before Opal is guiding the four of you up the line of extravagant carriages you're meant to parade out on for the people of the Capitol to fawn over.

You take note of where all of the other tributes from Five are lead, guessing based on the order of carriages that Maisie got paired up with another girl from Eleven, and the boys somehow ended up paired together. There must be some sort of personal aspect to this decision, considering you have watched those two boys fight back home. You're last, and Opal looks at you excitedly as you follow her up, and up, and up- to the very front of the line.

"Surprise!" She grins, clapping excitedly as you approach the very first carriage. "Y/N, getting paired with a career is huge. Your odds are good already, your partner has trained his whole life- he even volunteered."

"Sucks for him." You mutter under your breath as you get closer, eyeing up the boy in front of you, wearing an almost matching outfit. All the rhinestones make sense now, blending power with luxury could only mean as much.

"Y/N Y/L/N, meet Rafe Cameron. He'll be your teammate in the games." She smiles as she introduces you.

"Hi." You say quietly, taking his hand as he holds it out to you to help you up onto the carriage.

"Hey." He mutters, avoiding your gaze. It's off to a rough start for him for sure, seeing he's being paired up with someone from an outlying district must be daunting, when for you it should be exciting. Rafe did volunteer, yes, but he doesn't want to risk any kind of attachment- despite what the people of the Capitol want for their entertainment. He wants to come out alive, he doesn't care so much about who he's with.

"Okay, Y/N, remember to smile, please." Opal reminds you and you nod, looking down at her as you hold onto the handle in front of you.

You promise her with a nod, willing to do almost anything at this point to win the favour of possible sponsors. Again, your odds look better next to a career on that front, as well.

Quickly everyone is cleared away from the horses and the carriages and you start moving, catching you off guard and you stumble a little, readjusting your grip on the railing. "Careful." Rafe says beside you, quick to reach out to steady you if you needed it. You think you see the smallest of smiles on his face, but that must have just been your own mind trying to find comfort in anything around you.

"I got it." You whisper, blushing slightly. You've been with your teammate for all of a minute, and you're already proving yourself to be clumsy.

The lights hit your eyes the same time all the cheering does, being the first carriage, it's already so loud you can hardly hear yourself think. You snap out of it quickly, plastering on a smile once you see your own face on a giant screen ahead of you, you don't even look like yourself anymore. Your eyes land on the screen adjacent to the one showing you, seeing Rafe as well. He's smiling too, clearly having headed Opal's advice, or his many years of training is getting to him and he's excited. You really don't know. Then his head turns, and you turn your head as well, making dead eye contact with him for only a moment before he's looking past you into the crowds, taking in the moment.

When you finally get out of the extremely public eye and back into the building you exited from, you feel like you can finally breathe again. Not fully, in the tight, rigid suit they had you dressed up in, but more than you realized you were with all that yelling in your ears and lights in your face.

"District Five, right?" Rafe asks you as you're both stepping down and you nod. "Jeez, you don't talk much, do you?" He follows up with, taking a water bottle from someone who's walking by with them.

"I talk." You reply quietly. "Just... not much to talk about at the moment."

"The shock? Yeah, that'll do it." He nods, taking a sip from the water bottle and holding it out to you. You shake your head and push it away, making him shrug. "Shitty bust when you're not a volunteer."

You just stare at him, taken off guard by the comment. "That being said..." He leans in closer to make sure no one else hears. "I've been waiting my whole life for this, so don't ruin it for me, yeah?"

You pull back away from him and just nod again, not wanting to get on his bad side already. He won't be the one to kill you, probably, but it would still be nice if you spent your final days without your teammate hating your guts. "Thanks, darling." He smirks, patting your shoulder and brushing past you to go to the elevators.

The next day, bright and early yet again, you have your first day of training. You're sure Rafe won't even need it, but you certainly will. Your mentor told you he will likely be using it to size up the other tributes, especially considering there is a staggering amount of them this year, and you will need to focus on survival skills. Only survival skills, if you had to pick one thing- and your mentor drove that into your head until it was all that was echoing in your mind when you entered the training center.

After the trainers speech which ironically tried to do the same thing, you beeline straight for the fire making station. You're shocked to see almost no one else listened, definitely none of the boys, mostly lining up to show off their physical strengths, likely to try and intimidate each other. You'd be lying if you said it wasn't working.

You look up as you hear echoing laughter coming from the other side of the room, eyes scanning over the wall lined with silhouette targets, and racks with an array of weapons before landing on your teammate, laughing away with the other career tributes over a joke you didn't hear. He's got a spear in one hand, leaning his weight on it as his head drops back with laughter. You shake your head to get back on task, rolling the rough wood in your palms in hopes of making a spark. Good to see at least one of you is having fun, especially in your final days.

After a few minutes you get it, sitting back into your calves where you were kneeling on the ground, taking a breath of relief as you're satisfied with your success. You glance around to see how others are doing, giving a small smile and wave to Maisie when you see her, reading a book about different edible plants and trying desperately to memorize every image. You watch as Rafe takes the same spear he was leaning on before, hurling towards one of the targets. A direct hit, right in the chest, slightly right of the centre. You jump a little at the sound it makes on impact, looking finally at the boy who threw it.

He's pacing, huffing and looking a little frustrated with himself. A little to the left would have been perfect, but it was a kill shot nonetheless. There would be no coming back from that, and you count yourself lucky that it likely won't be you in place of the target in the games.

You quickly put out your fire and try again, making sure you've got the hang of it. You'll sit here all day if you must. After three more successful attempts, you're satisfied for the day, deciding you'll return to that station tomorrow and try again. You get up and brush the dirt off your knees, trekking over to where they have supplies to make game traps. You've never done this before, but there's no better time to learn, especially since your teammate has shown no interest in survival skills so far today.

"What are you doing?" Suddenly Rafe is standing behind you, as you're once again kneeling on the ground attempting to get the trigger on your bladeless trap to work.

You jump a little, startled by someone talking to you. "Uh, trying to make a snare, I think." You answer, turning to look up at him.

"Looks good." He nods, crouching down next to you. "Uh, isn't there supposed to be a blade or a spearhead or something on that piece?" He says, pointing to it.

"Well, yeah, I just didn't want to stab myself by accident." You laugh slightly, trying the trigger again- and this time it works, snapping forward into his arm.

"Ouch, yeah, fair enough." Rafe chuckles, rubbing the spot on his arm where the wood made contact.

You just nod and begin to reset it to test it again. "What if you can't get any of this shit in the arena?" He asks.

"What, a stick?" You ask, hitting the trigger one more time, sending the stick into his arm again, which he had decided not to move.

"Ow! Yes, a stick. We don't know what it will look like." He rubs his arm, examining the trap you built closer now.

"Then we're screwed I guess." You joke, leaning back on your calves again, watching him dissect it piece by piece to figure out how it works.

"So, is this like, your thing?" Rafe asks, and you tilt your head at him as you think it over.

"My thing?" You ask, unsure entirely what he meant. "I've never made one before, if that's what you're asking."

"Really?" He seems shocked by this.

"Uh, yeah, really. Unfortunately for you, you got paired up with someone who has zero survival or combat skills."

Rafe looks at you, a smug grin crossing his features. "Ha ha, very funny." He clearly thinks you're joking, but you're definitely not.

"I'm serious." You say, confused as to why he doesn't believe you.

His smile falters, replaced with wrinkles of confusion on his forehead. "But- I just watched you look at the instruction book for no more than like, three seconds before sitting down to make this."

"And..?"

"If you've never done it before it's supposed to be harder than that."

"Well, I've seen other people do it on TV and stuff every year for like, ever." You shrug. "I've just got a good memory, I guess."

Rafe nods, looking at the deconstructed trap in front of him for a moment, thinking about the implications of this. How far does this go? Could he use it? He'd never dreamt of having to work in a team in his games, but maybe it would benefit him after all. "Come with me." He stands up, and you follow as he paces over to two big screens, covered with a large array of different symbols.

"Try this, I just want to see something." Rafe says, standing next to you with his arms crossed as you quickly look over the screen, reaching down toward the one in front of you. You notice quickly that the screens mirror each other, all the images placed in the same spots as they are above. You look up at your teammate briefly who nods at you and then you tap one, watching it disappear from both screens before you tap the matching symbol. It's a matching game.

Your eyes are locked on the top screen as you tap away at the bottom one, quickly making all the images disappear one by one. It takes you no more than a minute to get rid of them all, and then a timer appears on the screen replaying your every move in real-time. Forty-two seconds. Were you really going that fast?

"Neat." Rafe says to himself, nodding as he watches it replay on the screen. That was impressive, sure, but his mind is straining to find a practical implication for this in the arena. "Go back to survival stuff. Learn as much as you can." He settles on, turning and walking off back to where he was before, returning to combat training.

The four days of training fly by insanely fast, and that's likely due to your dread of what's to come. you've got through everything in survival no less than three times, and you're pretty sure last night you dreamt of plants and making a fire. Not surprisingly, Rafe has left you pretty much alone the whole time, but you did watch from a distance as he cycled through every weapon the training center had to offer, proving he's almost mastered every last one. Of course, with over ten years of training, anything less wouldn't make sense. What scares you is the other careers showing a similar skill level to that of your teammate, but he seems to be on good terms with them. Again, maybe this would be a good thing in the beginning of the games.

You sit down for your last day of making fires and fishing hooks, working solely on memory since day one, you're feeling pretty confident that the elements or exposure won't be what takes you out- but you don't know if that's a good thing or not. You just hope your death will be quick.

"Y/N, c'mere." Rafe is suddenly calling to you, motioning for you to join him in the combat area. Not seeing much of a choice, and not looking forward to another day of doing the same thing over and over, you listen.

You make your way over, avoiding the gaze of other tributes who are looking at you like you're about to make a fool of yourself. It's possible you are. "I want you to learn how to use this." He says as you walk up, holding out the handle of a knife to you.

You take it, turning the sharp blade over in your hand. "I thought you were the weapons master." You joke, looking up at him briefly.

"Well, I need you to make fires and shit so you have to stay alive somehow, and if we get separated or something I need to know you can at least defend yourself. These are good from a distance and up close, but remember that any weapon you have they can take and use against you. So keep distance whenever you can." He answers, pointing over to the target about fifteen feet away. "So, throw it."

You look over to where he was pointing, adjusting your grip on the handle as you nod, taking in the information he's dumping on you. He is probably right, especially since you don't think he plans on protecting you himself. Why would he? If you die, he can still win without you.

You lift your arm over your shoulder, closing one eye to narrow down your aim before throwing it hard towards the target, which the knife bounces off of and clatters to the ground. You and Rafe both turn at the same time to look at the group that's laughing at you, the clang of the metal on the cement echoing loudly in the vast space.

"Don't worry about them. They're not there." Rafe is quick to grab another one, handing it to you the same way. "Try again, this time, hold it like this..." He says, grabbing your hand and placing your fingers in the correct spots on the handle. "Keep your wrist tense and straight, don't flick it or anything. Yeah, like that." He nods, taking a step back.

You look over how you're holding it, committing the feeling and finger placement to memory before raising your arm again. You throw it again, and this time it sticks, but your aim is off and it ends up in the target's leg. You look over at Rafe, unsure if you're hoping for approval or just satisfaction. "That's perfect." He nods. "Not a death blow, but that'll buy you time to get away. which is all you need."

"Okay." You agree quietly.

"Would it help if you watched me?" He offered, already grabbing a new knife while you nod. "So, you want to follow through with the throw, your shoulders should end about here if you're doing it right. You get more power that way, and better aim." He explains, standing with one foot forward, parallel to the target.

You step back to watch his strategy, noting the way he held the blade and his form when he aimed to throw it. He lets it fly from his fingers as his shoulders fall forward, smirking to himself as it hits the bullseye circle, right in the chest.

"You got it?" He asks, standing up straight again. You nod in response and he's handing you yet another knife to try again.

You go back and forth for hours, not caring that you're keeping anyone else from practicing. You're not the best at it, but it's become muscle memory now, and every time it sticks, most of the time hitting the silhouette somewhere. You tried the moving targets briefly, the gold, pixelated figures running at you quickly. You were immediately overwhelmed, and Rafe ended up having to step in to help. He said after that the minimal skill you had would be good enough to get away, and that is all you would need. You just have to focus on that.

You didn't talk a lot, besides taking a few short breaks to gather the knives and his arrows as Rafe explained the pros and cons of every weapon they had present, showing you briefly how to use some of them. Mostly how to defend yourself against them. It's hard for him to sum up years of training in one day, but he's dead set on the idea that you won't need most of it- just having to focus on keeping the two of you sheltered and fed, he can handle the rest; hopefully.

You sit outside the training center next to Rafe, waiting for your name to be called. It was the youngest female tribute from his district first, so if you had to guess, you would be third and fourth to go, which doesn't buy you a lot of time to decide what to do to best show your skills.

"What are you gonna do?" You ask, whispering in the deathly quiet room.

"Huh?" Rafe hums, leaning closer to hear you better.

You clear your throat, before speaking this time, unsure if you were clear enough. "What are you gonna do? Like which skill?" You clarify.

"Oh, uh..." He mutters, adjusting how he's sitting as he thinks about what to say. "I'm just going to cycle through some different weapons, different distance targets, I think. My mentors want me to show like, a variety of what I can do."

You nod at this, making a mental note of that. Maybe you should do the matching game and then try the knives. Opal told you that you would be scored both individually, and as a team. You hope you won't bring down his score too much, since you know he's aiming high. You planned on going for a mid-level score, not to be seen as a threat but also not as an easy kill. A perfect six would be your ideal score. "What about you?" Rafe interrupts your thought process.

"I'm not sure." You answer honestly.

"You should do your survival stuff. That will improve our team score, if we show them we have strengths at both." Rafe suggests. That's not actually a bad idea. Your individual score will likely be lower, but that's a risk you're willing to take.

"Yeah, I'll do that."

You ended up scoring a six, the judges obviously not seeing you as any kind of threat. This is what you expected, though, and you were correct about your group score as well. Rafe and you together scored a ten. On his own, he scored a ten, so you hadn't affected it in the way you feared. This left you reeling over the idea of other tributes seeing you both as a threat as you stand in yet another extravagant dress, waiting in line to be called out for your interview. The games were tomorrow, and the last thing you wanted was to get in front of a crowd and subtly plead with them to let you live, to send you gifts, and to give you their sympathy.

So far it's been in the same order they called everyone for assessments yesterday, which means you would be next. Rafe stands behind you, arms crossed in a suit that looks more expensive than any you've seen back home in all of your life, but he looks comfortable in it. Your dress is once again covered in rhinestones, and your waist is cinched in so tight you can hardly breathe as it is, so you're not looking forward to going on stage.

"Our next tribute, welcome to the stage from District Five, Miss Y/N Y/L/N!" You hear the familiar voice of Caesar Flickerman calling you out and some guards usher you forward onto the stage, very briefly glancing over your shoulder at Rafe.

You're quick to smile as you turn back around, giving a small wave to the host and then out to the audience as they cheer for you. For a brief moment, you feel as if they don't plan on watching you die as early as tomorrow, you feel as if they're rooting for you. "Hi!" You say as you get closer and Caesar stands up to greet you, shaking your hand and giving you a quick hug before gesturing for you to sit down across from him.

You look around the large theatre, spotting every camera you can. Your family is out there watching, somewhere, and you know they'll see right through this show you have to put on. You wish they wouldn't. You can picture so vividly your living room back home, with your parents and siblings scattered across the couch and the floor watching you with bated breath, they can see you- and on some level, you can see them too.

"Miss Y/L/N. Thank you for being here." Caesar sighs, reaching out and patting your hand where it sits on the armrest next to you.

"Well, I didn't have any other plans for the night, so..." You shrug, making him laugh. Laughter echoes from the audience and you smile, hoping that your plan to win people over is working.

"What? A beautiful girl like you?" He asks after he's done laughing. "You weren't planning on spending some of your free time with your teammate?" As if you got even a minute of free time since you've been here.

"Well, I guess we'll never know." You chuckle, looking back at the boy where he stands in the wing, giving you a small smile.

"Now listen, Y/N, Rafe is..." He has to stop after mentioning his name as cheers erupt again, laughing as he waits for the audience to quiet down. "Your teammate is, as you may have guessed, a popular face in the Capitol right now. Are you feeling lucky about your pairing?"

Rafe crossed his arms as he watches intently, feeling smug about his odds, especially now knowing the Capitol's opinion of him. He knows his dad is back home watching, full of pride that his son has become a fan favourite.

"I am." You answer honestly. "He's very talented."

"And handsome, don't you think?"

"I mean, who am I to argue with the people?" You joke, waving your hand dismissively as you hear the cheers pick up again. "Besides, his looks won't save us. We will save ourselves." You add seriously.

Caesar nods in acknowledgment, showing that to an extent, he agrees with you. "Well, I hope that you are right, dear." He smiles, getting up to signal you've run out of time. You stand as well, taking his hand as he holds it up above your heads. "It was so lovely to meet you, and may the odds stay ever in your favor. Y/N Y/L/N, everyone!"

You smile and thank him quietly, waving to everyone with both hands as you walk across the stage to exit on the other side. You take a few deep breaths as you step into yet another waiting room, watching the screen as Rafe is called out right behind you.

Rafe sits down on the chair across from Caesar after his introduction, which allows a few moments for the audience to quiet down. He smiles proudly as he rests one of his feet on his other knee, bouncing his leg with anxiety. He hopes it's interpreted as excitement. "Rafe." Caesar smiles at him, sitting back down as well. "I'll be honest, I have been so excited to finally meet you."

"It's good to meet you too." Rafe grins, chuckling slightly at the few whistles he gets scattered from the crowd.

"You got a fabulous score, how are you feeling about that?"

"Really good, yeah. Obviously I've been waiting my whole life for this opportunity, so it feels amazing to see it all paying off." Rafe answers, focussing on keeping the confidence in his tone.

"We can tell, can't we?" Caesar laughs, riling up the audience again, making Rafe laugh to himself as he softly shakes his head. "Yeah, yeah. So, with all this planning you've been doing, how do you feel about getting paired up? You probably expected to be going in solo."

"I did, for sure, but I don't think this is a bad thing." Rafe admits.

"Oh, getting along well with your teammate?" Caesar asks, a hint of suggestion in his tone.

"Yeah, we get on really well." Rafe exaggerates your relationship a bit, knowing it will earn you more sponsors, and maybe keep other tributes away from you in the games. "At least I think we do, I'm not fully sure about her thoughts on me, though."

"You scored incredibly well together, despite Y/N having a fairly average score on her own. What are your thoughts and feelings on that?"

Rafe chuckles as he leans forward a bit, pointing out to the audience as he speaks. "Don't underestimate her based on the score. I won't give you any spoilers, but trust me, don't overlook her. She's got as good a shot as any of us. Maybe better."

Caesar makes a surprised expression as he nods. "Well okay! Does she have some sort of secret weapon we should be worried about?" He chuckles, gripping the armrests and looking around as the audience laughs.

Rafe just shrugs in response, smirking slightly, which you can tell the audience just eats up. You're trying to decide if this is good or bad for you, though, as you watch, gnawing at your nails in anticipation as you stare at the screen.

"Okay, alright, don't spoil anything then." Caesar laughs. "It'll make for a better show, and I can get behind that."

After a moment of waiting for the cheers to die down, Caesar speaks up again. "Rafe, if I can ask, I know your father has a lot of influence in your district- how is he feeling about your selection for the games?"

You furrow your brow a little bit as you look at the screen, finally learning something interesting about your teammate. If he's from a prominent family in District One of all places, that would certainly explain his attitude. Rafe, on the other hand, doesn't want to talk about his father at all- but of course they would bring him up.

"Yeah, of course." Rafe replies, shifting in his seat. "He's thrilled, it's a huge honour to be here, and to be the first out of his children to be chosen is really special to me. I just hope I can make him and my sisters proud, he's always encouraged us to volunteer."

"I'm sure that you will." Caesar smiles at him. "I hope I will have the honour of hosting one of your sisters on this stage one day, as well."

Your stomach churns just watching this. How can any father who loves his children want this fate for them? This was your father's worst nightmare. You watch as Rafe nods with a smile, and you can see behind his eyes that he doesn't want that, not at all.

The audience cheers as they both stand up, shaking hands before Rafe leaves the stage, a cocky smirk on his face as he waves and winks at the audience. Before Rafe makes it down to the waiting room, you're grabbed an escorted out, heading for the elevator back to your room.

You can't eat, but you know you should. This will likely be your last meal for a while. You decide on just taking a large bowl of fruit and toast to your room, trying to get it down slowly with all the nerves, while you have a bath. Your parents never let you eat in the bath. It's hard to get out knowing this is likely the last bath you'll ever have.

The morning goes by in a blur, you feel Opal's arms around you as she hugs you goodbye and wishes you luck. You know you'll need all of it. You stare down at the ground in front of you as you're pushed onto a plane, of sorts, along with all the other tributes. Once you're sat down, you look around at everyone else. You remember all of their names as you scan over their faces, but you wish you didn't. You get stuck on one of the girls from District Eleven, Hope, who was only thirteen.

She's shaking, and you can see that from where you're sat down the row from her. She reminds you of Rue, the tribute from last year. Her death was a tragedy, it broke the hearts of everyone outside of the Capitol and the career districts. Hope's curly hair sat in a bun on top of her head, and tears fell down her cheeks as she sniffled. She got paired up with a girl from Twelve- the lengths the Capitol will go to to make a mockery of last years games will never cease to amaze you.

"Hey, you look a little pale." Rafe whispers, leaning close to you. You didn't even notice him sit down on the other side of you.

You shake your head slightly, looking down at your knees. "I'm fine."

"Don't think about it." Rafe instructs you, holding his arm out for the tracker to be injected as a guard approaches with the device.

You wince as you hear it get shot into his arm and he chuckles, shaking his arm off to ease the sting. You raise your shaking arm as they hold their hand out expectantly to you. You don't know what it is they're putting in you, but you've never been fond of needles. This is a million times worse. "It's not that bad," Rafe tells you, and you squeeze your eyes shut as you feel pressure on your forearm, followed by a sharp, stabbing pain. You bite your tongue to keep from making a sound, dropping your arm onto your lap as they quickly walk away.

"What did they do?" You ask him, trying to keep a steady tone.

"It's a tracker, so they know where we are in the arena." He explains quietly. You were the only two talking, and you notice it's earning you glares from several other tributes. Rafe notices this as well, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms, taking this time to size everyone up.

The plane takes off, and before you know it, you're landing at the arena on the outskirts of Capitol property. You wonder if you're close to the ocean, not that you'll get to see it anyways.

You're paraded off of the plane, still trying not to let it show how afraid you are of what's to come. You make the briefest of eye contact with Maisie as she's pulled towards a different hallway, and neither of you have it in you to smile anymore.

"We've gotta get supplies, that's our first move." Rafe says to you as you're led out of earshot of other tributes, into your own hall.

"My mentor said to run." You reply quietly.

Rafe scoffs, shaking his head. "Your what, one mentor said that? Cool. I have fifteen that are still alive and well enough to show up every year. I think we should get supplies." He tells you firmly, but you know that will get you instantly killed, maybe not him, but you stand no shot. "Just stick with me if you want to live."

You just nod a little bit, glancing at him again briefly before you're directed into a separate room across the hall from him. His pedestal will be next to yours, which is a bit of a relief. Your stylist quickly instructs you to strip, and then she helps you into the uniform you assume you'll all be wearing. It's exactly the same as last year, you notice this quickly, but with a '75' logo embroidered on the chest where the District Twelve tribute had her pin placed. Katniss, you remember her name was. She had volunteered for her sister, and at the time you contemplated heavily on whether or not you would do the same. She was so, so close to winning- to getting to see her sister again, but she and the boy from her district, the final two tributes, ended up committing together rather than giving the Capitol their Victor. It was an admirable stance, but you couldn't imagine what that was like for her family, and his.

You step off the concrete floor once you're dressed, instructed to get into the pod that will lift you up into the arena; a glass elevator. Your stylist says nothing to you as they walk out of the room, the glass door sliding shut in front of you. Your knees get weak as you realize you are totally, completely alone, and likely no more than twenty minutes from dying. You think of your family, your siblings, your dad- and the last words he said to you. You'll see him soon.

Your thoughts are halted when the elevator starts to move, lifting you up as the ceiling falls away and you can see sunlight coming through. You squint and shield your eyes as you try to look up to get a better grasp on your surroundings before you can even see anything. Once trees come into view you're frantically looking around, trying to process as much information as you can, and quickly. It's exactly the same as last year, but from what you can tell, flipped in reverse, and made larger to accommodate twice as many tributes. Or everything on camera last year was flipped. There's a silver cornucopia in the middle with the timer that's immediately counting down and supplies inside and scattered around the field in front of you. Rafe is to your right, and a boy from Seven on your left. He scored a six, the same as you, so he's not the biggest threat to you immediately.

You adjust your stance, getting ready to run once the timer hits zero. In what direction, you don't know yet. Rafe wants you to run to the supplies, but statistically, the most deaths will happen in the next five minutes and you don't want any part of that. The supply bags and weapons spread out on the grass are all the same too, by the looks of it. The closest bag to you got picked up by the girl from Seven last year, and it didn't have much of anything helpful. If you're remembering right, it had a rope and some matches, and that was it. It definitely would be useful, but you know you can do better. There should be a bag four pedestals to your right, with a water bottle, an emergency blanket, a fire starter, a first aid kit, and a knife. Right now, that's the one you have to get to. That's your best bet.

Ten, nine, eight... The timer ticks down to the final seconds as you look over at Rafe, who's already looking at you. You point to the bag as your eyes land on it on the other side of him across the field, and he looks at you confused. He's closer, he has a better shot, but you know he won't take it.

Rafe is confused, following your finger and spotting the bag. Why would you want that one specifically? There are others closer, he doesn't feel like now is a time to be picky.

Four, three, two...

Your ears ring with shock as the clock reaches zero, and you're watching most of the other tributes booking it for the center. No one has seen your bag yet as you jump down, beelining across the field and narrowly brushing past Rafe in your move for the small backpack. He stops to let you pass, almost crashing into you head-on. He doesn't have time to worry about you, so he continues on his path to the middle, but he's lost time. Precious time that he doesn't have to lose right at the beginning of the games.

He gets into the bloodbath that the cornucopia has already turned into, looking back over his shoulder quickly as he grabs at any weapon he can get his hands on. He quickly has to sacrifice the blade he just grabbed when he hears footsteps quickly approaching from behind him, turning quickly and plunging it into the boy's chest. He doesn't think to look at who it was.

Cannon's echo around you, and you're counting how many internally as you get to the bag, reaching down to grab it as you run past, trying not to slow down. You look back over your shoulder, hoping to spot your teammate somewhere, but you can't see him. You're scanning the area, blocking out the blood you see flying and scattered along the silver metal of the cornucopia. You can hardly hear any screams over the sound of your heartbeat pounding in your ears. You can't help but watch as the girl from Three jumps on who is supposed to be her partner, a girl from Twelve, snapping her neck in a second. Within moments, she just drops to the ground next to her- another cannon following. That makes a strong incentive for working in teams. At least Rafe won't betray you early on.

You freeze up for a moment, stopping to scan your surroundings. You still can't find Rafe, taking in the number of bodies scattered around the cornucopia and a few tributes running into the tree line. At least some people were smart. Something flies past your head, making you jump back a step as you look up ahead of you. Within an instant, you're being tackled back by the body of the boy from your district.

"Y/N, fancy seeing you here." He chuckles darkly while you try and fight him off.

"Don't!" You squeak out, him pressing his forearm down against your throat on the ground.

"I've wanted to do this since the second they called your name." He growls, shoving you down again.

"We can help each other, Jack..." You say weakly, clawing at his arm.

"You don't need me. You've got your career boyfriend- and whatever your secret weapon is." He scoffs. "You don't have a secret weapon, Y/N. He's bluffing and he won't convince us."

You gather all your strength and knee him in the crotch, scrambling to get away as he fumbles for just a moment. "God- you are a bitch!" He shouts, grabbing for your ankle just has you pick up the knife he had thrown at you. You grip it the way Rafe had shown you, quickly shoving it into Jack's leg. You just needed to get away.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" You exclaim, backing away quickly. Jack doesn't say another word, cutting his losses and getting up to make an escape for the woods. You hope he ends up okay.

You make your break for it as well, running back towards the woods as you once again scan your surroundings for your partner.

Suddenly you're on the ground, having run straight into the side of one of the pedestals and falling over it. You yelp with the sudden impact of the ground, scrambling to get up and continue when suddenly someone is grabbing your jacket, slamming you into the pedestal again. You scream, trying to shove them off, but they're much stronger than you. "Jael! Wait, wait- Jael!" You make out your own voice yelling the boy's name, which makes him falter. He's the oldest tribute from Eight- he seems shocked you even know his name.

In the moment when he loosened his grip, he jerks forward and then falls over you, a cannon booming making you gasp as you panic to get away. Rafe is quickly running towards you, slinging the bow he just used over his shoulder and yanking the arrow out of the boy's back. "Y/N, let's go!" He shouts, motioning for you to follow him as you continue toward the tree line, both of you keeping an eye on what's happening behind you as you disappear into the woods.

"Let's stay close, but not too close," Rafe suggests as soon as you feel safe enough to slow down, your chest heaving with the exertion of energy and boost of adrenaline. He glances at you briefly, then does a double take. "You okay? Are you hurt?"

You shake your head, coughing to ease the stinging in your throat. "I'm fine. You?"

"Good," Rafe answers, slowing his pace to match yours.

"We, uh, I think we should go the other way." You say, looking around to try and mentally place where abouts you are.

Rafe stops and furrows his brow at you, seemingly frustrated by your resistance. "Why does it matter?"

"The arena, it's the same as last year. Exactly the same. Just, scaled up a bit." You explain. "We should head south, that's where the river is. We'll need water soon."

Rafe laughs slightly, his demeanor changing as he places his hands on his hips and looks at you. "No shit," He says, truly surprised and impressed that you could tell. A lot of the games tend to look like this, and he would never notice a repeat arena down to the rivers if it punched him in the face. Your 'secret weapon' is already paying off. "And you could tell that right away?"

"Yeah, I mean, I guess so. The bags were all the same, everything was laid out the same. I bet there's a river down south." You nod, having a sudden realization. "We should get to that cave- the one the tributes from Twelve holed up in last year. That'll be a good, stable shelter. We can pretty much wait it out." You say, starting to walk in what you believe is the right direction.

"No," Rafe replies, making you stop in your tracks. "Unless you want me to have to kill you in the end."

"Oh, right." You forgot about that part, keeping score. "We're still going to need somewhere to sleep, though."

"Yeah, we'll find it anyways." Rafe nods, carrying on in the direction you started heading. You follow a few steps behind, keeping a bit of distance in the somewhat awkward silence that fell over you two after his comment about having to kill you.

You walk in the thick of the woods for about an hour before you feel like you're reaching the river. You can feel it under your feet, the soil is slightly softer, and the trees a little more green.

Cannons interrupt your thoughts a few times in the hike, totaling up to twenty-three by the time you reach the riverbank. "You were right." Rafe chuckles, mentally disparaging any skepticism he faced during the long, quiet walk.

"Thank god." You giggle, dropping your bag and crouching down to dig through it, hoping for a water bottle. You were right, everything you expected was accounted for.

"Why that bag?" Rafe says, already sitting down on the rocky water's edge to rest for a moment.

"Huh?" You question, unsure you heard over the shuffling of the bag while you zip it up.

"You pointed to it, during the countdown. Why did you want that one?"

"Oh, uh, like I said they all looked the same as last year, and I hoped I remembered what was inside." You say, laying down to reach into the water and fill up the bottle.

"Were you right?"

You nod with a small smile, sitting back up and holding the bottle out to him as you cross your legs.

"That's actually insane." Rafe shakes his head in disbelief as he takes it, downing just about everything in it before handing it back.

You take it and refill it again for yourself. "I'll choose to take that as a compliment."

Rafe wouldn't admit it, but at this moment as he's watching you drink, he's grateful that he got paired up with you. But now, that it's been shown on national television that you know the arena in and out, he wonders what obstacles the gamemakers will desperately throw your way.

"We should keep moving. I feel like a sitting duck out here in the open, I don't like it." Rafe mutters, checking his attitude as he stands up. You're quick to fill up the bottle again, following behind him yet again as the arrows in his quiver rattle together against his back walking over the rocky and unstable terrain, knife gripped tightly in his hand.

You wonder to yourself how he's feeling about leaving behind his predestined alliance of the career pack, but with the factor of most of them being paired up with other districts, it was already too unpredictable. You wouldn't have stuck around either.

The sun started to set as you followed the river upstream. You didn't want to settle without some kind of shelter, and you were committed to finding that cave before you could relax. You could tell that Rafe had the same idea, his steps ahead of you gradually picking up speed with the bow still gripped firmly in his palm.

"It's a beautiful sunset." You speak your mind before thinking, desperately wanting to fill the silence.

Rafe just hums in response, looking up only briefly before training his gaze once again on the ragged rocks at his feet and continuing on. "What's it like in District One?" You ask.

"Fine." He replies coldly. You aren't sure what you expected, but this response was pretty on par. You knew you had almost no chance of survival, so it would at least be nice to get to know the person you spend your final days with, even if he would be the one to kill you in the end.

"I've never been, but I've heard it's... nice." You've only ever heard about it from the perspective of other bitter individuals from Five, jealous of the cushy lifestyle everyone knew they must have lived.

"Yeah." Rafe agrees, clearly not wanting to discuss it.

"What are your sister's names?" You ask, deciding to push a little bit. It's not like he can kill you just yet.

Rafe sighs, but answers anyways. "Wheezie and Sarah."

You're shocked that he answered at all, but you could tell in his interview that he has a soft spot for them. "Cute." You nod, smiling to yourself. "Is Wheezie a nickname?"

"Yep, it's short for Louise."

"That's adorable." You grin, shaking your head.

"Hey, look. There." Rafe says, changing the subject and pointing down the rocks, where there's a small opening under a ledge.

"That's it!" You exclaim, deciding to drop the topic of his sisters in favour for finding your shelter for the night. You rush past him, watching your step as you climb down into the small cave.

Rafe quickly draws his bow, slowing down and peaking into the cave and bracing himself for your screams. How could you be so careless in a game like this? He doesn't understand your lightheartedness, your somewhat positive attitude, and your ability to make small talk despite the circumstances. "Hey, careful!"

"It's perfect!" You call back out as you look around, and Rafe steps down carefully, looking around more carefully than you had. He relaxes once he's satisfied that there's nothing down there waiting to kill you.

"Nice, okay." Rafe nods to himself, and you both get to work making a small fire near the entrance, hidden from view.

You take off your jacket and roll it up, using it as a makeshift pillow as you lay next to the fire, staring at the orange flicker of the flames you made.

Rafe is sitting across from you, knees tucked up to his chest as he does just the same. His mind is absolutely reeling- he needs to find something to eat, and soon. That will be the first thing you'll do in the morning, he'll have to employ your help to find something edible. "How are you with making traps?" He asks.

"I can do it." You reply, sitting up and leaning on your elbow so you can see him. "I'll set some up in the morning."

Rafe nods a little bit. He already knew you could, of course, but he's wondering about the logistics of how they work. "So like... hypothetically, would they work the same if you made them bigger?"

"Like... human-sized?" You ask, catching on to what he's suggesting. It's not ethical- but nothing about this game is. For you, this would definitely be preferable to fighting other kids to death over and over again.

Rafe nods, adjusting how he was sitting and crossing his legs.

"Yeah. I can't see why not." You answer. "It would be harder since I've never done it, but I think it could work."

"Then I say we try it."

The next day, you wake up as the sun rises and the light beats down on you from the entrance of the cave. You didn't sleep comfortably, that's for sure, waking up twice throughout the night to the sound of the cannon. That's twenty-seven. You wonder how many teams have already reached their ten-kill quota, you imagine someone in the career pack already has. Both times when you were startled awake, Rafe was standing at the cave entrance, bow drawn as he squinted into the darkness, hoping that whoever was out hunting other tributes wasn't nearby.

You sit up slowly, stretching out your tired limbs as you look over to see Rafe, fast asleep with a blade in his hand. You should let him sleep, and get to work on finding something to eat, and making some traps.

You grab one of the knives Rafe somehow collected from the bag laying next to him as quietly as possible, sneaking outside and taking in your surroundings. The sound of the river flowing and the smell of morning dew was amazing- you wish you could truly enjoy it in different circumstances.

You quickly get to work tracking down something to eat, landing on a few different plants you know to be edible. You're trekking through the woods near your cave when you come across an apple tree- making you pause as you look it over. It looks out of place- and maybe no one got close enough to it in the games last time that you wouldn't have seen it, but that seems unlikely. It must be new; it makes for the perfect place to try and set up a trap for the next hungry tribute who would be unfortunate enough to wander too close to your hideout.

You're digging a hole in the ground with your hands, avoiding the roots of the tree and sticking in some sticks you sharpened when you hear a twig snap behind you. You freeze, hoping that by some miracle, it's just an animal. You slowly turn your head to try and look, picking up the knife from the ground next to you and holding it tight.

"Just me." Rafe's voice relaxes you, and you stand up, brushing off your knees.

"You scared me." You admit as he takes to looking down into the hole you just dug.

"That looks... awful." He chuckles, patting your shoulder. "It won't kill, but it'll slow someone down enough that I can finish the job."

You nod slightly, staring into the dirt as well. You hated the idea that you were crafting something intentionally to bring harm to another person, but realistically you have no choice. "We'll set up more, along the riverbed and closer to the career pack. We can't monitor them all at once, though- can you make more fatal ones next time?" Rafe asks, pointing back towards the river to accentuate his point.

"That depends, how many arrows can you spare?"

The next few days saw the death toll rise to thirty-six. You kept track every night, scratching their numbers and names into the walls of the cave despite being able to remember anyway. You viewed it as a small memorial, Rafe saw it as a timer ticking down to when he'd have to kill you.

Your first trap had worked on one person, their screams of pain from a cut-up leg summoning your teammate back to the apple tree. He insisted you stay behind as he finished what you started. You had to reset several other traps as well, closer to the cornucopia.

Rafe would never admit it, but he was really starting to like you. He didn't want to hurt you- he was worried the traps wouldn't do enough. The passive approach you so preferred wasn't what he expected, and he knew his dad would be disappointed in him. But Ward would never understand.

He sighed as he poked at the fire with a stick, leaning his head back against the rocky wall of the cave, another cold night ahead of you.

You had your head laid on his lap, his thigh replacing the thin material of your coat that you had been using the last few days.

"How old are your sisters?" You ask out of nowhere, prompting him to look down at you. He had thought you fell asleep a while ago.

"Why does it matter?" Rafe replies, and you just shrug a little bit.

"Gives us something to talk about."

"Fifteen and Eleven." He relents.

"Hey, me too." You smile a little to yourself.

"You have sisters?" Rafe asks. He never asked much about you- he didn't really want to know, in the case he had to kill you.

"Yep. And a brother." You nod, sitting up a little bit. "He's older though, he aged out last year."

Rafe finds himself clenching his jaw. He can't hear that- to see you as a little sister. He doesn't want to imagine what it would be like to see his sisters face the same fate. "Lucky guy." He says quietly.

"Why? I thought it was a privilege, and all that." You chuckle.

"Well, yeah, but not for most. For the outlying districts like you."

"At least you get it." You agree. "How does it feel? Now that you're here, I mean."

"Scary." Rafe admits, throwing caution to the wind now with what his father will think. "Not what everyone tells you it'll be like."

"Is that because of me?" You ask after a few moments, and he nods slightly.

"Not in a bad way, though. It's just different. I expected to be on my own, to die alone, or kill my allies if I had to. Now... I don't know that I have to. Or if I even could." He can practically hear his father shouting at their large screen at home, or storming out claiming he was an embarrassment. He was told his whole life to never show weakness, to 'be a man', but now, at the end, that doesn't matter to him.

"I won't take it personally." You giggle softly, voice shaking as you try to make light of it. "My family won't either, I don't think. Maybe my dad, at first, but eventually he'll understand. They'll forgive you." You try and ease his mind, knowing that in the case that Rafe does win without you, he'll have to face your family in the next month or so during the victory tour.

"I wouldn't ever expect him to." Rafe tells you, tossing his stick into the flames now. He feels sick hearing you talk about it like it's inevitable- but if he has anything to do with it, you'll be coming home with him.

"They're good people." You assure him.

"Don't say that." Rafe chuckles, shaking his head. "I would never forgive myself."

"Okay, fine. They're awful. Just... the worst." You smile, looking up at him and resting your chin in your hand.

"That's better. Thank you." Rafe laughs, poking your forehead and gazing out onto the river as the flames illuminate the water.

In the morning, you're awoken to something brushing your leg. You groan and roll over, head landing once more on Rafe's extended arm underneath you. At least he was finally getting some sleep, pretty much unable to close his eyes since you set foot in the arena. You feel the brush again, followed by something moving on your arm, several things, suddenly, and your eyes fly open and look down when you remember where you are. You let out a scream, scrambling to sit up and pushing yourself back against the wall.

Rafe wakes up quickly, scrambling for the bow next to him when he realizes it won't be any help. You're surrounded by and quickly almost covered in a sickening combination of snakes and spiders.

You're still screaming, trying to shove the creatures off of you. "Come on- come on!" Rafe is yelling at you, grabbing your arm and pulling you towards the exit. You don't get the chance to grab your back and you regret that as you're jumping into the river in attempt to get the spiders off of your skin and out of your clothes.

You're breathing heavily as you come up for air, and Rafe is quickly there, brushing his hands over your hair to make sure every last spider is gone. He looks back at the entrance of the cave, chest heaving like yours as the bugs and snakes spill out of it. It sends a shiver down his spine- he was never a fan of snakes.

"I guess that's the gamemakers telling us enough was enough." He sighs, gently pulling you towards the shore again a safe distance away. "Are you bit?" He asks once you're a safe distance away.

"I don't think so..." You reply, hiking up the ankles of your pants to look at your calves and over your bare arms as you sit on the shore. "You?"

Rafe shakes his head, doing the same. "It was probably just a warning. We have to move." He quickly lowers his pant leg over the puncture wounds in his leg, hoping you didn't see. If it gets worse, he'll tell you. The bite itself didn't hurt much, so if it's going to be fatal, he's glad he won't have to hurt you.

Rafe helps you up, leading you up towards the tree line. "They probably want to push us in toward the other tributes, I think we should go with it before they throw something worse at us." You, the two of you now left with nothing but what you had on you, along with Rafe's bow and a few spare arrows.

He nods. "It's our best move anyways. How many tributes are left?"

"Twelve including us." You answer quickly. "There's Avril, a boy from six, Maisie, she's from my district, most of the careers I think are still in it but not their teammates," You begin to rattle off the list,

"I don't want to know names." Rafe cuts you off, and you understand why. He's been doing all the dirty work, and part of you knows it's because he's hoping to have time to learn names and feel guilty about it later. Right now, he can't afford to see them as human.

"Right." You agree. "It doesn't really matter, anyways."

"Do you know scores?" He asks, walking alongside you now.

You nod, beginning to list off all the remaining tributes and their scores, from lowest to highest. The lowest being you- and the highest being ten, shared by Rafe and a boy from district two.

After hearing two more cannons that day, and checking all the traps you had set, you're circling back to the river to be near fresh water before you set up camp again. You don't have your water bottle anymore, or anything to set up any kind of shelter with, you do your best. You set up a fire, Rafe insisting that if it draws other tributes to you so be it- he's ready for this to end just as much as you, but you don't want to rush into your death or an ambush. It's safe to say you won't be sleeping tonight.

You didn't sleep, but at least, curled up under a tree, the night sky was beautiful. The stars seemed realistic, and you wondered if somehow they were real. Between the two more cannons that struck overnight, you still wondered if you were somewhere near the ocean, or somewhere closer to home. While you're sitting next to each other in a peaceful silence, both admiring the vastness of the night sky, you hear a ringing sound coming from above.

Rafe quickly stands, reaching for the small silver pack with a parachute before it hits the ground. He's quick to open it as you stand up, looking into the container. You grab the small card, tilting it into the light of your fire to read it.

For our Y/N,

Keep fighting. Please come home to us.

Love You Always, Dad

Tears form in your eyes almost instantly, your hand coming up to cover your mouth. "It's just a water bottle and some kind of granola bars... or something." Rafe says, turning the water bottle over in his hand.

He looks up at you, frowning when he sees how upset you look. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"Nothing." You quickly shake your head, wiping your eyes. "Uhm, it's from my dad."

The fact that your family could spare enough money to send you something in the games at all was amazing to you. You heard horror stories of the astronomical prices of trying to send something from outside of the capitol, without the status and funds of a sponsor.

"Oh." Rafe replies, handing you the tin and bottle now, taking the card from you gently. He reads it over slowly, and over and over again. His family had seemingly endless amounts of money, and they had sent him nothing. He knew his father viewed it as cheating, and that you shouldn't need any kind of help to win. If he loved him, though, that wouldn't matter. He should be willing to do anything he could to keep his son alive. The way your parents did.

"My mom made these." You sniffle, grabbing a small bar from the container in her hand. "They're my favourite, she only makes them on birthdays or special occasions." You explain.

"That's... that's really nice." Rafe says, putting the card back in the tin. He doesn't know how to handle this, or what to say.

You smile sadly as you sit back down against the tree, placing the tin on your lap as Rafe joins you. "Here." You hold the bar out to him.

"They're for you." Rafe shakes his head, pushing it away.

"They're for us." You insist, holding it out to him again. "They wouldn't have sent two if I wasn't meant to share."

"Thank you." Rafe smiles genuinely, for the first time in weeks as he takes it. He's starving, having eaten only small amounts of meat and plants over the last week or so, so he's quick to take a bite. It's sweet, more so than he expected. He never thought he could enjoy sugar this much.

"No wonder they're reserved for celebrations, hey?" You giggle, having intently watched his reaction.

Rafe nods. "Yeah, it's really good. Super sweet." He says, mouth still full. You grin, satisfied as you take a bite of your own.

The night flew by so quickly, you're feeling as though it must have gotten shorter. The sunrise went by fast too. You're guessing the gamemakers and the viewers were getting antsy. To be honest, you were as well.

Renewed with your energy the sugary baking your parents had sent, you set about gathering food and water, while Rafe goes on to check a few of your traps to see if they needed to be reset. He could do it on his own, but he liked watching you do it, working the ropes between your fingers and tying intricate knots, pulling back on the stick used to trigger the arrow. By the afternoon, having taken a mental note of the amount of cannons that had fired. It was a few, at least. You must be getting down to the end. He prayed it wasn't you, but the cries of some kind of mutts in the distance right before the cannons lead him to believe that you were fine- but he should be getting back soon anyways.

You were wandering down to the water, reluctant to leave your camp, but you knew water was a priority. You were just filling up the new bottle when you heard a scream. It sounded like a boy. You quickly look back over your shoulder, noticing it was nearby. Toward the apple tree. You stand slowly, looking around as you attach the water bottle back to your side with a carabiner, reaching instead for the knife Rafe had left with you. God, you hoped it wasn't him. The absence of a cannon gives you hope, though.

You quietly head in that direction, watching your step so your presence isn't detected. When you get closer to the tree, you hear crying. Painful crying, as you're faced with the reality of the trap you set.

You watch from behind a tree as the boy from eight tries to pull his leg up from the ground, screaming out again as the sharp sticks dig into his flesh. You should go get Rafe- you feel guilty, but you can't kill him yourself. You turn quickly, and before you can get a step away you're face to face with one of the other careers- a sword held up against your neck.

"Don't move." Blake says, a smile that can only be described as evil spreading over his lips.

You try and scream out for help, hoping Rafe was still in earshot but a hand is quickly covering your mouth. "Not yet." He whispers, shaking his head. "We've got a plan, it'll be fun. You wouldn't want to ruin that, right?"

As Rafe gets back to your small camp, he expects to see you there waiting. He scans the trees above him, wondering if you had climbed up for some reason. He calls your name when he doesn't see you, brow furrowed. You definitely should be back by now. As he's heading down to the water to look for you, he hears a cannon, which at this point wouldn't bother him- if it wasn't for the scream that followed after. It was you. No doubt in his mind that it was you. With his bow drawn, he's moving quickly towards where he heard your voice, throwing caution to the wind.

You scream again, crying as the tip of the sword is dug into your shoulder, laying down next to the apple tree. You can't help it- but you don't want their trap to work. You don't want Rafe to come, so you bite your tongue until you taste blood, hoping to keep quiet. "It'll only get worse for you if you don't scream, Y/N/N." Blake scolds you, digging in the blade more. "He has to hear you." He adds through gritted teeth.

You hear a twig snap just outside the small clearing, and Blake is quickly turning to look with the sword still pinning you to the ground. "Rafe it's a trap!" You shout, hoping that it's him.

Rafe steps out then, into full view with his bow drawn as he aims at the boy in front of him. When they first met, he knew they would have been good friends if they met anywhere else. "You won't shoot me." Blake chuckles, and Rafe quickly readjusts his grip.

"I will." Rafe says sternly, pulling the string tighter as Blake moves the sword to hover over your chest. Over your heart.

"If you shoot, the last of my energy will go into killing her. I don't think you want that." He shakes his head, smiling smugly.

"I don't care." Rafe says, making your heart clench. You know that you're friends, at the very least. He does care. He's bluffing- you have to believe that.

"If you didn't care you would have shot me already." Blake calls it, and Rafe tenses up, looking down at you only briefly.

"Then what do you want?" Rafe spits.

"Oh, nothing. I just wanted you to watch." Blake shrugs. "Just makes it a little more fun, you know? But don't worry, you'll be next." You know he just wants to prove himself, somehow, not having scored as high as Rafe did. You wonder if his family was somehow similar- that he needed some kind of approval that he thought he might find through sadism.

Rafe looks down at you again, and you just nod, tears streaming down your temples to your ears. He quickly readjusts before letting the arrow fly, planting straight in the shoulder that held the sword as you quickly roll over, slicing across your chest and shoulder in the process. It was well worth it.

Rafe fires another arrow into his chest, not taking any risks and the cannon quickly follows as he rushes to your side.

"Are you okay?" He's asking, hands hovering above you as he's kneeled next to you, unsure what to do.

You nod, still biting into your tongue as blood continues to slide down your skin, dampening your now torn up clothes.

"It's not that bad." Rafe says, looking over the cuts as best he can, but you wince when he pulls the fabric away. "You're gonna be fine, alright?"

"Yeah, yeah..." You mumble, letting your head fall back against the brush below you. Rafe is quick to take his coat off, using it to push down on the deepest part of the wound on your shoulder, trying with his other hand to apply pressure to the rest of it. You try and focus on your breathing, rather than the pain, but it's hard when a significant amount of weight is being applied to your shoulder and chest.

"I'm sorry, I have to." Rafe tells you, jaw tense as he lifts his coat to check whether or not the bleeding has slowed. You didn't even realize you were crying.

After a few minutes, he's lessened the pressure a bit, still holding the fabric firmly over your skin. "You could have ran." You mumble, voice hardly above a whisper.

"I wasn't gonna leave you." Rafe shakes his head, gently peeling away his now blood soaked windbreaker.

"You at least shouldn't have saved me. Not much point in that, is there?" You smile softly, trying to sit up and Rafe is quick to help.

"There is. You have to win." He mutters.

"I'm not winning, Rafe." You smile sadly at him. "Infection will kill me if you won't, and if no one else does first."

"No, they'll fix you up. This cut will be gone in a week, the technology they have is-"

"Rafe." You grab his attention again and he looks up to meet your eyes. They seemed to suck in all the light of the sunset above the two of you, reflecting back at him in a way that makes his breath hitch. The thought is cut short, however, when you say something that breaks his heart. "Don't give me hope like that."

"Why? You're gonna go home. I mean it." He promises. "I'll make sure of it."

"I don't think we have enough." You remind him sadly, a small smile still evident on your lips as you reach up to cup his cheek in your palm. "I never expected to go home. I'm okay with that."

Your friend shakes his head softly. "That doesn't matter. You have your family to get home to, I read that note from your dad. They need you, I can see that. For me, these games are all I was raised for. I have nothing left for me after this." He admits, avoiding eye contact with you.  "I could never forgive myself if I didn't get you home."

Tears are forming in your eyes again as you look up at him. The world is watching, and in this moment of vulnerability you feel that more than ever- despite the quiet sounds around you being only the rushing water in the nearby river and the birds chirping around you. "You're a good person, Rafe." You smile at him, watching as he gently raises his hand to yours, grabbing it in his own. "I hope you know that."

In this moment, you settle on the idea that you would die for him. You never understood last years tributes, honestly, how they were willing to die for each other instead of getting home to their own loved ones, but now you do. Completely.

Without a second thought, you find yourself leaning closer, Rafe doing the same as he kneels next to you in the dark. Your eyes meet once more, lips only an inch from touching when you hear a howl in the distance, and you snap your head to the direction it came from. "The Mutts... Already?" You say, scrambling to get up and ignoring the pain in your shoulder.

"I- I heard them earlier, they sound far away." Rafe says, trying to calm you.

"You heard them? You didn't tell me?" You ask, frantically grabbing his bow from the ground and handing it to him as he goes to pull the discarded arrows out of Blake's body.

"I didn't think it mattered!" He defends, trying to hide the panic in his voice.

"There were four left last year when they sent them out. I think... yeah I think that's right. There's four of us. We have to run." You say in a panic, pulling on his hand. "Our best bet is making it back to the cornucopia."

"It'll be too open- can't we climb a tree or something?" Rafe says, following after you as you're running through the bush now in the direction of the open field.

"I don't know if that will work, but I know we'll be safe there." You explain like it's obvious. "We have to risk it- and if you can get to the others first, if they have the same idea, we'll be at ten."

You're out of breath already, adrenaline pushing you through as you hear scattered barking getting steadily closer after one more cannon. Part of you wants to stop, turn, and force Rafe to take the win if you couldn't have it, but with any hope left, you have to try and get back to where this started. The traps was an unfortunate choice in how you got your kills, because you couldn't keep track of how many since by the time you got around to checking them, the body's would have been airlifted off if it wasn't a misfire. If you had to guess, though, you were sitting at eight.

Rafe is running similar calculations in his head as he lets you lead him by memory straight to the field, mind short-circuiting as he sees the silver moonlight reflect off the cornucopia.

You sprint across the open field, blood pouring from your undressed wound again with the intense exertion of energy. Rafe doesn't pass you, though, despite you expecting that he would. You have tunnel vision as you make it to the metal structure, practically slamming into it before you can even stop. Rafe is quick to lift you and shove you up, both of you looking over your shoulders as you struggle to hold onto the edge, kicking the sides to hold yourself up.

You finally get up, reaching down to help pull Rafe up. He grabs onto your arm for leverage, mostly pulling himself up and you wince as you feel the tension from his weight in your cuts.

You flop down onto your back on the cold surface as he climbs over you, immediately standing up with bow drawn as he intently scans the surrounding area. He's only got the two arrows left, which makes him nervous if that's all he has to defend the both of you with.

You try to settle your breathing, which only lasts for a moment until the sky lights up with the recap. You miss your cave, where you could contribute to your memorial, especially seeing the face of Maisie flash above you on the sky while the anthem plays.

You close your eyes, just listening to the music now until you hear barking just outside of where Rafe can see, and you're quickly sitting up. He draws the bow tighter, aiming in the direction the howls came from just as someone pushes out into the clearing. Rafe is aimed straight at them, bow string pressed to his cheek. He's getting dizzy, and quickly. His aim can't fail him now, he doesn't have that option.

You watch them, in the dark you think it's the other boy from district one, and in your exhaustion you can't remember his name. You wouldn't dare say it, anyways. He's screaming for help, a call you know you can't answer, and you watch as they stumble on their feet, shoes and hands digging into the ground as they try to get up, just ten or so yards from you by now.

Rafe wants to shoot just then, it would be as simple as letting his finger loose and the arrow would fly towards its target. It would be a merciful end for the boy he's trained with for years now, only a couple years younger than him. The muscle in his jaw is aching from the tension he's put on it when he forces himself to let go. He has to do it, for himself, if he wants to go home.

He misses. The yelp of one of the mutts tells you it landed in a paw or back, and you look up at Rafe who's already drawn his second. "Rafe!" You cry out, pushing yourself up onto your feet and standing behind him now.

He hates to admit that your empathy has rubbed off on him. Watching you every night carving seemingly endless names and numbers into the rocks that lined the space you stepped in. He recalls waking up one morning and seeing your name and his carved in as well, closer to where he laid by the fire, his underlined and yours with a heart at the end. Like a signature on the top of a math test. He had wondered if you always wrote your name like that, and in this moment as he releases the bow again, he knows he has to find out for himself.

It happened so fast, the mutts knocking down the boy and the arrow flying from Rafe's shaky hands into where he should have been right as the cannon sounds. You don't know that it was Rafe's arrow that did him in.

"No..." You mumble, clamouring forward and onto your knees again to look over as the boys body is torn apart by the mutts. "You had to have done it. You had to." You say, trying to get a better view.

In a second, Rafe's arms are around you and he's pulling you back from the edge, sitting now behind you with his arms wrapped tightly over your body. "It's okay.. it's over." He mumbles, kissing the side of your head as the sunlight comes over the trees. He's fighting off the urge to vomit, everything spinning around him now.

You sit with him, gripping onto his arms and crying. Nothing is happening, so you must not have made it to ten. You feel sick- your heart is in your throat and suddenly you're really hot, moving away from him to look over the edge again, this time incase you have to throw up. You freeze, looking over to where the boy's body once was. The second arrow was in the ground. He missed again.

Rafe sees it at the same time as you. He sighs, hanging his legs over the edge. "Shit... Y/N, I'm sorry." He mumbles, gently reaching over to rub your back.

"No, no. It's okay." You insist, sitting up next to him. "I knew this would happen."

"I'll get you home." Rafe says, sliding down the side of the cornucopia before you can stop him. He stumbles the landing, swaying in his walk as he heads towards the arrow lodged into the dirt.

"Wait! Wait, wait, Rafe!" You're sliding down after him, running to his side and grabbing his arm before he can get to the arrow in the ground.

He turns to you quickly, hand on your cheek and he's pressing his lips to your forehead. "Sit with me?" He asks, knees already giving out as he falls to the ground.

You're instantly on the ground beside him, practically holding his head up with your free hand as you search him visually for some kind of injury.  "What happened? Are you hurt?"

"Uh, I guess so." Rafe mutters. "Snake bite. I think."

"You didn't tell me? I could have fixed this, I could have helped..." You ramble on, his eyes dropping shut now. "Hey, eyes open."

"It's okay. Just sit with me..." He says again, smiling weakly. "Wait with me... please?"

You nod, sniffling as you fight back the tears that want to fall. "Yeah, of course. I'll stay."

Before he closes his eyes, the music starts again and your eyes are drawn up to the sky after you notice Rafe is looking first.

Then, begins a similar slideshow of faces you recognize. Ten in total. Rafe's eyes flicker with slight recollection, remembering any kills he made himself and you gasp when you see Jack. Whatever damage you had done when he tackled you on the first day must have killed him. "Rafe.." You mumble, lowering your eyes to meet his. "I think we won."

Your point is accentuated by the voice of the head gamemaker over some unseen speakers. "Introducing the Victors of the Seventy-Fifth Annual Hunger Games!"

"We did it." Rafe laughs weakly, squeezing your hand.

You fully ignore the aircraft hovering down in front of you on the grass, turning your head to look down at him. You don't say anything, neither of you do, and you finally feel your lips against his. The kiss is bad, it doesn't really work when both of you are stuck smiling ear to ear, but you don't care one bit. The only thing that matters is that you got this chance at all.

Rafe pulls away from you slowly, using all the strength he has left to lift himself onto his feet as you steady him. "He needs help!" You shout to them, and you're quickly being lead onto the plane.

"They've got really good technology," You mock what he said to you just the day before. "It'll be like it never happened in a week, okay?" You chuckle, feeling waves of happiness, worry, and relief all at once as you quickly wipe away a tear with your free hand, other arm wrapped tightly around Rafe's waist to hold him up.

He laughs, and you lean into him more, your forehead against his shoulder as the aircraft door slides shut behind you.

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[joojdraws]

Me needs talk about something undiscussed about Rarold that I do find quite interesting to analyze in-depth... Because, I do think he is an interesting character. (⚠️ Spoilers under the cut!!!)

Rarold's motives. As shrimple as that. 🦐

Before I elaborate on all that I have to say, all the way back in September 2022 I had a discussion with a friend that met the BKMN author at a convention... you can of course have your own interpretation on his case... but ever since I heard about it... IT HAS BEEN LIVING IN MY HEAD RENT FREE. And it makes so much sense with what happens in the book once you know this undiscussed detail about him. It makes his character so much more interesting when you know the reason of his actions. And it's why I love him.

In the book, it never is explained what were the reasons he did commit all these crimes... but if you don't know the fun fact he did kill for the sole reason blood would make his crops grow better... I feel like there is some clues there in the book that leads to this information.

We all know Rarold is the "Copycat killer". He doesn't have any original way of killing. (Sorry, Rarold, I love you but it's true... 🐒)

One of my headcanons for him is that he doesn't know how to kill at all. And that his wife most likely is his very first victim, and before that he never killed anyone... ever. Obviously sucks at killing. Which is why he got ideas from both the "Dead Rope Killer 2" movie and from Neighbor's way of killing. For both the ropes and purple threads.

Subtle detail you might miss... but the main character from the "Dead Rope Killer 2" movie most likely is a foreshadowing to Rarold's future crimes... He absolutely is shaped like him! And also, a bit before that part, we can see Rarold standing in front of the theater, and he most likely went to watch this movie for inspiration. (Which is funny to me... Given the fact Neighbor and Wegg were both alone in the theather when they saw that exact same movie, it just is hilarious to imagine Rarold being all alone in there and just taking notes...)

The reason Neighbor kills is related to blood... Hehe. Remember the fun fact I earlier shared in this post? Teehee. Yeah. What if...

WHAAAAAT IIIIIFFFFF... It was also truly Rarold's case...

First time we see Rarold killing someone in the book, is in his cornfield of ALL PLACES... and also, he specifies his corn is "so, so good"... Why would his corn be this good, huh?! Sus if you ask me.

I did some researches about blood and crops... and as cursed as it sounds, it actually is a good fertilizer to grow corn. (I guess that makes sense since blood is... well... organic)

"Anonyme a demandé"... French moment (My first language...) but once someone did ask why the copycat killer (Rarold) only did kill women... the author specified in their post, that it was intentional... and that... THE SEED IS THERE! I know it's a way of saying, but corn grows with seed... and most likely, his wife was the seed. His very first victim. And her blood made her crops grow better...!

Now, I need to talk about the dream/vision part of that one fun fact my friend got at a convention... That would make a similarity between Neighbor and him. Neighbor most likely had a dream about Lady Trudy... Rarold probably had a dream about another sort of deity... and I might have an idea on that deity. Yeah... Lord Callum. Why you may ask...? Well, Lord Callum is bird shaped... and you know what bird likes... yeah! Corn! Believe it or not but a male swan is called a COB. And you know what else is a cob? Yes. Corn on the COB. And a scythe is strangely shaped like a bird when you deeply think about it...

Might be a coincidence but it is interesing to think about... But the way a male swan is called COB and well Rarold's a corn farmer (corn on the COB) that is like... the revelation of the 20th century to me (lol 1974). Another headcanon I have is that Rarold only kills people he was told to kill in his dreams/visions... he doesn't kill any random person. I suppose I told everything I had to say about him and his motives!! Rarold is very interesting to me... Gosh, love the corn man.

Oh yeah, one more thing I'll say... but Rarold did not die. You can see him in the 1975 epilogue chapter... the man is still alive, and apparently not in jail for some unknown reasons... if Neighbor can have a good future despite all the people he killed (Glenn did not deserve his fate btw), I think it's fair Rarold can too. I believe he can be a better person too. Personally I think he regrets what he did, but that's a headcanon of mine! Anyone can have their own interpretation and that's 100% ok. Well here is the end of this post... thanks if you have read everything... I loved to talk about him and it's something I do wanted to share for a while, hehe. 🫶🌽❤️

[cheapshrimpysheep]

Hii!!! I want to say how much I love your blog!!! From the aesthetic to the writing everything is just so cute and enjoyable!! I also love how you write Jamil personally hehe.

Idk if you still have your requests open buttttt I have a fluff idea for the basketball club :) the boys want to invite their (freshly obtained) partner!reader to a pretty important basketball match but ✨circumstances✨ happen (anything you can think of really) and they end up not saying anything to them about it. But on the day of the match their partner shows up anyway fully dressed in cheerleading attire, facepaint, pompoms, loudly cheering for them (embarassing them a lil but in a wholesome way y'know ❤️) maybe you can write some post match fluff?

Thank you so much for sharing your writing with us!! It's a delight to read it all!!

COMMENTS: Awww, thank you 🥰 It so happens that I identify a lot with Jamil (perhaps even too much). And maybe that's also why I had never thought of writing an MC that, let's say, out-going? Because a shy person like me would never do that cheerleading thing in public at least. 😅 But I wrote it. 😉

Btw: That cheerleading thing doesn't exist in my country so the only things I know about it are whatever I saw in american movies. But in return, I played basketball for 3 years when I was younger. So in that regard I know a few things.

I hope you and all enjoy 🏀

PS: I was waiting for Floyd's basketball card to come to the english server to write something with them. I still want to do it, in addition to this one.

CHARACTERS: Basketball Club (Ace, Floyd & Jamil)

TAGS: Fluff; GN Reader; Established Relationship; Kissing

WARNING: Spoilers from Ace's and Floyd's Basketball Jersey Lines

WORD COUNT: An average of 500 words per character.

🏀❤️🏀🦈🏀🐍🏀

Ace really wanted to invite you to the game, but in the meantime, he got into some misbehavior issues and spent the whole time trying to make sure Coach Vargas wasn't going to ban him from playing.

He ended up forgetting to invite you, as it wouldn't make sense to do it without being sure he was going to play. He sends you a message at the last minute and that's why he doesn't even know if you'll make it.

I can see him dating a more outgoing person, so let's go that route. You appear in the game, yes, dressed in cheerleading attire alongside Cater and Deuce. Cater because I can see him doing that for being great for magicam. And Deuce because he really wants NRC to win.

While he is overjoyed to see you and thinks this is an excellent opportunity to show himself off to you, he is also a little embarrassed by the attention you are diverting to him.

We also go the route where they win. While the players are celebrating, they go to you and the rest of the cheerleading group. Ace runs up to you and hugs you so happily he lifts you off your feet. And in the midst of happiness he kisses your lips, while holding you.

He did it on the spur of the moment, and when he realizes what he's done, he's extremely embarrassed. Great chances of Floyd messing with him for that.

If someone from the opposing team starts looking at you while he is not with you, he will say with a smirk: “Can look, but not touch, you hear me?”

Before the players go to shower, Ace asked you to wait for him behind the gymnasium. It was already night. You were waiting outside and after a while you got distracted. When he goes outside and sees you distracted, he sneaked up on you and hugged you from behind. And kisses your cheek.

“Hey, what do you say to a celebration party tomorrow~? Trey said he's going to make cupcakes shaped like basketballs. Isn't that cool?” and then you hear him moan in pain softly and for a second.

You had felt his fingers curl a little when you heard that. And you remembered that one day he commented to you that his fingers get sprained all the time when he is playing. That it hurts to bend them. After a game like that, they must be hurting a lot then.

You take his hands. “Ouch...” you bring them to your lips, and kiss them softly. You tell him you could take care of him. “I deserve that, don't I?~” he says and goes back to kissing your cheek affectionately.

Floyd really wanted to invite you to the game, but in the meantime, on the one hand, the Coach Vargas wanted him to train even more. Being the tallest, the coach had high expectations for him (pun not intended). And on the other hand, Azul wanted to do something special at Mostro Lounge, as a lot of people from off campus would come to watch the game and it was an opportunity to have more customers.

Sometimes he had fun doing these things. And when he didn't want to do them, he preferred to be left alone. This plus the fact that he thought that: "since you are his partner now, isn't it already implied that you're going to watch the game?” made him end up not inviting you officially.

Jade is the one who reminds you on the day of the game. Since it was an important game, you wanted to do something special for Floyd. And taking advantage of this, Azul suggests that you come to the game dressed in cheerleading attire. This type of incentive can increase their chances of winning the game and consequently the chances of increasing customers at Mostro Lounge. And if you don't want to do it alone, don't worry, at least Cater, Deuce and Kalim will be doing the same alongside you.

I definitely can see Floyd with an outgoing partner. All of his colleagues were worried because he seemed unenthusiastic. And if he continues like this, he might not even want to play properly and that would make them lose the game for sure. And what's worse is that they couldn't even complain about it or risk getting their asses kicked.

When the game starts, what they feared most was happening. He didn't feel like playing. Which also made the opposing team not worry too much about Floyd. Fortunately, a couple of minutes after the game starts, he hears you cheering him on. He looks at you dressed in cheerleading attire and his mood changes radically. “Koebi-chan~!” He waves at you with his cutest smile. Before turning to the opponents with a sadistic smile. Now he wants to play.

The one the players on the other team thought was a drag on NRC has suddenly become the most powerful athlete in the game. To the point that the opponent who was chosen to block him was afraid to do so. And the one chosen to be blocked by Floyd (who happened to be the strongest player on the opposing team) did his best not to keep the ball too long.

He usually gets expelled from the game before it's over, but this was a big one and you were rooting for him. He had to stay until the end! So he behaved and tried to make as few fouls as possible.

Hardly in these conditions NRC would lose. So they win! If during their celebration, someone from the opposing team starts looking at you. Floyd first smiles at them. "Pretty, right?" and then put on that scary straight face "Well, it's not for your eyes."

When he comes to you because you are all celebrating together, he will pick you up. “You look so cute dressed like that.” He tells to you. If there are kisses, they will be yours on his cheeks.

Before the players go to shower, Floyd asked you to wait for him behind the gymnasium. It was already night. You were waiting outside and after a while you got distracted. When he goes outside and sees you distracted, he sneaked up on you. And behind you, he whispers in your ear: “Baa~”

You turn and he picks you up again so that your faces are level. Your noses are touching. “Hey~ Came to Mostro Lounge with me. I'm not in the mood to celebrate without you. And I can get Azul to give you your favourite for free. Isn't that a good deal~?”

He's not much for kissing your lips in front of others, so he only does it now.

Jamil really wanted to invite you to the game, but between babysitting, I mean, looking after Kalim and training for the game, he ended up not even getting to spend time with you.

Honestly, I don't see Jamil with a very outgoing partner. Since it could be like a Kalim 2.0 for him. But I certainly see Kalim going to you, already dressed in cheerleading attire himself and dragging you to dress like that too and go cheering Jamil and the others alongside him.

Because of Kalim, you two end up being a little late and when you arrive the game has already started. And Jamil had just scored. Kalim (and maybe you too) shout to congratulate Jamil. He looks at you two and is immediately flattered, shocked and embarrassed. Not because of you, but because he doesn't like to draw attention to himself, nor to have others draw attention to him that way.

Unfortunately his performance drops slightly. Until he overhears an opposing player commenting on you. At that moment, he manages to take the ball away from the opposing team, run to the basket and score.

This made him realize two things: first, your cheering the made the whole team’s morale shot up. And second, It’s also slightly distracting the opposing team. Genial!

Whenever he scores and you celebrate, he gets flattered and embarrassed but smiles at you discreetly.

They end up winning! While the players are celebrating, they go to you and the rest of the cheerleading group. He walks towards you, but is intercepted by Kalim, who hugs him. And it's only a few seconds later that he looks at you, looks at Jamil, smiles awkwardly and breaks the hug.

But more awkward than he is, you two are. Jamil doesn't like public displays of affection, so at first you don't even know what to do our say. You end up saying: "Congratulations on the victory" at the same time as he says "thanks for the cheering". And you two giggle.

Before the players go to shower, Jamil asked you to wait for him behind the gymnasium. It was already night. You were waiting outside and after a while you got distracted. He greets you as soon as he sees you and walks towards you.

He opens his arms, inviting you to hug him. And you do it. “Sorry I didn't thank you properly after the game.” He places his index and thumb on your chin, tilting it up and bringing his face closer to yours. “But now I can.” he whisper and kisses your lips.

“*Sigh* I really don't want to go back to Scarabia  and put up with Kalim's party spirit.” He hugs you around the waist and gently places you against the wall. “So would you celebrate with me a little while before I have to go?”

If you dropped in here out of the blue and want to read more from me, you can find it in my pinned post: INDEX

[theultimatekamehamehavoc]

Spoiler Blather Ahead So Be Warned! I personally feel the tragedy would lowkey strip a part of Makoto's identity/make him grow out of this part of himself faster than he would if the tragedy didn't happen. Basically, Makoto mentions how he's a trend follower. His interests are dictated by what's popular. However, with the tragedy, he would be physically incapable of being in tune with the times. As the Ultimate Hope, Makoto would be quite busy. Sure, maybe he could keep up with a few things going on in the world, but he's already far behind by the time he becomes the Ultimate Hope. All of the survivors are. Due to their memories being wiped, they dunno until they are basically face to face with the Mastermind that a year has already passed and they have forgotten that part of their lives. So, they're all be out of the loop both in the state of the world AND whatever hip thing's popular. Furthermore, as time progresses, they all will be busy, having minimal time to keep up with the kids! They got work to do. Not to say that all of them would be out of touch millennials. For Byakuya, I feel he would be very in tuned with the stocks and the state of both Japan and the world. He would already have no interest in the trends of the common people. Not saying he wouldn't learn some stuff from the others but he'd just be that guy that the others would have to explain this new commoner stuff too. There's Kyoko who doesn't care for trends either though being more in the loop than Byakuya. Since she's a detective, being informed of current events would be helpful. Say there was a new app on phones that was shrouded in controversy. By knowing of it's existence, it'd be an aid for any potential cases with it. Kyoko's got good foresight and all. She would by no means be an expert with the trends of course, she too being busy with other tasks, but she'd at least know some info. Meanwhile, I feel Aoi would be in tuned with some stuff but not all. I can see her really being in tuned with swimming related stuff, it being her Ultimate and all and something I don't think she'd drop. So, she'd be the one to update the others on sports news and content. Meanwhile, Hiro is the type I feel would be clueless regardless but also somehow know current trends perhaps via predictions or by chance. Then there's Toko as well who I feel would be a bit more in with the times with her writing, knowing what's in but also staying in her lane. So, she wouldn't know the latest game the kids are obsessed with but she'd know the current books that are out or who the newest rising authors are. For Makoto though, I feel that, once he has time to understand what's going on, he'd be lost a bit on what's trendy. Not saying he wouldn't know anything or wouldn't participate. I feel that he'd be the type of guy who'd go watch Barbie and Oppenheimer for instance but he'd have to be updated a bit since he's a busy man now and can't fully dedicate his time to seeing what's in and what's out. He's not an unemployed teen; he's the Headmaster of Hopes Peak! Though, I feel that he'd be a bit updated on stuff due to the students but still a tad confused simultaneously. Some specific ways I feel he'd turn out during this stage of his life are the following: A) Makoto likes what was popular back in the early 2000's-2010s maybe due to nostalgia, coping, or just out of familiarity. B) He learns of new media, gaining a new sense of taste, maybe becoming akin to new songs and movies from the other survivors or from his students like learning about Vocaloid, indie Internet shows, and kpop. C) He actually becomes akin to new stuff going on (it's just in his genes to be a trend follower) and abandons the old content. D) A mix of the A) and B) where he ends up liking a mix of things, Makoto still liking old content from the 2000's era he remembers enjoying and liking the newer media. This isn't a definitive thought though and I would be happy to see others interpretations on this concept!!! An older Makoto and company would navigate the world, trying their best!

[bbr0wni3]

Late Night Comfort

(one shot)

♡ -> Charlie Dalton x Reader

Summary: Everything has changed since the loss of a good friend. Everything is quieter, silent suffering that can't be contained, at least not for Charlie, who seeks comfort at a very late hour of the night.

-> Content & warnings: female reader, fluff, angst, love confession, narrated in 1st person, DPS spoilers!, secrets feelings, girls are allowed on Wellton, reader is part of the boys group

-> word count: 1.7k

-> (a/n): hii, a few days ago I watched DPS, and let me tell you that I NEED Charlie Dalton, he's so cute and sassy I just love him, the movie is so so amazing and beautiful, absolute cinema, so I figured I could write a one shot for my baby ♡♡♡

Sorry in advance if there are some misspelled words, bad grammar/phrases,etc. English is not my first language!!

Divider by @/anitalenia

It's been a week since Neil's passing. The atmosphere at Wellton isn't the same anymore, everything is quieter, and without Professor Keating our poetry class lacks meaning and passion. We stopped learning anything really, there is no class like Mr Keating's classes.

The boys, the whole group also changed, it's clear that we are all dealing and coping with Neil's death.

I sometimes go back to the Indian cave where all our “dead poets society” meetings were. But every time I go back I swear it feels colder than before, wetter than before and sadder each time. To think back and remember how we used to all laugh here, how we talked and listened, how we bounded like we have never before, and how charlie played the saxophone in a way that warmed my soul.

Now there's pure silence, and our laughs are trapped in the walls, faint whispers of all the poetry that has been read inside this dark cave.

Inside the cave I sometimes encountered the other boys, and usually they were always the same ones, pitts, knox, meeks, charlie and of course me; at the end the ones who were still going to the cave wanted the same, to revive the feeling of those old days, to feel the nostalgia of what could've been if something like the loss of a friend didn't happen.

I close my trigonometry study books as I prepare to go to bed, I get in the soft winter blankets my grandma crocheted herself, I lay my head on the pillows and turn my body to turn off the lamp I have next to my bed. I watch the ceiling for a while trying to fall asleep, and I eventually do.

A small and hesitant knock on my door, I tap the lamp again to turn it on and I look in complete silence in the direction that the sound came from, i wait and another knock is heard again, I glance at the clock that marks exactly 2:00 am and with a confused expression on my face I put on my slippers and get off the bed to open the door.

I open it, and I see Charlie standing there, with his usual light blue pajamas, I focus my eyes on his face, he looks tired and sad, but at the same time he's glad to see me.

“Hey, can..can I come in?” He is the first to speak and he does it almost in a whisper as he doesn't want the whole corridor to hear. He looks at me the whole time, and I cannot handle the way his eyes remind me of the ones of a puppy.

I nod and he comes in, I close the door with my hands behind my back to get a look of the situation in front of me, it worries me to see him like this.

“What happened chars?” I grab his hand softly and I guide him to my bed so we can sit and talk, as I do my heart beats loud, I can't contain and I can't deny anymore the way he always makes me feel when we're this close. I almost feel guilty to be thinking like this when he looks like he is on the verge of tears.

“I can't sleep, I keep seeing this images, this memories when I close my eyes, I just, I need someone to be here next to me” he is open about his thoughts with me, he's always been, whatever it is he's always been honest with me and straight to the point, and that is how I would describe our relationship.

“Do you want to stay again? you can rest here, we can talk if you want” I suggest to him while I look at the floor and then at him, he was already looking at me, the glimmer of the lamp paints the room of a warm yellow, and in his eyes it shines in the form of a small star, they are watery and a little red on the sides, but he looks dreamy under this light.

He nods in response, so I get up off the bed and grab some blankets from the top drawer of my wardrobe. I started making the bed that's on the right of the room, since I was not assigned with a roommate that bed is always empty.

In the walls I see my big shadow making the bed for him, I feel how he is looking at me the whole time, I'm nervous just thinking about it, even though it's not the first time he's going to sleep in the same room as me.

Once I finished making it he gets up my bed and walks towards me as I go back to my own bed, I get inside the blankets again, I place my hand on my cheek to look at him and how he gets on the bed, he only looks at the ceiling, i look at his side profile and i trace his features in my mind, I decide to break the ice.

“What's on your mind that doesn't let you sleep?” he turns his head and looks at me, he matches my current position and turns his body so he is completely facing me.

“Neil” he says as I expected, sighing as he says his name, even from this distance of the room I can see how a tear began to fall and followed the bridge of his nose.

I grab the side of my blanket and I extend it in the air, opening it as a way of telling him that he is welcome to come and lay down next to me, he gets up when he notices and scoops next to me on my bed, his chest is warm but his feet are cold.

My back touches the wall as I try to make more space for the both of us, but we are still very close to each other. I turn my body to look at him, he does the same.

Another tear falls from his eyes as we stay in silence, with my thumb I hesitate but I get on time to dry it before it reaches his lips. His expression changed slightly when I did, his eyes grew a little bit bigger, he breathed deeply and his lips parted slowly from each other.

“Am I so in love with you, to even notice the smallest details of your actions, charlie?” I thought to myself at that very moment. I very much knew the answer.

It's not the first time we seek comfort from each other, that we seek our company for various reasons. But tonight, tonight is different. He is different.

I've never seen him cry like this in front of me, I've never seen him so vulnerable and sensitive next to me. We did see each other cry, but from laughter or when the whole group was there, tonight there's privacy, there's an intimate moment, there is a cozy and comforting feeling between us.

I know he feels it too, because he is leaning towards me even more, he looks for my touch as he rests his head on the creek of my neck, from a moment to another he grips the fabric of my pajama shirt, he snuggles his face deeper in my neck and I start feeling the wetness of his tears before I hear his pain.

I stay still for a moment, I can hear how my heart beats louder in my ears, and how he Is choking on his own sadness. With my left hand I caress his cheek, his hair, and his ear. He starts to calm up with my touch, he stops crying but he still grabs the side of my shirt in the most innocent way.

I think of him when we were kids.

“I'm sorry, I didn't expect to explode like that” he says, still buried in my neck, he's embarrassed and his words almost come out as a mumble.

“don't be sorry, it seems like you needed to cry out loud so you did” he raises his head and i look at him, smiling without teeth.

“Do you feel better?” I speak again

“yeah I do actually, thank you” He lets go of my shirt and accommodates his body so that his head rests on my pillow, I do the same, and we both look at each other for a moment.

“you're very special to me” He says out of nowhere, making me blush, not only is he looking at me like he is searching in the depth of my soul but he also says something like this.

“I'm going to explode.” I say in my head

“you're very special to me too, Charlie, you always were.” I respond, I fear that my body keeps pushing me to finally confess to him, it's like a sudden impulse, but is it really the moment?

I keep looking at him, going from one eye to another, I try to search for me in them, I see all of the memories I have of him, the every moment that he made me fall in love with him even more, and in that very moment I find it, I find the bravery to follow this sudden impulse.

Carpe diem.

I get closer and I kiss him right on the lips, I close my eyes and I make it the faster I can to not regret it after. I taste the salt from his dry tears. I pull apart once the impulse is gone from my body and I go back to being embarrassed.

I see how he slowly opens his eyes, he looks at me, his pupils are dilated and he smirks before grabbing the back of my head with his hand and pulling me closer again.

The kiss he gives me is deeper, like he waited a long time to do this, like he imagined every single detail the same way as I did.

We separate, he places his forehead on mine as I listen to how he breathes.

“I like you, I like you so much” he says desperately, like if he was holding these words on the back of his tongue, like it was burning him every minute that passed without being able to say it.

“I like you to chars, a lot” I look up at him as I separate our foreheads, he looks beautiful as always.

I never imagined that this night could end up like this.

Thank you for reading!