#and somehow that would balance out the people who are murdered or kill themselves or live miserably closeted/repressed their whole lives

[neverendingford]

.

[bibibbon]

something that constantly pisses me off about lov bashers is that they don’t understand that an explanation is not an excuse.

they can’t wrap their head around the fact that yes toga is a murderer but that doesn’t negate the fact that she was driven to that point by society.

if her parents supported her and helped her with the symptoms and urges caused by her quirk i doubt she would’ve become a villain.

she was literally driven to insanity not because she’s always been that way, but because suppressing her urges for so long caused her to snap.

twice became a villain because he had no other choice. he had no family, no job, and he was just a child. he had no where to go and no one to help him.

it really hits home for me because i have autism and several other mental problems, so some of my behaviors are because of those issues. but whenever i say that people say i’m making excuses when i’m not. i understand that some of my behaviors aren’t okay. that my mental illnesses aren’t my fault, but they are my responsibility.

yes toga should go to jail/juvenile detention because she’s killed several people, but we should acknowledge that the reason she became a murderer is because of how she was treated. BUT that doesn’t mean her being a murderer is okay or justified.

this also relates to how i believe spinner was right about how placating to their oppressors will do nothing.

the civil rights movement wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. they had to *fight* for their rights. key word being fight.

yes peaceful protest are certainly effective but they won’t work 100% of the time. sometimes you just have to get your hands dirty.

for example, sit-ins and peaceful marches were extremely important to the movement. but sometimes you just need to throw a brick at a cop.

stonewall isn’t infamous because it was peaceful. it’s infamous because it showed the world that the lgbtq community wasn’t going to sit idly by and let themselves be brutalized.

but the thing is 100% of spinners ideology won’t work, and 100% of shoji’s ideology won’t work either. there needs to be a balance between the two.

tl;dr some of the mha community is allergic to nuance and it makes me wanna scream.

Tbh I wouldn't label myself a league of villains basher but Iam definitely anti against the lov fans that claim the league are completely innocent and haven't done any crimes whatsoever.

I have said this before and I will say it again all of the leauge of villain members are victims. They are victims!!! But they have also done bad things. They are victims and they are bad people. Two things can coexist at once.

One thing that I find interesting about some league members that I wish was explored more often was the hypocrisy they had. For example take toga who has stated that she doesn't want to go to jail for her crimes and has murdered but also simultaneously gets distraught over twices death. I love toga but that can definitely be described as hypocritical and it's something that I love about her and I wish horikoshi delved into this with the league a whole lot more.

Also one of my problems that I mentioned in another post is that the leauge don't actually have a viable goal. As of current their goal was to simply destroy and create carnage so they can somehow get a better world for themselves. Realistically that plan is incredibly flawed and would obviously backfire horribly so I wish that horikoshi could of made it so that they developed out of that plan and used the MVA to target groups like the HPSC and other parts of the government to prove their point without harming innocent kids and civilians.

Agreed shoji and spinners ideologies are both flawed but if combined there can be a common ground reached. Thinking about this I can't help but also wonder what if shigaraki properly used the MVA and their resources? What if there wasn't an outright war? What if there was more bonding between the villains and their heroes?

@mikeellee used to suggest that shigaraki would try and get izuku on board with the MVA and I can't help but think that's a great idea and would help the narrative while adding more nuance and development to izuku and other characters.

[extraordinaryhistories]

#15 – 'Kill' (A Sun Came, 1998)

In 2016, a man named Marc Rebillet (yes, that Marc Rebillet) decided to search through a dumpster outside Sufjan’s studio in DUMBO, Brooklyn, which is a very mature and adult thing to do and reflects fantastically on Marc as a person, and certainly should have no consequences on his thriving music career. In that dumpster, he found an odd-looking CD – an unreleased album with a black-and-white cover titled Stalker, claiming to be performed by Sufjan Stevens. It had been recorded some time in the 1990s, and on a quick listen (the album was swiftly leaked online), it certainly sounded like early Sufjan, back when he did wild electric guitar freak-outs; his hushed but nasally vocal tone from that era is unmistakeable.

Everything seemed normal, except for the fact that the album was about tracking, sexually assaulting and then murdering people. It contained songs with titles like ‘I Know Where Your Kids Go to School’, ‘Baby Give Me a Feel’ and ‘U Kan Wrun But U Kan’t Hyde’. None of it was metaphorical. Sufjan recorded a noise rock album in the 90s that was quite literally about fucking stalking people. And then, not five years later, recorded ‘For the Widows in Paradise, for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti’. It boggles the mind.

At the time that Stalker was released, a significant portion of the Sufjan fan community cast doubt on the veracity of the leak. One of the major concerns was that the subject matter was far too direct, far too gruesome, for a Sufjan song. He would never be so brutally direct. He would never. Right?

‘Kill’ is a song by Sufjan Stevens that features the following as its chorus: ‘I want to kill him / I want to cut his brain / And when it's over / I know I'll feel okay’. Ah. Case closed.

The third-last track on A Sun Came, ‘Kill’ is a knotty piece of songwriting that may be the most multi-layered lyrical construction in his early work. Even purely on inspection one can see this to be true – it is a song with a clear narrative, some clear themes, a roiling balance of light and dark within it, which is far more than can be said for much of this era. But then you get to the allusions this song pays to other literary and musical sources, and things only begin to complicate further. I, personally, have not quite made my mind up about ‘Kill’. It is a song loaded with possibility.

An initial reading of ‘Kill’ gives the strong suggestion of a relationship narrative, and I do think that this is what lies at the song’s core. The relationship in this song need not be romantic, but given the sheer depth and fury of the passion here, it seems highly probable. There is a narrator who exists in what is very much a lopsided power dynamic with another (male) figure; very rarely is the narrator an active subject in this song, instead being subject to the figure’s curation and exploitation. The figure ‘took the stable / Bred me to be a mare / Made the brethren able / Gave me a room’, all of which are ostensible acts of kindness that nevertheless confirm a ruler/ruled dynamic. 

We receive that same confirmation in the next verse. ‘I never asked him / I never meant to stay’, says the narrator, and very quickly the song sours. The narrator finds themselves being used and abused, ‘never [leaving] the stall’ while their partner readily leaves their side. Any sense of a romantic relationship in an ideal sense – two partners, ‘riding side by side / Into the frontier’, tackling the world’s challenges as a single, symbiotic unit – is long defunct. Only misery remains for the narrator, with hope long-dashed by a pattern of careless exploitation.

With this as our narrative foundation, we reach the song’s climax, one of the most striking and instantly memorable moments in his catalogue on account of how utterly depraved it is. We are left with no doubt that Sufjan’s narrator is in a state of abject misery up to this point. But misery in Sufjan songs is so often detached, poetic, dejected, somehow fundamentally stoic. Not in ‘Kill’. The narrator has no remaining emotional bandwidth for stoicism. All that’s left is a carnal desire to exact onto the narrator’s partner some fraction of the pain that the partner exacted onto the narrator, and the only way to do this is through murder. 

You will not find a gnarlier image in the Sufjan catalogue than ‘I want to kill him / I want to cut his brain’, and the reason it has so much guttural power is because it does not quite read as psychopathic or unstable. The narrator only wants to do this. They never will, and likely never even could – the verses of this song are in the past tense, and by the time we reach the present tense of the pre-chorus, the partner has left the narrator forever. ‘Kill’ is a logical conclusion, an exhausted final attempt to lash out in a situation where the narrator knows they have no power to do so. When the chorus finally breaks down at the end into a futile repeated ‘I want’, the song’s message is complete. It is violent, but the violence is less a horror tale, more a tragedy.

This is the interpretation that a direct reading of ‘Kill’ provides us, but there are all sorts of semantic curios in this one that complicate interpretation. I am, of course, referring to the extended horse metaphor that this song seems to be pushing. Both narrator and villain are referred to as mares in this song; there is talk of stalls, of stables, of riding into battle in a literal sense. It is rather late for me to mention that ‘Kill’ has a source text, but it seemingly does – Sufjan cites an obscure Sherwood Anderson short story named ‘The Man Who Became a Woman’ as the basis for this song, but has refused to elaborate further. The surface-level parallels are very clear given that ‘The Man Who Became a Woman’ is a story about a horse trainer, but from there the complications begin, because Anderson’s story is a) incredibly obtuse and b) seems to reckon far more with gender, and to a lesser extent race, than it does dysfunctional romance as a theme. The narrative in ‘Kill’ certainly does not retell that of its source material, at least not in a manner discernible to the listener. But the connections are there nonetheless.

A Sun Came is an album that brims with loving, albeit surface-level, tributes to Sufjan’s musical and literary influences, and ‘Kill’ is one such example. But Anderson isn’t the only reference point for ‘Kill’. It is highly probable that Sufjan is intentionally referencing Elliott Smith’s ‘Roman Candle’ in the chorus of this one. Sufjan sings ‘I want to kill him / I want to cut his brain’; years earlier, Smith sang ‘I want to hurt him / I want to give him pain’. And this is almost certainly intentional given Sufjan’s professed admiration for Smith and the various comparisons that have been made between the two songwriters over Sufjan’s career. (What makes things even more interesting is that ‘Roman Candle’ is a song about Smith’s violent step-father. The same systematic patterns of abuse are present in the lyrics of both songs, albeit expressed with more eloquence in Smith’s. Even if not Sufjan’s own stepfather – Lowell Brahms is by all accounts a beautiful, caring soul – one wonders if the subject of ‘Kill’ might have a real-life referent.)

One could spend days attempting to decode ‘Kill’, and this is fortuitous, because musically it does not offer much. The bulk of the song consists of a repeating guitar figure that has a sort of leaden weight to it, dragging it down into the muck. It is vaguely reminiscent of – and inferior to – the ‘Abraham’ ostinato that Sufjan would pen a few years later, but this one is played almost entirely on the lower strings and as a result lacks the same ethereal pop and spring that many Sufjan songs capitalise on. There is some double tracking, especially in the chorus and pre-chorus, but it doesn’t add anything substantial to the arrangement. Neither does Sufjan’s strained, upper-register vocal melody, but there is certainly a sort of confessional quality to it that suits the subject matter. 

All of this comes together to create a song that is resolutely, undeniably un-fun to listen to. It is most likely for this reason that Sufjan chose never to play this one live, unlike some of the other stripped-back folk ballads on A Sun Came. When Sufjan dips his toes in depravity – ‘John Wayne Gacy Jr.’! ‘Saturn’! – incredibly compelling, listenable, rich things tend to emerge, but at this early stage of his career, it seems that the pieces are just not quite in place yet. But there’s no denying that ‘Kill’ is a fascinating and in many ways remarkably compelling song, just one that does not feel as listenable as it could be. It’s fine. Early days yet. All of these songs helped create our modern concept of Sufjan Stevens.

[mdhwrites]

how do you know a character is too far gone to be redeemed? I know it's partially based on the work itself and what rules it establishes, for one work blowing up planets is something you can work hard on redeeming yourself from and another will have small scale bullying be considered murder and how much we sympathize with the character committing the acts but I know it's more complicated than that. How far is too far?

So you essentially pointed out the problem with even asking this question. Whether a redemption works or not is entirely context dependent, even down to the person viewing it. Like if one person believes in excuses X, Y, and Z for redemptions but another only believes in A, B, and C then these two people are going to have vastly different opinions on what too far is. One might be that any murderer is irredeemable. One might make it that you cannot be redeemed if you kill innocents. Another might have it be that it's only once you do it with malice.

So... What does an author do about this? Well for me, I think the question is less "What line is crossed where they can't be redeemed?" and more "Where is the line where I'm writing someone who is nuanced to someone who is a caricature for this setting?" So long as evil is not all they are, redemption to someone is likely to be possible and you can breadcrumb the way to that redemption. Once you have someone who kicks a child over, takes their candy and lights them on fire while gleefully laughing, you have probably dropped any pretense. Even Unikitty, a show who's boundaries are almost non-existent, has Master Frown still do mostly things that are annoying instead of actively cruel so that he is still redeemable because genuine cruelty might be where that's starting to go too far, even as he laughs in glee at making people, well... Frown.

In a romantic story, it'd be the moment when a character fakes the fact that one of the love interests is cheating on the other because they are doing something anyone would know is wrong and would only be done by someone with zero human empathy. In a martial art's movie, it's the asshole who pulls a gun during what is supposed to be a fair fight. It's the mafia stooge who targets family. Stuff that any sane, normal human being would feel revulsion at even the act of doing it... They do it without caring. If they feel remorse, are pressured to do it, etc. like that, or even did it long ago but have changed since then, they can still be redeemed but when you have them, in the present, without a second thought, perform actions that anyone would tell them they're a monster for... Yeah, no one in your setting is going to let them be redeemed short of a heroic sacrifice.

Because that last line is the important one. What can a character get away with before the people in the setting themselves would consider them some sort of monster? Because your story is playing by its own setting, logic and ideals and so the irredeemable characters in that story have to actively go against those, not just our modern ideas of right and wrong because, you know... Fiction. It's not our world.

And as a writer, that's what you need to focus on. If you want to redeem a character, you have to make it so that whatever they did CAN be forgiven in story. The act they commit to try and make up for what they did before has to somehow be equal or even bigger than what they did previously. This is also why there is a point at which death is the only way for them to make up for what they did because they have been so horrendous by the rules of the story that only the ultimate sacrifice can even attempt to balance the scales.

So long story short: Don't worry about what your audience will find acceptable. Remember that for a redemption to work, it must be believable in universe and that will shift between stories, or even between chapters, and that that's what's important. Those are the people the character wronged after all, not the reader. See you next tale.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[edwardgdunn]

All The Beautiful Girls

Of all the collective manifestations of the ego that we see around the world, perhaps the one that is most disturbing to me is the systematic suppression of women and the feminine psyche. The ego finds much more fertile soil in which to grow and multiply itself in the male of the species. This is not to say nor suggest that women are somehow free of the ego, no human being is. It is, however immanently less pervasive and destructive than it is in men. History bears witness to this, especially in the last two-thousand years or so.

The lack of ego primacy in women, when compared to men,  is largely because they are far more tuned into their intelligent faculties of intuition. Thus, they tend to be far less constricted by role than males – far more empathetic to other people, other life forms, and the natural world. Women would most likely never have declared war on nature on the scale we have witnessed in recent centuries.

Worse yet, war was waged directly against women themselves. As best can be reasonably estimated (record keeping was sparse, limited, and secretive at the time) between three and five million women were killed by the male dominated church between the 12th and 15th centuries. There are only a few runs of mass murder in history on this level. Women who were doing nothing more than being in keeping with their inherent feminine nature – walking alone in a forest, demonstrating care for animals, learning about medicinal plants in order to help alleviate suffering, were branded as witches and burned alive. The feminine was cast as evil and the resulting subjugation of the qualities that could heal the world were banished from it en masse.

Christianity was certainly not the lone purveyor of this mass psychosis and collective insanity, though notably the most violent. The hands of Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, even Buddhism were not clean either. The status of women, through a massive act of reductionism, was rendered that of child bearer and property of men. Once this campaign was in full complement, the running of the world became the exclusive wheelhouse of males who denied the more nuanced and incredibly valuable gifts of the feminine. The world would careen toward and be engulfed by the violence and destruction that have been the organizing paradigm ever since.

All this begs the question of why? History prior to this clearly demonstrates that there were cultures where the feminine ethos was not feared but revered and celebrated – the Sumarians, Egyptians, Celtics. So why then? What changed such that men felt so threatened by women? The answer is an ego driven epiphany of sorts that saw men come to believe that only the male would be capable of completely dominating the planet. Power was the goal – women needed to be rendered powerLESS in order to achieve it.

A heartbreaking by-product of this mass suppression is that most women feel it as emotional pain – most often it manifests as an omnipresent current of background unhappiness. Other times it takes the stage front and center through the horrors visited on women like rape, torture and violence.

Gratefully, we are beginning to see a seismic change in many parts of the world. People are waking up in large numbers – sometimes individually, sometimes collectively. We can know this because we see the growing pains. Deep schisms are appearing as those who are still under full control of their power-hungry egos start building ramparts to reinforce their slipping grip on that power. But their position is indefensible.

They will lose the war. The world will change. The balance will restore. 

Check out the Happiness 2.0 Podcast — https://podcast.edwardgdunn.com/

Read the Happiness 2.0 Blog — https://edwardgdunn.com/blog

[balsa-margarita]

No, I meant the explanation/copout behind the Air Nation genocide had more of a "They're inferior, one-dimensional aborigines with a tunnel vision ideals and ludicrous culture that became their undoing. If they don't want to unite with us and become a part of something greater, then they don't belong in this world. We didn't murder them, we purged them. A blot stanting the image of the perfect world we're trying to create" sentiment, not "They were the warmongering aggressors actually, they were going to attack us even thought there's little to no proof to suggest it's true we were just protecting ourselves" because frankly I don't remember anything implying FN saying that was the reason of their invasion.

Actually the only reason why I think you have a point in saying that the FN believed the air nomads were warmongers is obviously the avatar, whose job is to maintain peace and balance between the nation, especially if they're a fully realized one. They're the most prominent threat to Sozin's plans. Once the avatar grows up and gets the memo of what the FN might be up to, they'll have the power to unite the other nations against the FN or remove Sozin from authority or sth. Roku was "the evidence" that the avatar in and of themselves is lets say, born a traitor who almost started a war against FN, he almost killed their leader, his leader. Therefore that could be the reason of their "preemptive attack" and their propaganda in which they actively vilify the other nations and glorify their own.

First of all, I agree with you on the "Avatar is inherently a traitor" idea. Sozin would probably believe that the Avatar Spirit was inherently antithetical to his imperialist dreams (and he'd be right) and he was definitely a good enough propagandist to tell the Fire Nation this. I think one of those "Lost Adventures" even supports that theory, though that's dubious for reasons that should be pretty obvious.

I also agree that Fire Nation propaganda would have stated that the Air Nomads were uncivilized barbarians - since, well, Fire Nation propaganda does that for every other nation. No surprise there.

So, why do I think that Sozin painted the Air Nomads as a violent society? Well, mostly because he wanted to commit a genocide - because of the Avatar, yes, but he also had to justify wiping out an entire people somehow. I think that Sozin would have taken the "Avatar is inherently a traitor" bit and extended it to "Avatar is inherently a traitor and the Air Nomads are planning to use their Avatar and their horrifying inferior bending to attack us." Which doesn't make much sense, but it's effective fearmongering, and when you want to get your population in line to commit an entire genocide by fire then fearmongering is pretty much required.

(Small interlude - consider suffocation. How horrifying is that idea alone to a firebender?)

Do we have proof that Sozin did this? Well... I'm almost certain I've seen some material that mentions such a propaganda campaign, but I was not able to locate it, so now I doubt that it exists. Therefore, this should probably be considered headcanon. But I think it's quite likely that Sozin would have gone for such a fucked up disinformation campaign.

[beepboopgoodsoup]

i had a coffee and if i don't write down my thoughts about minecraft lore i will literally explode

it's a zombie apocalypse game right, it sure doesn't feel like it because it's blocky and pixelated but it sure is one.

i would say it's been decades if not centuries after the zombie thing went off, the player joins the world that already adjusted to the new nature of itself, it's balanced and pretty much thriving.

the player somehow ends up in this world completely alone with no other people like them anywhere (maybe the player has friends with them but in that case too they are Alone). the world is extremely hostile to no one else But them. they are not meant to be there.

but we have other people there too, we have villagers and pillagers, they are not the same type of people as the player but they sure are humans. they created safe places for themselves, they have rules they live by and they are not Surviving, they are just living.

in the nether we have piglins, who are i would say also "people" (they are not human but they are very much people), they build houses they live in, they hunt just like pillagers do and they have some sort of society going on there.

and piglins just like villagers are not immune to the zombie decease. although it seems like it doesn't spread as much with them (they are not humans so makes sense). and i would make a wild fucking guess and say that the decease is actually only kicking off in the overworld (because when the piglin goes through the portal they turn into a zombie piglin yk).

now let's get back to the player. the player learns how to survive and adjust to the world around them, discovering places that were built long time before they set foot in this world. now whO THE FUCK BUILT STRONGHOLDS? is the question that will haunt me in my sleep until the day mojang takes pity on me and comes up with an answer. strongholds, nether portals (although i think ruined nether portals are more like the game devs telling the inexperienced player "hey you should try making this maybe something cool will happen") and the ancient cities in the deep dark I Think were built by the same people. not the villagers, not the pillagers, the people who were trying to run from the zombie apocalypse long time ago. they went to the nether, went to the end, neither of those places turned out very livable. so they dug deep into the earth and built that damned portal frame.

now let me tell you what i think about the deep dark.

before the sculk came into the picture, the zombies were he only universal "problem" (we also have the ender dragon but i Do Not understand what's up with that honestly like why is it even there). the sculk is not the same as the zombie decease but it is hostile not only to the player but the world around it too. it spreads and attacks things and it's definitely not balanced out like other things are. why did the people decide to build an entire city around it? or were they there before it spread? they were making experiments on it so maybe it went out of control and killed them all (because we know it feeds on dead things so it would make sense it got so big). i like to think it's some sort of fungus and the wardens are actually the creatures it turned into sort of zombies too. but the question still holds, where did it come from? in the world where everything exists in a peaceful harmony (if we forget about the player getting brutally murdered 63738 times during the night), where did the thing that corrupts and destroys everything in it's way come from? did something from behind that portal frame leak through and created this creature or did it happen during some of the experiments in the redstone laboratory? did the people finally found the world they can run off to or did they get killed by their own creation?

i hope i get answers in future updates.

[classic80sand90smovieloves2]

Dating Billy and Stu would include~

(Not my gif)(Requested by @looddoottoot )

- You most likely start out just dating Billy who takes notice of how Stu acts around you and how you act around Stu. It’s obvious that you like each other, that you’re attracted to each other; even if you don’t realize it yourself. 

- So, while you’re hanging out alone with him; most likely making out in his bedroom, he murmurs against your lips that he knows you like the boy and that he could bring him into the mix with the snap of his fingers, if that's what you would like. 

- The proposition sounds so sincere that; for a moment, you’re sure it’s real, but then you come to your senses. Jealous Billy Loomis letting you date his best friend? Yeah, right.

- But then he plants a gentle kiss on your lips, looking into your eyes and asking “don’t you want that?”; and its then that you realize you’re not the only one who likes the blonde a little more than you should. 

- Billy and Stu have a habit of being attracted to the same girl. Billy picks the good ones and Stu realizes later on that they’re a knockout. It’s a good thing that they’re willing to share with each other or else Stu would consistently have the worst luck in the world.

- The two of them are not straight. At the very least, they’re gay for each other so being with you is perfect for them. It’s a nice balance of gay and straight, and oftentimes leaves just enough grey area for for people to not realize that they like each other.

- So with that being said, let’s get into the details of your relationship! Firstly, you never have a fucking minute to yourself!

- There’s always someone next to you or someone’s hands on you. If you’re touch starved then congratulations, you’ve found the perfect relationship to be in.

- They’re constantly just showing up wherever you are. Billy’s more subtle about it, whether he’s actually following you or just so happening to run into you; you aren’t sure. But Stu doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he was somewhat stalking you, visiting you unexpectedly and waiting around places he knows you’ll pass.

- Billy calls the shots. He’s the more dominant one in your relationship. He gets what he wants and that’s something Stu’s just sort of learned to accept.

- Though Stu is his best friend, Billy’s always on your side since he knows how the boy can get. He’s quick to tell him to knock it off when you don’t seem interested in doing something or seem to not like what the blondes saying.

- The two of them are incredibly protective of you. They’re both completely on board with killing people who mess with you or make your life harder than it has to be.

- Stu’s more outgoing while Billy’s more reserved. You and Billy tend to hang back and talk to each other while Stu goes and does his thing. It’s certainly better than having to awkwardly stand alone whenever he sees someone he needs to talk to.

- Billy sort of envies how easy it is for the blonde to make you laugh. He thinks the boys jokes are dumb yet he almost wishes he could come up with something stupid like them, if only just to see you break out into a fit of giggles or smile while rolling your eyes at him.

- The two of them get into these dumb ass conversations and debates about the weirdest shit and you’re somehow always roped into them. You know the whole “is water wet?” argument? That’s them on like a weekly basis. Honestly, sometimes Stu just does it because he thinks it’s funny (but also hot) to see Billy and/or you get all riled up.

- Stu smacks both your asses and you don’t know what’s better: the shit eating grin on Stu’s face or the look of annoyance on Billy’s. 

- Late night shenanigans. They’re always trying to convince you to come out and do things with them though they rarely tell you what their plan is.

- They both just collapse onto you when they’re tired. They arrange themselves so that they’re face is buried into some squishy part of you and so that your hands can reach them properly, mainly because they love the feeling of your hands playing with their hair or rubbing their backs.

- When you’re cuddling together, Billy and you will be face to face, his arms wrapped around you while Stu spoons you from behind.

- They struggle when they have to wait their turn with you. As much as they love the other person as well, they cannot stand having to just sit and watch you makeout with or watch you focus entirely on them.

- They’re a little competitive with each other: trying to kiss you more than the other, touch you more than the other, make you happier than the other. It’s all playful but there is a small yet real rivalry between the two of them.

- Horror movie marathons. It’s definitely interesting seeing how into them they get.

- You’ll always get something that you’ve really wanted for your birthday or holidays because; at least, one of them is always listening and taking notes when you fawn over something.

- Stu constantly pulls you and Billy into group hugs. Billy can’t help but smile as you get squished against him.

- If they think somethings wrong and you aren’t telling them, they’ll team up against you and pull it out of you. It’s one of the only downsides to dating them both; you can’t avoid or escape them.

- Stu’s better at comforting you with his words, even if he has a tendency to say the wrong thing. Billy’s more of a physical person, holding you and giving you a shoulder to cry on.

- Stu definitely faces the brunt of Billy’s anger; he prefers it over you getting upset with the brunettes melodramatic behavior. He assures you that Billy doesn’t mean anything by whatever he says when he just so happens to snap at you, or shoots you a look when the boy goes off on a rage, telling you not to worry.

- You always try to calm down the brunette and comfort the blonde, easing things over between the two of them if they’re arguing about something.

- They both tend to confide in you more than anyone else, sharing little intimate details of their lives that they don’t tell each other.

- Having to cover for them. They might even rope you into helping them with the murders; it’s just how they are.

- They’re both jealous people so they have no problem teaming up and making sure no one ever flirts with or tries anything with you. They both have particular ways of going about things but if Billy tells Stu to do something, he’ll do it.

- People aren’t really sure who you’re dating. Someone will catch you holding hands with Billy one minute, then see you thrown over Stu’s shoulder the next. The three of you are perfectly fine with people being confused so long as they think you’re with one of them and don’t try anything.

- For better or for worse, you love them and they love you, and that’s more than you could ever ask for.

[tlbodine]

The Horror Genius of Five Nights At Freddy’s

I’ve been playing FNAF: Help Wanted VR on my Oculus Quest lately (a birthday present to myself -- I know I’m late to that party!) and it’s reignited in me my old love of this series. I know Scott Cawthon’s politics aren’t great, but I don’t think there’s any malice in his heart beyond usual Christian conservative nonsense -- and I think he stepped down as graciously and magnanimously as possible when confronted about it. Time will judge Scott Cawthon’s politics, and that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I want to talk about what makes these games so damn special, from a horror, design, and marketing perspective. I think there’s really SO MUCH to be learned from studying these games and the wider influence they’ve had as intellectual property. 

What Is FNAF? 

In case you’ve somehow been living under a rock for the last seven years, Five Nights At Freddy’s (hereafter, FNAF) is a horror franchise spanning 17 games (10 main games + some spinoffs and troll games, we’ll get to that), 27 books, a movie deal, and a couple live-action attractions. 

But before it exploded into that kind of tremendous IP, it started out as a single indie pont-and-click game created entirely by one dude, Scott Cawthon. Cawthon had developed other games in the past without much fame or success, including some Christian children’s entertainment. He was working as a cashier at Dollar General and making games in his spare time -- and most of those games got panned. 

So he tried making something different. 

After being criticized that the characters in one of his children’s games looked like soulless, creepy animatronics, Cawthon had his lightbulb moment and created a horror game centered on....creepy animatronics! 

The rest, as they say, is history. 

The Genius of FNAF’s Horror Elements

In the first FNAF game, you play as a night security guard at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a sort of ersatz Chuck-E-Cheese establishment. The animatronics are on free-roaming mode at night, but you don’t want to let them find you in your security room so you have to watch them move through the building on security camera monitors. If they get too close, you can slam your security room doors closed. But be careful, because this restaurant operates on a shoestring budget, and the power will go off if you keep the doors closed too long or flicker the lights too often. And once the lights go out, you’re helpless against the animatronics in the dark. 

Guiding you through your gameplay is a fellow employee, Phone Guy, who calls you each night with some helpful advice. Phone Guy is voiced by Cawthon himself, and listening to his tapes gives you some hints of the game’s underlying story as well as telling you how to play. A few newspaper clippings and other bits of scrap material help to fill in more details of the story. 

Over the next set of games, the story would be further developed, with each new game introducing new mechanics and variations on the theme -- in one, you don a mask to slip past the notice of animatronics; in another, you have to play sound cues to lure an animatronic away from you. By the fourth game, the setup was changed completely, now featuring a child with a flashlight hiding from the monsters outside his door -- nightmarish versions of the beloved child-friendly mascots. The mechanics change just enough between variations to keep things fresh while maintaining a consistent brand. 

There are so many things these games do well from a storytelling and horror perspective: 

Jump Scares: It’s easy to shrug these games off for relying heavily on jump scares, and they absolutely do have a lot of them. But they’re used strategically. In most games, the jump scares are a punishment (a controlled shock, if you will) -- if you play the game perfectly, you’ll never be jump-scared. This is an important design choice that a lot of other horror games don’t follow. 

Atmospheric Dread: These games absolutely deliver horror and tension through every element of design -- some more than others, admittedly. But a combination of sound cues, the overall texture and aesthetic of the world, the “things move when you’re not looking at them” mechanic, all of it works together to create a feeling of unease and paranoia. 

Paranoia: As in most survival horror games, you’re at a disadvantage. You can’t move or defend yourself, really -- all you can do is watch. And so watch you do. Except it’s a false sense of security, because flicking lights and checking cameras uses up precious resources, putting you at greater risk. So you have to balance your compulsive need to check, double-check, and make sure...with methodical resource conservation. The best way to survive these games is to remain calm and focused. It’s a brilliant design choice. 

Visceral Horror: The monster design of the animatronics is absolutely delightful, and there’s a whole range of them to choose from. The sheer size and weight of the creatures, the way they move and position themselves, their grunginess, the deadness of their eyes, the quantity and prominence of their teeth. They are simultaneously adorable and horrifying. 

Implicit Horror: One of the greatest strengths to FNAF as a franchise is that it never wears its story on its sleeve. Instead of outright telling you what’s going on, the story is delivered in bits and pieces that you have to put together yourself -- creating a puzzle for an engaged player to think about and theorize over and consider long after the game is done. But more than that, the nature of the horror itself is such that it becomes increasingly upsetting the more you think on it. The implications of what’s going on in the game world -- that there are decaying bodies tucked away inside mascots that continue to perform for children, that a man dressed in a costume is luring kids away into a private room to kill them, and so forth -- are the epitome of fridge horror. 

The FNAF lore does admittedly start to become fairly ridiculous and convoluted as the franchise wears on. But even ret-conned material manages to be pretty interesting in its own right (and there is nothing in the world keeping you from playing the first four games, or even the first six, and pretending none of the rest exist). 

Another thing I really appreciate about the FNAF franchise is that it’s quite funny, in a way that complements and underscores the horror rather than detracting from it. It’s something a lot of other properties utterly fail to do. 

The Genius of Scott Cawthon’s Marketing 

OK, so FNAF utilizes a multi-prong attack for creating horror and implements it well -- big deal. Why did it explode into a massive IP sensation when other indie horror games that are just as well-made barely made a blip on the radar? 

Well! That’s where the real genius comes in. This game was built and marketed in a way to maximize its franchisability. 

First, the story utilizes instantly identifiable, simple but effective character designs, and then generates more and more instantly identifiable unique characters with each iteration. Having a wealth of characters and clever, unique designs basically paves the way for merchandise and fan-works. (That they’re anthropomorphic animal designs also probably helped -- because that taps into the furry fandom as well without completely alienating non-furries). 

Speaking of fan-work, Scott Cawthon has always been very supportive of fandom, only taking action when people would try to profit off knock-off games and that sort of thing -- basically bad-faith copies. But as far as I know he’s always been super chill with fan-created content, even going so far as to engage directly with the fandom. Which brings me to....

These games were practically designed for streaming, and he took care to deliver them into the hands of influential streamers. Because the games are heavy on jump-scares and scale in difficulty (even including extra-challenging modes after the core game is beaten) they are extremely fun to watch people play. They’re short enough to be easily finished over the duration of a long stream, and they’re episodic -- lending themselves perfectly to a YouTube Lets Play format. One Night = One Video, and now the streamer has weeks of content from your game (but viewers can jump in at any time without really missing much). 

The games are kid-friendly but also genuinely frightening. Because the most disturbing parts of the game’s lore are hinted at rather than made explicit, younger players can easily engage with the game on a more basic surface level, and others can go as deep into the lore as they feel comfortable. There is no blood and gore and violence or even any explicitly stated death in the main game; all of the murder and death is portrayed obliquely by way of 8-bit mini games and tangential references. Making this game terrifying but accessible to youngsters, and then marketing it directly to younger viewers through popular streamers (and later, merchandising deals) is genius -- because it creates a very broad potential audience, and kids tend to spend 100% of their money (birthdays, allowances, etc.) and are most likely to tell their friends about this super scary game, etc. etc.

By creating a puzzle box of lore, and then interacting directly with the fandom -- dropping hints, trolling, essentially creating an ARG of his own lore through his website, in-game easter eggs, and tie-in materials -- Cawthon created a mystery for fandom to solve. And fans LOVE endlessly speculating over convoluted theories. 

Cawthon released these games FAST. He dropped FNAF 2 within months of the first game’s release, and kept up a pace of 1-2 games a year ever since. This steady output ensured the games never dropped out of public consciousness -- and introducing new puzzle pieces for the lore-hungry fans to pore over helped keep the discussion going. 

I think MatPat and The Game Theorists owe a tremendous amount of their own huge success to this game. I think Markiplier does, too, and other big streamers and YouTubers. It’s been fascinating watching the symbiotic relationship between these games and the people who make content about these games. Obviously that’s true for a lot of fandom -- but FNAF feels so special because it really did start so small. It’s a true rags-to-riches sleeper hit and luck absolutely played a role in its growth, but skill is a big part too. 

Take-Aways For Creatives 

I want to be very clear here: I do not think that every piece of media needs to be “IP,” franchisable, an extended universe, or a multimedia sensation. I think there is plenty to be said for creating art of all types, and sometimes that means a standalone story with a small audience. 

But if you do want a chance at real break-out, run-away success and forging a media empire of your own, I think there are some take-aways to be learned from the success of FNAF: 

Persistence. Scott Cawthon studied animation and game-design in the 1990s and released his first game in 2002. He released a bunch of stuff afterward. None of it stuck. It took 12 years to hit on the winning formula, and then another several years of incredibly hard work to push out more titles and stoke the fires before it really became a sensation. Wherever you’re at on your creative journey, don’t give up. You never know when your next thing will be The Thing that breaks you out. 

If you want to sell a lot of something, you have to make it widely appealing to a bunch of people. This means keeping your concept simple to understand (”security guard wards off creepy killer animatronics at a pizza parlor”) and appealing to as wide a segment of the market as you can (ie, a horror story that appeals to both kids and adults). The more hyper-specific your audience, the harder it’s gonna be to find them and the fewer copies of your thing you’ll be selling. 

Know your shit and put your best work out there. I think there’s an impulse to feel like “well, nobody reads this anyway, so why does it matter if it’s no good” (I certainly have fallen into that on multiple occasions) but that’s the wrong way to think about it. You never know when and where your break will come. Put your best work out there and keep on polishing your craft with better and better stuff because eventually one of those things you chuck out there is going to be The Thing. 

Figure out where your target audience hangs out, and who influences them, and then get your thing in the hands of those influencers. Streaming and YouTube were the secret to FNAF’s success. Maybe yours will be BookTube, or Instagram, or a secret cabal of free librarians. I don’t know. But you should try your best to figure out who would like the thing that you’re making, and then figure out how to reach those people, and put all of your energy into that instead of shotgun-blasting your marketing all willy nilly. 

You don’t have to put the whole story on the page. Audiences love puzzles. Fans love mysteries. You can actually leave a lot more unanswered than you think. There’s some value in keeping secrets and leaving things for others to fill in. Remember -- your art is only partly yours. The sandbox belongs to others to play in, too, and you have to let them do that. 

If in doubt, appealing to furries never hurts. 

Do I take all of this advice myself? Not by a long shot. But it’s definitely a lot to think about. 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go beat The Curse of Dreadbear. 

[ragingbookdragon]

An Unexpected Friendship, But A Friendship Nonetheless

A Jason Todd and Harley Quinn One-Shot (Non-Reader Insert)

Word Count: 2K Warnings: Explicit Language, Angst

Author's Note: So I wrote this for @aurailia or @nitebirdie because she drew that wonderful Jason picture for me which you can find right here! I hope you like this, Jess! Love you! -Thorne

**********************************************************************

Jason expected a lot of things.

1. Getting yelled at by Bruce for shooting serial murderers and rapists? Check.

2. Getting yelled at by Damian for calling him short? Check.

3. Getting yelled at by Tim for spray painting a billboard of him with penises? Check.

4. Getting yelled at by Dick for picking on his younger brothers? Check.

So really, it was getting yelled at by his family that he expected the most, but all things considered about his life, his expectations weren’t pretty high. He knew he was going to get hurt on patrol, knew was going to spend the rest of his life dealing with the chronic pain and learning how to manage it.

But the one thing Jason never expected, was to end up being friends with Harley Quinn.

And honest to God, the whole friendship only started because the psychiatrist they both went to accidentally scheduled them at the same time. A screw up. A monumental screw up. But it did lead to a revolutionary session where Jason and Harley spent most of their time badgering each other about their habits while the woman merely watched on and scribbled furiously at her notepad.

When they both left, they were in such a heated argument about which way would be better to deal with the Joker. Jason suggested a bullet in the head and Harley suggested cutting off his arms and legs. An excellent suggestion, he had to admit, but nothing would satisfy him more than killing the pasty bastard, and she knew that too.

Surprisingly, when Harley got to her bus stop, she grabbed the front collar of his shirt to keep him in place while she typed her number in his phone. Of course, Jason wasn’t sure what to be more concerned about: the fact that she’d lifted his phone without him knowing, or that she was putting her number in it and telling him to call her when he needed someone to talk to.

He’d responded that he didn’t need another shrink in his head.

She’d given him a pitied look and said it wasn’t for that, but for a friend.

And Jason wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but three weeks after, he was dialing her number at two A.M. just to hear someone’s voice over the deafening silence in his apartment.

They talked for hours about anything and everything. Cars, weapons, games, favorite childhood memories, everything they could think of. And by the time they’d finally talked until their tongues were numb, the sun had started peeking above the buildings in the distance.

He apologized for keeping her all night.

Harley laughed and asked to hang out on patrol come Friday night then hung up.

Jason hadn’t even told her who he was, but low and behold she was doing cartwheels on the roof of the building he was looking out on that night. And it should’ve annoyed him but hell, he’d grown up with Dick—gymnastics was something he was used to being around.

Halfway through their stakeout, she was perched on the side of the ledge, staring at the side of his head, and it shouldn’t’ve unnerved him like it did, but there was something about her bright blue eyes drilling into his brain that made his skin crawl—and not in the good way.

Will you stop boring holes in me, Quinn? He’d grunted. Pay attention.

Why? She’d retorted. Aren’t you tired of doing this? Don’t you wanna go do something fun?

Stopping drug dealers is good for Gotham.

I’m not talking about good for Gotham, Jason. I’m talking about for you.

Harley hauled him up and tugged him along, him barely resisting because good God she was relentless and headstrong when she put her mind to something. So, he let her. And she dragged him to the Bat-Burger down the block and shoved a roll of money towards the cashier, ordering one of everything on the menu.

And Jason found it really odd when he was balancing two trays in his hands while Harley carried the milkshakes over to the booth in the corner where they huddled in and started eating.

She held up a packet in between her fingers. Want some Jokerized seasoning?

He blinked at her and gently took it, sprinkling the red, white, and green flakes over his fries. And he wasn’t offended when she reached over and took one, popping it in her mouth.

It’s terrible to say it, but God I love this shit. She laughed and Jason’s jaw dropped.

I know! He agreed with a grin. I can’t help it! It’s so good!

Her eyes had narrowed at that. You should smile more, Jason. You look normal when you do.

Normal? He repeated.

You look happy. And that’s what you should strive for. She finalized and took the Robin Nuggets from his tray, grinning when he let out a noise of complaint.

When they could finally move after consuming so much food, she tugged him along to the department store that had closed hours before and while Jason wasn’t one to ever care about breaking and entering, he did have a problem with property that wasn’t a center for criminal activity.

Don’t be a baby. She griped and slipped in though one of the vents and Jason merely stared at the opening before he heard her yell to him. Get a move on! We have stuff to do!

Begrudgingly, he squeezed himself into the way too small vent and shimmied after her.

And Harley Quinn must’ve been planning this for a while because when his feet finally hit the floor, he watched as she started disabling security cameras and alarms in the entire building before spinning around and grinning at him.

Mall’s ours. Let’s get it. And she was off.

Bruce was not going to be happy about this but watching her swing that electrified bat at the glass windows, watching them shatter into millions of shards stirred up something devious in him and Harley was cackling when he broke a window with an armored elbow and yanked out the mannequin, tugging the black leather jacket off before shrugging it on.

He posed with his shoulders squared and strong and she clapped her hands. Looks good! Wanna go hit one of the jewelry stores and find some silver earrings to go with it?

Jason nodded and somehow Harley ended up piggybacking on him, giggling profusely when he started belting out Queen at the top of his lungs; she even joined when they got to the operatics.

And somehow, he let her convince him to go and help her raid the major makeup store in the mall. Harley managed to fill three backpacks full of lipsticks, foundations, eye-shadows, and a whole lotta other shit that Jason had no idea what they were for.

How much money do you think all that is? He inquired and she shrugged.

Probably a grand? Maybe two if I’m being honest. This place is a money-sucking-makeup-hog and I’ll be damned if I’m paying a hundred bucks for one set of lipstick and eyeliner.

She turned to him. Anywhere you wanna go? There’s a map out there if you wanna go look.

Jason nodded and walked out of the store while she was busy filling whatever belt pocket wasn’t empty.

After a few minutes, he heard, Found anywhere?

He pointed silently at one of the stores on the brightened map and she squinted, looking it over.

You wanna go there?

Wouldn’t’ve suggested it if I didn’t.

She shrugged and piggybacked him again. Lead the way, Jason.

He hated that the elevators had been out, and while he hadn’t broken a sweat carrying Harley up three flights of immovable stairs, his knees and his back were killing him when they finally got to the store.

He started wandering inside but stopped when she tossed him a duffel bag.

Fill it up with everything you want.

Jason tried to smile but could only manage a grimace as he stepped in and started going up and down the aisles. He wasn’t too picky with his choosing. Books that looked like they’d help manage his pain he shoved in the duffel bag. An electric pulsing gel pad went in too followed by a vibrating roller he could stretch his muscles on.

He was flipping through a book geared towards mindful chronic pain management when he felt her slide next to him.

Finding everything alright?

Mostly…this one is all about conditioning the mind to work with the pain.

Sounds useful. Meditation and mindfulness have been known to work. It’s really all about placebo-ing your mind into it. She looked at him. Jason, do you ever think about going to a physical therapist?

He scoffed. I already go see a shrink. Why would I go see another doctor?

Because your mind is one thing, and your body is another. Her hand was cool when she placed it on his arm. Jason, if you’re in pain, there are people who can help you.

He really wanted to be snarky but all he could do was glare at her. And what about you? Do you go see a doctor for all the things he did to you too?

Harley gazed at him for a long time before answering him firmly. I will if you do. Or… she started, then trailed off and picked up a few books on physical therapy. You can come to the apartment that Ivy and I live in and we can do it together.

And Jason blinked in shock because he’d never met a person who would agree to do something for themselves if he did something for himself, an agreement for dual help.

You’d really do that for me? For you too?

Harley smiled, big and pearly white, red lipstick a bit smeared in the corner from their meal earlier.

We’re both screwed up cause of what he did, Jason. But here’s where we’re different from everyone else.She linked her arm with his, leaned close and murmured. We’re not going to stew in it while healing is in our futures.

You know we’ll never be one hundred percent fixed, right?

It’s not about fixing, Jason. It’s about healing. Healing doesn’t mean you’re fixed. Memories, pain, it’ll always be there and no amount of management for pain or therapy is going to fix that.

She stared up at him. But it will remind you that you’re still you. Even if there’s a few broken pieces here and there. And no one can take that from you. Not even him.

Jason’s lungs were too tight to form words and his eyes stung horribly but he managed to swallow the lump enough to choke out his reply. You’re alright, Harley.

Smiling, she pressed her cheek into his bicep. Call me Harleen, Jason.

Not Harley?

No, not Harley. I only let the ones I care about call me Harleen.

Does this mean we’re friends then?

Oh, this absolutely means we’re friends now. Best friends, in fact. She tugged at his arm. And I think there’s a Wayne Enterprises outlet somewhere in here and I think we should leave Brucie boy a message.

Jason laughed and wiped his eyes, hurrying after her. Can we spray paint dicks everywhere?

Only if I can spray paint boobs.

You’ve got yourself a deal, Harleen.

Jason expected a lot in his life. To be yelled at by his family for being a pain-in-the-ass son and brother, to be injured on the job, to see a therapist every Tuesday and Thursday, to call his family every night to tell them he loved them.

But the one thing he never expected, was to find one of the greatest friends he’d ever had in a woman he had once been on opposite sides with.

He also didn’t expect Batman to come through the window of the outlet in the middle of their spray painting but that’s another story for another time.

[nissakii]

Significance of “Madness” in anime

We’ve already established in other posts about significant emotions and concepts in anime or specific media before. The Significance of losing or the one of visuals and metaphors in Haikyuu!! are some of those I would love to mention here, but today we shall delve into a broader topic that goes more along the lines of Makii’s thrilling post about Danganronpa and the Significance of Despair.

Today, our topic of interest is madness.

To ease your mind, in this post we will be talking about the representation of insanity and madness in some anime characters and how that reflects on the story and ourselves as an audience.To make one thing clear, a lot of the times we see overexaggerated versions of unstable characteristics in anime that aren’t realistic.

This is in no way a discussion about actual mental illnesses and not a professional approach to analysing them to our real life standards, but maybe a start to an interesting discussion about how we portray and handle what one may colloquially call “craziness”.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s start!

Artists, and no matter for example if they write or draw, use their platforms to deliver messages in cryptic ways. As humans, we have the innate ability to look at something and consume the facts through entertainment which makes us crave new media to follow and analyse.

We love to question things instead of just taking them as they are, and that is why most writers out there will play around with the perception of their audience.

You may be familiar with the common question that ghosts through your head as you enjoy the latest episode of your favorite anime.

Why did he do that? Is she a traitor? What makes them think that way?

Although one might always do it consciously, we most definitely analyse whatever media we consume and decide for ourselves if it is important enough to keep in mind for future reference.

What the writer or founder of the anime ultimately wants from the reader is a reaction.

No matter what they intend to do with it, if they enjoy the viewer getting excited or traumatised is not of importance, but a reaction is evidently one of the goals. 

And as strong emotions always evoke an even stronger reaction, anime characters are often very idealized and have ideologies that make them want to do one particular thing.

Be it save the world or destroy it, we focus and look at these characters and root for them if they give us a reason to do so. 

Both sides of good and bad can have deeply rooted admiration drawn out of us, and it sometimes doesn’t even matter because the more interesting part is the lovely grey area in between. 

We need a balance of good and bad to enjoy both.

Empathy makes us viewers want to relate to the characters, and if the author gives us the possibility to learn why someone does something, it gets harder and harder to dislike them. That’s why tragic backstories and flashbacks are such an overused tool in anime, because with the extreme behaviour some characters show they also need equal amounts of redemption.

We attach ourselves emotionally to characters depending on our personal tastes as well.

If someone likes and relates to a strong and independent protagonist who would drop anything for the sake of justice, you will find a lot of resembling characters in shounen for example.

On the other hand, if a darker or more obsessive character manages to take over a special place in a viewer’s heart, putting them on a pedestal gets more and more interesting, because you’re not supposed to.

Contrary to that, characters with insane or dark personality traits are often very popular, again tracing this back to human instinct of emphasising with wronged characters and curiously inspecting the fully deranged ones.

As this isn't something that should be put into vague concepts, we’re instead going to look at examples of characters and entities that are seen as ‘mad’ and how they’re interpreted.

It’s not just about villains being unreasonably immoral in this post, as we look into what madness entails and how it's shown, we also have some examples of corruption to look at.

So of course there are the typical evil-thinking evil-doing villains out there. 

Some of them have an actual backstory to make them more realistic and believable, some others are just pure evil. While they are often called mad for their actions to achieve their goal, the reason why they are put into that light is the stark contrast between the protagonist and the villain.

If the protagonist loves to save people and always has a smile on his face, of course he will differ from his counterpart when he finds out that his methods are a bit more vicious.

The protagonist perceives the villain as insane most of the time, but what does the viewer think?

We seek to look not only at characters that are enjoyable to watch, but also try to find similarities between us and them or draw lines in their behavior to understand them better. As mentioned before, empathy plays a huge role here as well, since whatever happens in anime doesn't have actual repercussions, we can forgive characters more easily. 

For example when they are taken by Insanity as a side effect rather than being insane due to trauma, we often get an 'ally turned traitor' trope through hypnosis or brainwashing, which is just as interesting to look at. 

If a person did something horrible under the influence of something they had no control over, are they still to blame? 

Does Insanity only involve a separate entity that comes from evil, or are we also looking at the gradual descent into darkness when life just isn't the same anymore? 

Insane and with no fear: Soul Eater

A great example of how insanity plays with characters be they good or bad is Soul Eater. 

With a premise that one needs a sound mind and body to inhibit a sound soul, we obviously know that people close to becoming Kishin-eggs will have a rotten soul drenched in bad deeds, but what about the good guys? 

In this instance we have a lot of different types of madness and insanity that touches multiple characters at different times, and by far the most drastic would be the black blood. 

The black blood being a synthesized weapon form of blood that can change form and harden into shape, is a weapon made by Medusa and introduced for the first time with Crona. He was melded together with Ragnarök as a weapon and used the black blood in his proficient fighting style. 

Soul Eater as well as Maka and other characters later come into contact with the black blood, and the consequence of the immense strength that comes with it is debilitating madness. 

As explained in the anime, the madness makes one deny the soul of oneself and others and takes away your fear. Now with no fear present, the person exhibits extremely erratic behavior and is not scared to hurt others or themselves.

This is an insanity that shows how essential a person's fear is, shown by Maka in one of the latest episodes when she fights Asura. The fact that she learned how to accept her own fear and realise that humans need it to survive is why insanity in Soul Eater is merely a concept to differentiate between what is human and what is Kishin. 

A Kishin kills and murders with no fear of anything. 

A human protects and masters one's own fear. 

The power hungry insanity: Hunter x Hunter

In Hunter x Hunter we have a lot of characters that don't exactly fit the norm of human action. 

With people like Chrollo, Illumi and even Chimera Ants there is enough crazy to go around. 

Still, the character we shall delve into to look at a different kind of instability is none other than Hisoka Morow.

Yes, in comparison to black blood madness Hisoka is an actual human being with no known influence outside of his own intellect. The contrary to another weapon or entity making someone insane is being shown in this anime.

Hisoka is just insane. 

We have no means to see if there is anything that might have caused Hisoka to be the way that he is, but what we do know is that his character is almost too nonchalant for his own good. 

His goal is to accumulate power and fight others that he seems worthy, as that is what attracts him. No person is spared if he believes he found a worthy opponent he will make that clear to them and pursue them passionately. 

We could rule that the clown is just eccentric, but with the given information from the anime he definitely had some sort of mental difference next to his peers. Harming himself holds no problem to him, and his behavior is deeply rooted only to suit himself. He has no self-preservation except for when he needs to accomplish something, and he even enters the spiders just to get close to Chrollo. 

Now we see a single person carry themselves throughout a story only to achieve one thing: a good fight. 

After having looked at these two examples of insanity in anime, let's look at how that insanity can be portrayed visually. 

A famous way to show someone's psychosis is the “Kubrick stare”. A directorial technique that got named after the director Stanley Kubrick who used a forward tilt of the head with eyes locked onto the camera to show the actors of his movies at their peak of madness. It became a very popular stylistic device and is used still very often in modern movies.

The character is supposed to look menacing, evil-plotting and absolutely unhinged.

Such devices, if used often enough, automatically invoke the message to the viewer.

If you’ve seen the Kubrick stare once in a psychotic character, you will definitely associate it with the same derangement again.

In anime we have a similar thing, and you might be aware of this already.

Familiar with the ‘eye angle just before a character goes insane’ meme?

It’s a running gag that shows multiple characters such as Asura from Soul Eater, Pain from Naruto, Light from Deathnote and Jason from Tokyo Ghoul in a frame where you can only see their eyes and it somehow looks extremely grotesque as if they were looking into different directions with their eyes.

As much as it is a joke, it is a perfect example of something extremely similar to the Kubrick stare used in anime culture. It goes so far that if any anime watcher would see a new character look like in a frame, one would assume they were about to go crazy.

Even Oikawa Tooru from Haikyuu!! was shown with a Kubrick stare in the last moments of the second Seijoh vs. Karasuno game, when his desire to win overtook him with incredible force.

Without loss there naturally can’t be any wins, and without sadness there will be no joy in laughter.

We need the different depictions of what one might call madness, to fill our stories with nuance that relies on our reality.

Be it an unknown entity, hunger for power, lack of fear or the good old fashioned thrive for world domination.

Madness is just another part of what we call life, and to be honest in healthy doses and for effect why not enjoy it in anime?

Now, do you guys know any other characters or concepts in anime that would be worth mentioning? I would love to see them in the comments! 

Until then, stay sane!

-Nissa

[justanotherpersonsuniverse]

Game Master Akuma AU by  crisisdparity

Xavier Duchamp was rather proud of himself. What he had before him was an absolute masterpiece of a campaign if he did say so himself. The product of over six months of study, research, and rebalancing efforts followed by two weeks of discussion with his five players to hash out schedules, meeting times, characters, backstories, potential character arcs, and getting them set up with a messaging app that was really good for sending discrete messages between the GM and the players. Valentine and her boyfriend Justin were onboard in an instant. Within days, he’d greenlighted their Half-Elf Bard of the College of Glamour whose spell list was 100% Illusion spells and Half-Orc Fighter (Eldritch Knight) who was focusing entirely on Abjuration as Rena Rouge and Carapace respectively. Olivia had spent a few days coming up with a Halfling Rogue and debating subclasses with him until settling on Scout. Along with some discussion over how her special magic item’s stunning and paralysis effect would work with Sneak Attack, the campaign had its Vesperia. Jeanette had gone back and forth with him for a week looking at various homebrew subclasses for her Gnome Artificer before they both agreed on one particular Master Tinkerer entry that would be balanced and do the character justice. And with that they had their Ladybug. Even Matt was on board with a stealthy human Chat the Barbarian using the Path of the Beast. The class choice was something Matt had insisted on (and that Xavier would have suggested anyway just for the high hit point totals given Matt’s history with characters dying) and he’d even come up with a backstory that Xavier felt was quite compelling compared to Matt’s usual efforts. Morally ambiguous, likely to be tempted by promises of power, but with a great deal of story potential to work with. Which was a relief. Getting a new player into their group to replace Matt was not something Xavier really felt comfortable with. There were too many unknowns with introducing a new person, far too many for him to risk his masterpiece on an unknown factor. He knew Matt. He could work with Matt. Despite the history. He’d put everything he had into this. Every known Akuma ever fought by the heroes had been made into a boss-tier foe. He’d carefully documented each and every power the heroes had shown to craft special legendary magic items based on the Miraculous. Hawkmoth and Mayura themselves were going to be the final bosses of his campaign. In response to criticism about the difficulty of his campaigns (he tried to make them fair, but still challenging enough to be memorable), he’d made several guest NPCs based on every other hero that had ever been called upon, statted out like player characters that might show up in a pinch to help. He even had a genuine Deus ex Machina that he was ready to use to get the players out of a truly impossible jam if they found themselves in one. Not always, but a few times at least. Enough to get them to the point where they wouldn’t need it anymore. —– It was thirty minutes in, right in the middle of exposition from the Guardian NPC, when Xavier got his first message on the app. Matt/Chat - Chat’s going to wait until everyone breaks up and follow Ladybug stealthily. Xavier/GM - Starting party conflict on the first session? Not what I’d advise, but it’s your character. Go ahead and make your Stealth roll now. Matt/Chat - <photo> 17 Xavier/GM - Yeah, that beats everyone’s passive Perception easily. You’ll sneak off handily without anyone noticing. —– “Jeanette, Ladybug is grabbed from behind by an unknown assailant. Roll to resist the grapple.” “Geez, already? Okay, what did my assailant get for their grapple? How screwed am I?” Xavier pretended to roll a die while consulting the message from Matt. “19.” “Okay, difficult, but not undoable… Crap.” “What’d you get?” “Nat 1…” “Hah! I rip off her earrings and claim them for myself! The Wish is mine!” “Seriously Matt?! What the hell?!” “Because it’s payback time! Payback for every character of mine killed in these hellish

campaigns!” “Oh, come on! You’re not the only person whose had a character die at this table! <GM> runs some pretty challenging campaigns, but they’re always fair!” “What about the time he killed Allric the Allmighty in a single round of combat?” “Dude, you tried to Leroy Jenkins straight into melee with a 4th-level Wizard that had a CON penalty. Even at full health you had like 10 hp.” “14!” “Not much better, dude.” “Guys, it’s fine. I can handle this. Okay, Matt. Chat the Barbarian managed to get the earrings-” “Yeah, Ladybug screams bloody murder when he rips them out. Good luck getting out of this in one piece.” “The moment Rena hears Ladybug scream, she bolts for the sound.” “So does Carapace.” “Vesperia too.” “-and with their current locations and movement speeds, I assume you’re all using the Dash action?, you’ve got maybe one round to decide on your Wish before they’re all over you, so choose carefully. And be aware that I plan to grant whatever you wish for in the worst possible way, just as I would if any of the others pulled this.” “Rena screams ‘What the HELL, Chat?! We’re supposed to protect the Miraculous, not use them for our own selfish purposes! Didn’t you listen to the Guardian? Such actions always bring misfortune upon those who misuse the Miraculous!’” “Because I am Chat, avatar of Destruction and I WISH THIS WORLD NEVER EXISTED!” There was dead silence at the table. “Matt… What… just… WHAT?!” “Hah! You like that?! How does it feel now that the shoe’s on the other foot, huh?!” “What the hell is your problem, Matt?!” “My problem? MY problem?! Do you know how much time I’ve spent making characters for these shitty campaigns only to have them turned into paste in one session?!” “Because you made primary spellcasters and played every last one of them like a barbarian, charging in headfirst without thinking! All of us breathed a sigh of relief when you revealed that your character finally matched your playstyle!” “I HATE BARBARIANS! THEY’RE BORING! I SHOULD GET TO PLAY CHARACTERS THAT CAN AT LEAST CHUCK FIREBALLS!” “THEN MAYBE YOU SHOULD STOP RUNNING THEM FACE FIRST INTO ENEMY SWORDS!” “NONE OF YOU COULD EVER HANDLE THE FACT THE I MAKE MORE AWESOME CHARACTERS THAN ANY OF YOU, SO YOU JUST LET THIS DOUCHEBAG KILL THEM OFF SO YOU WOULDN’T GET OVERSHADOWED BY HOW AMAZING I AM! WELL NOW I KILLED SOMETHING YOU ALL WORKED HARD ON, SO SUCK IT! I’M DONE WITH ALL OF YOU FOREVER!” “MATT! HEY! GET BACK HERE YOU JERK! MATT!” “Crap, I think Olivia might actually kill him this time…” “It’s going to take all of us to stop her from getting arrested at least.” Xavier just watched numbly as the rest of the group ran out of his apartment. Over six months of work. Gone in less than an hour. He’d given so much to making sure this would work. He’d apologized to Matt at least twice for every character of his that had died to get him to come back. He’d agreed to demand after demand just to keep a familiar face on board, never dreaming he’d pull something like this. He’d nearly gotten fired from his job trying to rearrange his schedule to fit with everyone else’s. They’d somehow, miraculously, gotten the whole day with no other obligations among any of them and decided to make the first session a true marathon. They’d meet in the morning after breakfast and eat both lunch and dinner at the game table before calling it a night late in the evening. It was barely 10:00 in the morning and the whole campaign he’d slaved over for months was kaput. He never noticed the butterfly landing on his custom Miraculous-themed Game Master screen and being absorbed into it. “Game Master, I am Hawkmoth. Few people appreciate the kind of effort that goes into making something truly grand and memorable. I shall give you the power to bring your entire world to life and in return, I ask only for a few simple things.” This was wrong. Hawkmoth was the worst of the worst. The kind of person who would be at home among all the final bosses he’d ever made for his campaigns. Heartless, manipulative, cruel. “Not

enough? Ah, but what is a game without players? How would you like to have the Miraculous heroes themselves run your great campaign? Surely they would be far more appreciative than those ungrateful peons that left you alone with nothing but the broken remains of your efforts.” He knew all these things, but the allure of bringing the world he’d spent so much time on to life… What creator could ever turn down an offer like that? “I, the Game Master, accept… Hawkmoth.” “Excellent. And in exchange, you shall bring me one of two things: The Miraculous, or the identities of their wielders.” “No.” Hawkmoth was silent for a moment. “I beg your pardon?” “I said no. I am the Game Master. I make the world. I craft the challenges. I decide the rewards. But I do not do anything for anyone. If you want these things, get them yourself.” “If you refuse me, it shall be very unpleasant for you.” “No. As Game Master, I decide the limits of all powers within my realm. And I decide that you have none over me.” And with that, he unleashed his creation over all of Paris, drawing everyone and everything within into his sphere of influence. —– Ladybug blinked the spots (ha) out of her eyes as the flash of light died down and looked at herself. She didn’t remember transforming, but she was clearly in her spots. Except her red and black superhero uniform didn’t usually look like it was headed to a steampunk convention. Looking around, she tried to figure out what had happened and her eyes landed on a familiar belt and pants combo. Problem. Whoever this was, their groin was at eye level for her. She looked up. And up. To find a grinning Chat Noir, sans anything resembling a shirt and having put on at least a foot of height and apparently a hundred pounds of pure muscle, grinning down at her. “How’s the weather down there?” Chat Noir chuckled as he flexed his unfairly attractive muscleman physique. “I WILL END YOU!” the heroine snarled, already 100% done with whatever new insanity Hawkmoth had cooked up. Characters: Ladybug - Gnome Artificer (Master Tinkerer - Homebrew) Chat Noir - Human Barbarian (Path of the Beast) —– Vesperia had to admit, as Akuma attacks went, this was pretty dope. She was currently a halfling. A halfling! If it wasn’t for her fantasy ensemble being yellow and black, she’d have thought she stepped straight out of Lord of the Rings. Of course, fantasy setting or not, there were still things she’d have rather left back in the real world. Like racism. And stigma against mixed couples. Not directed at her, but rather at the two walking down the street next to her. “You know, people are staring…” she said as she craned her head to look at her companions. “Let them,” the Half-Elf Rena Rouge (who looked like a cross between a musician and a belly dancer) said from her perch atop the shoulders of the heavily armored (and surprisingly buff) Half-Orc Carapace. “They’re just jealous because their boyfriends can’t carry them everywhere.” Characters: Vesperia - Halfling Rogue (Scout) Rena Rouge - Half-Elf Bard (College of Glamour) Carapace - Half-Orc Fighter (Eldritch Knight) —– Ryuko blinked as she studied the apparent snake-man-thing before her who claimed to be Viperion. She lifted a hand to study it and found what appeared to be bronze scales covering every inch of her skin. She sniffed herself, smelling the sharp tang of ozone. What was she? And why did she appear to be wearing wooden armor? Characters: Ryuko - Dragonborn (bronze) Druid (Circle of Storms - Third Party) Viperion - Naga Sorcerer (Divination Magic - Homebrew) —– Polymouse giggled as her friends ran over her. Okay, she’d freaked out a little to find a swarm of mice (with hair like hers no less) crawling all over her surprisingly mouse-like body when she’d come to in the middle of some forest somewhere. But she’d gotten over it pretty quickly. It helped that her new friends were adorable. It might help more if she could figure out where she was. Or find another person. Characters: Polymouse - Kobold

(rodentlike) Ranger (Swarmkeeper - Reskinned) —– Purple Tigress sighed as she felt the hair (fur?) on the top of her head being shifted around and twitched her new catlike ears in mild annoyance. “Are you quite done?” “Almost!” Pigella’s cheerful voice answered. “Your fur is so comfy!” Tigress sighed. Of course Pigella would end up being a fairy, and having her normal cheerful enthusiasm cranked up to previously unimagined levels. “I love you dearly, but if you start shouting 'hey listen’ I will stick you in a bottle.” “Aw, I love you too! Hey, what’s that?” “I think it’s my character sheet?” Characters: Purple Tigress - Tabaxi Paladin (Oath of Glory) Pigella - Fairy Cleric (Order Domain - Reskinned) —– “According to my analysis, we have been placed into what appears to be a Dungeons and Dragons campaign under 5th edition rules,” Pegasus stated in a mechanical monotone. “I am apparently a Warforged Wizard using the School of Conjuration whose spells create portals to bridge dimensions and summon or banish my intended targets. You are what is known as a Simic Hybrid, with the class of Monk, following the Way of the Drunken Master.” “Aweshum,” King Monkey slurred, his generally human appearance clad in monk’s robes marred by his monkey-like hands and feet as well as the monkey tail swishing behind him. “Why do you keep slurring like that? According to my sensors, your gourd is filled with only water.” “Gotta keep up appearanshes!” King Monkey grinned as he continued faking drunkenness. Characters: Pegasus - Warforged Wizard (School of Conjuration - Reskinned) King Monkey - Simic Hybrid Monk (Way of the Drunken Master) —– Hawkmoth studied the dark red horns growing out of his head in the mirror. The change in appearance was disconcerting, but he felt a rush of power in this new form that he’d never felt before. “Hmm… perhaps I can work with this…” “Speak for yourself…” Mayura muttered off to the side, ruffling her peacock-like feathers in annoyance as she tried to glare at the beak on her own face. Characters: Hawkmoth - Tiefling Dark Lord, Warlock Patron, Contracted by Lila Rossi, Volpina, Queen Wasp, and many others. Mayura - Kenku Assistant to the Dark Lord, Creator of Monsters —– “Oh, come on!” A figure in a cyan and white hooded robe complained as they waved a similarly colored umbrella around angrily. “Everyone else gets to be part of this adventure, why can’t I join them?” “Because you’re too OP. You’d completely break everything and remove all challenge from the adventure.” “But sitting around is no fun at all!” “If you like, I can put you in the position of the main quest giver. Your job would be to direct them towards their enemies and means of becoming stronger.” “That’s it?! I’m on 'mysterious hooded figure’ duty? Boo! Why can’t I fight with them?!” “Because you’re too OP. But if you insist, I’ll allow some Deus ex Machina interventions.” “YES!” “Five.” “I’m sorry?” “I’ll allow five interventions at your discretion to aid them when they are in peril. Once you have come to their aid five times, I will allow no more meetings save to impart quest information.” “That’s it?” “Yes. Choose your interventions wisely.” “So… if I manage to save one for when they fight Hawmoth and Mayura in the final battle…?” “Then I would allow you to join them of course.” “Score!” Characters: Bunnyx: Mysterious Hooded Figure, Deus-ex-Machina (5) Game Master: Akuma Lord of the Miraculous Campaign —– Addendum When the Game Master is finally purified and the damage reversed, it turns out that he took the effort to trap all of Paris in a temporal stasis bubble so that no matter how long passed inside no more than a few moments passed outside. Meaning that after what seemed like months in the bubble, it’s basically less than a minute after he was akumatized when everything is put back. All his friends, minus Matt, come back in bringing a new person named Zack that they vetted themselves to take Matt’s place in case he pulled something like what he did. And while he

has a similar playstyle to Matt, he’s savvy enough to know what kind of characters that is suited for and he loves playing barbarians. They all sit back down and restart the game they were all looking forward to.

—-

oh wow- that’s- wow. good job dude, seems like you worked on this a lot. Next time You should post this on your own account though, as this isn’t getting tagged or anything. Thank you though, you did a good job with this.

[ignitification]

so endevor had to do was admit his wrong doings not avoid responsibilty and their will be public backlash or support depending on what he says

I would like to answer this by asking you to look at this panels from chapter 300.

Thing is, Endeavour, as the number one hero in Japan has duties and responsibilities. One of them is to set and example, a precedent. However, he has also advantages that come with his position, and more specifically he, as in individual is sheltered against some reactions and actions which instead might affect more deeply other heroes who are not as prominent as Endeavour.

As a Symbol, Endeavour holds the faith in heroes and his duty to prioritise people above everything else. In Enji’s case, this is summed to his ambitions to beat All Might and then to fill the humongous shoes he left after retiring. The thing is, Enji, as a person, does not know how to balance it all out. He fails as Endeavour, and he failed as Enji. And he admits to his mistakes, finally, after years of trying to somehow avoid them. But this sole admission of what he has done in the past comes for the price of Dabi exposing him.

He needed his wrongdoings being broadcasted to the entire nation, that, critique or not, still holds him on a pedestal just because he is a hero. And the fact that now, the status of hero is in discussion, puts Endeavour in discussion. But it is not for his crimes and lacks only, no - because after all Endeavour is still a hero, he has done a lot of ‘good’ and Dabi is still a villain, who has killed ‘innocent’ people. 

This brings us to the following point: it is very convenient how a lot of heroes retired, which means that the ones left will take the blame yes but as well the glory, as well as they will shoulder the remaining hopes of the people not to fall into the darkness of an era of destruction and they will accept anyone for this role, because after all darkness is scary and if a sacrificial lamb (heroes, whoever they might be) will throw themselves head first into danger situation, why would civilians refuse? Furthermore, there is the fact that the situation is such a mess, and there are disorders everywhere that factually, no one has the time to think about how Endeavour’s behaviour has hurt his family. So, even if there is an uproar about the confessions made by Dabi, people remain still wary of that - and that’s because Dabi as a character, does not make an impact (for Horikoshi) as much as Endeavour does. Finally, there is also the Hero Commission not existing anymore, so no one to respond to - and no one to punish heroes for their wrongdoings. It’s all up to them, the heroes.

So, yes, responding to your last point, it would cost Endeavour just few words of Endeavour to dismiss, at least, some of the doubt, people have in for him. This points are further strengthened by the same fact that happens to Hawks: even if he committed murder, he is free and well because first and foremost the one he killed was a villain, so his murder can be justified to serve the greater good. And if Endeavour were to say that what happened was because he was training his son so hard for him to be a hero, and to serve society after, how many people do you think would buy it?

[robininthelabyrinth]

Strange Creatures Brothers Be (aka WWX & NMJ sworn brothers) - part 1, part 2, part 3

-

“Not in a million years,” Wei Wuxian said flatly. “We could all reincarnate a thousand times over, and the answer will still be no.”

Lan Xichen seemed surprised by his refusal, or perhaps merely the vehemence of it. “Is there a reason you won’t consider it, Wei-gongzi? As you know, sworn brotherhood has many advantages for both sides –”

“No. You wanted to ask me: I answered. No.”

“It’s bad luck to have a brotherhood of four,” Nie Mingjue opined, offering up a face-saving reason when it was clear to anyone who had eyes that Wei Wuxian wasn’t the sort of person to be deterred by superstition, especially superstition around death and dying. He would be a very poor demonic cultivator if he were. “Besides, Xichen, even if we aren’t sworn brothers, we are friends who went through life and death together – that’s a bond in itself, a well-respected one.”

Friends of life and death was, in fact, a well-recognized bond between men. It just wasn’t as good as being sworn brothers.

Take that, Meng Yao.

…in reflection, Wei Wuxian will admit that his motives to reject Lan Xichen’s proposal were, perhaps, somewhat petty. 

Lan Xichen clearly wanted to establish a close tie between them, to balance his old friendship with Nie Mingjue with his new closeness with Meng Yao, to help Nie Mingjue repair his relationship with his old deputy. Just as clearly, Nie Mingjue was halfway seduced by Lan Xichen’s arguments that being sworn brothers would give him the ability to act as a guide and check to Meng Yao, to help him the way he had previously (and still) helped Wei Wuxian.

And Meng Yao –

Meng Yao probably just wanted to leverage it for his own personal promotion, the rotten snake. Scheming fox.

Dog.

Wei Wuxian was aware that his hatred for the other man might be a little irrational.

After all, Meng Yao had explained, and oh so very earnestly, too, how he had had no choice but to take certain actions necessary to lead to Wen Ruohan’s demise: the bodies of the Nie cultivators he’d killed, the cruel words and vicious strikes he’d subjected Nie Mingjue to, even citing as necessary that Wen Ruohan be distracted by the joy of Nie Mingjue’s capture, which obviously he’d arranged himself by sending false information through Lan Xichen.

Three days and nights of torture, Wei Wuxian growled in his heart, no matter that Nie Mingjue was already shrugging it off – he really would do anything if it helped the war, and while that may have benefited Wei Wuxian once before, such blatant disregard for his own well-being was no longer acceptable now that they were sworn brothers themselves. Mark your words, da-ge; if you want me to care for myself, you’d better do the same!

And of course Lan Xichen took the dog’s side, arguing that he knew Meng Yao, that Nie Mingjue knew Meng Yao, that his motives were just even if the actions were questionable –

“What about his actions in Langya?” Nie Mingjue had shouted when Lan Xichen had first raised the idea to him. Wei Wuxian had overheard him from the next room over, still in bed and recovering the way Nie Mingjue should have been doing - but Wei Wuxian wasn’t a sect leader, with all the obligations and duties that came with it; Nie Mingjue had had to drag himself out of bed far too early to deal with it all, and now he had to deal with this, too. “The premeditated murder of his own superior…!”

Wei Wuxian hadn’t heard Lan Xichen’s defense to that, too low to be listened in on, but whatever he’d said, it had been convincing enough to get through Nie Mingjue’s defenses, to wiggle in through the cracks created by old affection –

That was the worst of it, in Wei Wuxian’s opinion. 

Nie Mingjue liked Meng Yao.

He had liked him very much once, and still did: Wei Wuxian was painfully aware of that, even though Nie Mingjue had never talked to him about it. It had been obvious even before from the way Nie Mingjue had continued to search for him, clearly hoping to find him safe even as he claimed he wanted to kill him or break his legs, and it was even more obvious now, when the newly dubbed Lianfeng-zun was trying very hard to get back into his good graces.

The chance to help someone he had once cared for, someone he believed needed the help desperately, someone who had wandered off the road of righteousness but could still come back if only someone held out a hand in trust…yes, that was the right way to appeal to someone like Nie Mingjue.

Pity there was a roadblock there, name of Wei Wuxian.

Sometimes Wei Wuxian wondered if his hatred of Meng Yao was truly justified, the way he thought it was. Was the man truly as vile and conniving as he thought? Or was he just drinking vinegar, filled to the brim with petty jealousy that his adored big brother liked someone else too? Spying meant doing things you didn’t like, after all, and the reasons were so seductively convincing…

But Wei Wuxian was petty where Nie Mingjue was not: even if the motive for his refusal was just jealousy, the answer was still no.

It was a good thing that Nie Mingjue was a good brother to those he already had first, willing to help others second: even though he’d been clearly tempted by Lan Xichen’s forthright words and Meng Yao’s slippery arguments, he insisted on consulting Wei Wuxian for his views, since he would be at minimum affected if not explicitly involved.

Wei Wuxian had never once doubted that when he refused, Nie Mingjue would back him entirely.

“Four isn’t always a bad number,” Meng Yao said, and his voice was as pleasant as a rippling brook, his entire demeanor friendly and harmless, as if he only think he wanted or could ever want was to be of service. “After all, with the four of us bound together, we would have a representative from each of the sects: Nie, Lan, Jiang, and Jin.”

“Jin? Has your father accepted you, then?” Lan Xichen asked, attention distracted, and he smiled broadly when Meng Yao inclined his head with a shy smile that Wei Wuxian desperately wanted to punch off his face. “A-Yao! That’s wonderful!”

“There will be a formal ceremony later this week, to which you are all invited,” Meng Yao said. “But he has already recognized me before his attendants, and has even given me the name ‘Jin Guangyao’.”

“Great name,” Wei Wuxian said. “So thoughtful of him to make you part of the older generation, rather than the inheriting one.”

Nie Mingjue somehow managed to make stamping on Wei Wuxian’s foot look as if he were merely shifting his weight from one side to the other. “Congratulations,” he said, and even managed to sound mostly sincere. “I wish you much happiness for having obtained the result you have been striving for.”

Mostly sincere.

Lan Xichen looked a little disappointed in them both.

(It wasn’t nearly as effective as Lan Wangji’s disappointed look, though, so Wei Wuxian considered himself immune.)

“Sadly, we’ve already promised Jiang Cheng that we’d go with him to the Lotus Pier for the second half of the week,” Wei Wuxian said, lying through his teeth with a smile. “With the Nightless City having finally fallen, I need to go light incense for Uncle Jiang and Madame Yu, and I invited da-ge. I need to introduce him, after all.”

There was a flicker of irritation on Meng Yao’s face, quickly suppressed. He was going to say something, probably a suggestion of rescheduling since the dead wouldn’t mind but phrased in a nice pretty neat way that would almost not sound like an insult to Wei Wuxian’s intelligence, when Nie Mingjue nodded.

“And after the Lotus Pier, we must return to the Unclean Realm,” he said. “For much the same purpose. Those who died at Wen Ruohan’s hand or by his order deserve to know that their deaths have been avenged.”

Whatever argument Meng Yao might have been able to muster died at once; Wei Wuixan gleefully hoped he would choke on it. He didn’t even mind the fact that he was now (apparently) committed to going to the Unclean Realm – if anything, that was a good thing, since it’d get him away from the work of rebuilding the Jiang sect.

Something he still hadn’t found a good excuse to avoid.

“I will of course write a letter to Sect Leader Jin congratulating you both on the event,” Nie Mingjue continued, because he was a better person than Wei Wuxian and far too kindly disposed towards Meng Yao. “It will formally recognize you as being my friend of life and death – you can have it read aloud, if that would help.”

If even Nie Mingjue could figure out that their presence was being requested to bolster Meng Yao’s political standing, Meng Yao had clearly been too obvious – he immediately demurred, insisting that he had only wanted to share the joy of the day with them, and only Lan Xichen pretended to believe him.

Maybe he did. More fool he, if so.

After they left, Nie Mingjue turned and leveled Wei Wuxian with a look.

Wei Wuxian grinned shamelessly back. “Next time, ask before announcing changes to your schedule?”

Nie Mingjue looked as though he was on the verge of rolling his eyes. “You’re my sworn brother; if you need me to lie for you, I will do so without requiring explanation,” he said dismissively, as if it was nothing, as if it was obvious, and that was why Wei Wuxian had used the Stygian Tiger Seal for this man. “What I want to know is – why do you dislike Meng Yao?”

Wei Wuxian crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Why are you asking me? You don’t like him, either.”

“I mistrust him,” Nie Mingjue corrected him. “I believe he’s gone down the wrong path – that he’s still focused on glory instead of righteousness, on what people can do for him rather than what he can do for them. Moreover, I’m concerned that the Jin sect will only aggravate those tendencies, and I hope to see him return instead to the man I know he can be. You, on the other hand, actively dislike him. Why?”

There were plenty of reasons, most of them childish – Wei Wuxian would rather die than say it was because Nie Mingjue liked him so much, he felt like Jiang Cheng just thinking it – but the first one, the foremost one, was simple.

“He shouldn’t have said what he said to you,” Wei Wuxian said. “In the Sun Palace. You shared your weakness with him, and he used it against you – it doesn’t matter if it was to keep up his identity or not, he shouldn’t have done it.”

Personally, Wei Wuxian suspected the answer was not. Even before he’d known who Meng Yao was and what he’d done before, he’d heard – as Nie Mingjue, injured, blinded by blood and deafened by pain, had not – the shades of real pleasure in Meng Yao’s voice as he’d mocked Nie Mingjue.

When later, he found that Meng Yao had castigated Nie Mingjue for not understanding him, portraying his lust for glory and power as if it were something virtuous, when he’d heard the full story of Langya, he’d become certain of his conclusion: Meng Yao might have needed to say such cruel things in order to keep his cover, but he’d enjoyed doing it, too.

He’d liked seeing Nie Mingjue at his feet.

Wei Wuxian would never trust someone like that. Not ever, even if Nie Mingjue eventually did.

Nie Mingjue’s harsh features relaxed a little, something almost like a smile curling his lips. “You remember I’m the older brother, right? You don’t need to be offended in my defense.”

Wei Wuxian sniffed and turned his head away, suddenly (belatedly) sympathetic to Jiang Cheng for all the times he’d made a similar argument: that he was older, that he was born a servant, that he wasn’t as important in the great scheme of things…

No wonder it had always sent Jiang Cheng straight into a fury every time without fail. It was, in fact, incredibly irritating to be told that you could only ever be the protected one, never the protector.

“Well, as you know, I’m not very orthodox,” he said lightly. “You’ll just have to put up with it, I’m afraid.”

Nie Mingjue huffed, clearly amused. “Very well. Now that you’ve implicated me, go tell Jiang Cheng about the invitation you issued on his behalf before someone catches you out on your lie.”

Wei Wuxian grinned and sauntered off – Jiang Cheng would be among those helping purify the Nightless City of all the fierce corpses there, same as always. 

They’d finally gotten it to the point that it no longer felt like fighting an uncontrollable forest fire and more like a normal night-hunt. Jiang Cheng had volunteered for practically every shift that was available, using it as informal training for his new disciples, and he went up there with them more often than not.

He hadn’t yet asked Wei Wuxian to join him, though it was only a matter of time – Suibian had been rather pointedly left on Wei Wuxian’s bedside, and it was only the fact that he’d been injured in the attack on the Nightless City that had served as an excuse. An excuse that wouldn’t last much longer.

That was a later problem, though.

“Lighting incense to let them know we’ve avenged them?” Jiang Cheng said when Wei Wuxian informed him of the plan. “Yes, that’s a good idea. We should bring jiejie, too; she hasn’t had an opportunity to go back to the Lotus Pier at all since – since before, anyway. I’ll go pick her up from the Jin camp, if you’ll stay and organize the training shifts for the next few rounds of night-hunting…will you and Sect Leader Nie meet us there when you’re done here?”

Arranging shifts was little more than paperwork. Wei Wuxian could do that, and Nie Mingjue would certainly assist with anything else that might need to be done, if it came to that.

It was good to have a big brother.

“Sounds good to me,” he said with a grin. “Tell shijie I’m looking forward to seeing her.”

“More like eating her soup, you pig,” Jiang Cheng said, rolling his eyes. “Tell Sect Leader Nie that he’s in for a treat…you’ll be going to Qinghe after, you said? For how long?”

“Da-ge didn’t say,” Wei Wuxian said, temporizing. It was a really good excuse to get out of the Lotus Pier, actually. “And we’re going to be friends of life and death with Sect Leader Lan and that dog Meng Yao, though now he’s going to start going by Jin Guangyao; we may need to visit them, too, to solidify it. Though hopefully not.”

Hopefully yes.

“Well, don’t be away too long,” Jiang Cheng said. “I need your help back home. Besides, the Jins have already started talking about setting up some sort of celebration – a hunt at Phoenix Mountain, I think. You have to join us there.”

“Oh, I’ll be there,” Wei Wuxian said. A hunt at Phoenix Mountain – he’d wager Meng Yao would be involved in setting it up, and it’d be a shame to miss that. Besides, it’d be a good opportunity to see some of the people he hadn’t seen in a while, like Lan Wangji. 

He wondered if Lan Wangji would be happier now that Wei Wuxian, who’d been scared straight by his close encounter with disaster at the Nightless City, had started practicing some of the Nie sect techniques designed to help temper resentful energy in their saber spirits.

It helped. He hoped Lan Wangji would find comfort in that – maybe even be proud of him.

“I’ll definitely be there.”

[anonymouslyangsty]

Idea: Escape Room AU. Making a loose interpretation of that one horror movie. Some of the Danganronpa characters are invited to play in an escape room, but find that if they don't solve the puzzles in time the consequences are deadly. Not only that, but each of the rooms are deliberately designed to invoke past traumas of each of the characters. My main motivation? High stress Ishimondo.

YES. 100% yes. You don't know how much I crave action/adventure Ishimondo. Yes domestic fluff is sweet, yes the death game can be intense. But there's something special about people having to actively fight for their lives together, and solving murders just doesn't hit the same.

So yeah I like the idea, it almost gives me YTTD vibes (for those who don't know, Your Turn To Die is like DR but you win puzzles or die. I love it)

(If you're interested, there's a fic that kinda fits this idea. It's Beyond Despair. It's basically "everyone who dies comes back and now they have to do puzzles to survive. I'll try not to take too much inspiration from it for this concept)

But yeah I love this idea. I think things like this do best with smaller groups, so here's an idea: Leon, Hiro, Chihiro, Mondo, and Taka go to an Escape Room over the summer for Mondo's birthday. Then surprise! It's all death trap filled.

Just trying to think of potential rooms on the spot...I warn you that I've only gone heavily into the backstories of Taka and Mondo when it comes to DR1, so I might be missing out on some good ideas.

Hiro has to make a bunch of predictions to stop the others from getting harmed, perhaps a form of Russian Roulette. If he predicts where the bullet is incorrectly, he ends up shooting someone. He's probably not aiming for anything vital just in case, but it would still suck.

Not sure how this relates to trauma. Maybe he messed up an important prediction, and that led to someone getting seriously hurt?

Chihiro's great issue is weakness, which he tries to overcome. So maybe his room is having to hack something with a timer, where failing to do so in time leads to everyone burning alive. It would test his mental fortitude.

Or we could go the physical strength path. Like a situation where the solution is in an area so small that only Chi can enter, but something inside has to be forcefully pulled open. So Chi has to find the strength to do it, either by outsmarting the trap, or pure strength.

Or maybe it's both? Chi has to show both mental and physical strength to pass the trial.

Mondo has his own issues with strength, not to mention his guilt for the whole Daiya thing. Maybe he gets put into a situation where he alone can solve the puzzle, but cannot act. Instead, he has to tell the others what to do.

Think something like the game Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. The basic premise of that game is: there are two players, one with a manual, and another with a bomb. The player with the manual has to instruct the other player on how to defuse the bomb. The player with the bomb cannot see the manual.

And that would be pretty stressful for Mondo. He isn't confident in his intelligence, so having to solve the puzzle alone would already be a problem. Plus there's the fear that he'll fail his friends, that he'll mess up and get them all killed.

For Leon...I'll admit that I don't have a solid idea for him. He wants to leave baseball and become a musician, right? So I'm not really sure how to infuse that desire into his room.

Plus I don't want to make his room just "hit this target to escape" because he can probably do that really easily...But it still needs to be involved with his talent in some way.

Here's an idea. It's not ideal because I'm not sure how well it fits into his character, but at least it includes his talent in a way that won't be horribly easy for him.

The group has to play a game of baseball, Leon vs everyone else (sure the teams are uneven, but Leon's the best baseball player around, so it's fair).

The game has to end with 12 home runs (why 12? there's a dumb reason.). For each point the enemy team gets, the other team is punished somehow. Each punishment is worse than the last.

Leon is a way better player than all of them combined, so it's not about him winning. It's about him deciding who gets hurt. Does he save himself, or save the others? It's a game of selfishness vs selflessness. Not to mention a delicate balance of ensuring nobody's too hurt to keep going.

As for the punishments, we could add another layer of selfish vs selfless actions. Maybe the losing team has to decide among themselves who takes the punishment, or they can all agree to take a slightly less harmful version of it.

And Taka. I'm...not sure? His character is all about morality, but Leon's trial kind of has that covered. There's also his role as a leader, but Mondo's trial covers that. Whatever the case, I'm just going to throw out ideas.

First thought is to focus on Taka's passion and strong work ethic. Think of it as kinda the opposite of Mondo's proposed trial. Taka's placed on some kind of pedestal that leaves him about 8 inches from the ceiling. On top of the ceiling is some kind of button, just far enough away that he has to reach to touch it.

While he's up there, everyone has...some kind of puzzle to solve. I don't know what honestly, probably some moral dilemma or something to keep on theme.

Now here's the point of this trial. Around the beginning of the room, Taka's shot with like half a dose of sedative. Not enough to knock him out, but enough to make the process of reaching up to hold a button pretty hard. Whenever he isn't pressing the button, water starts filling the room. If he passes out, they all drown.

This trial places him in a position of power, as everyone is relying on him to stay strong despite the struggle he's facing. And it's the opposite of Mondo's trial because he has no agency. He can't really help solve the puzzle, all he can do is keep that button held. But it's also similar to Mondo's trial because, if he falters, everyone dies.

The downside to this option is that it has nothing to do with morality. Mondo could just as easily have this trial, since it's more about hard work and strength.

Another option is something that focuses far more on morality. I'm not sure of the details, but perhaps it's a situation where he has to decide who of his friends to hurt to help everyone escape. And he wants to find a solution that leaves everyone unharmed, but that very well might not be possible.

Or maybe something like the prisoner's dilemma? (In very basic terms, you have prisoners A and B. If A and B trust each other, they both escape. If one betrays the other, the one who betrayed escapes with some extra benefit. If both betray, both get nothing.)

In this hypothetical situation, perhaps this is the last trial, just long enough for little resentments within the group to build. For the stress of the situation to make friendship become overshadowed by self preservation. Can they really trust one another to do the right thing, or will they get betrayed?

This is more morality related, but it's also not specific to Taka. Taka doesn't play a lead role, they all do, since they all have to face the dilemma.

Final idea, and admittedly the least formed one. They’re in...some kind of puzzle, with a timer of course because we need the pressure to be one. In the room with them is someone none of them know, bound and gagged.

They can spend time trying to solve the puzzle the hard way, or they can do it the easy way. But the easy way means killing the captive (Maybe they have a key in their stomach or something). And you want to do the right thing, but there's a timer and the moral option takes so much longer.

Taka continues his role as moral compass for this trial. He has to be the one to declare if they go the easy option. If he choose it, he personality has to get the key. There's a knife provided for the task

It could feed on Taka's fears of corruption and morality. Is it better to sacrifice one to save the group? Is he being selfish for trying to save a stranger rather than his friends? Taka has a very black and white view on morality, and this trial would force him to shatter that.

It could also lead into a fear that he'll become just as corrupt as Toranosuke. After all, if he can't solve this trial without any deaths, how can he be a good man?

Honestly? While I called this one the least formed, I think I like it the most. It's a real moral dilemma.

[ilguna]

Lacuna - Chapters 13-16 (f.o)

summary: they say the odds tend to favor those who need them. well, they were wrong.

warnings; swearing. MURDER, GORE.

wc; 10.3k

NOTES; I give reader a last name to fit the world.

–

-- CHAPTER THIRTEEN --

If this is what it’s like to be dead, then you don’t want to be dead anymore. 

First off, it’s cold as all hell in here. It’s like when you were younger and your brothers would throw you into the frigid ass water for fun in the winter. Of course, you could swim back then. Like every other person in district four, you had learned to swim at the sprightly age of four, probably younger. You start young when it comes to knots, fishing and swimming.

By the time you’re seven or eight you’re basically blending in with the water. Most kids by then can swim like they never left the water, they’re fish themselves. You used to race the kids back home all the time to see who could swim fastest from dock to dock. And those were like a quarter to a half a mile apart each. Every single damn time, you somehow managed to beat them. The runner up would always be at least thirty seconds behind you. On good days, more.

Fishing? Well, if you’re old enough to hold a rod then you’re old enough to get your ass sat on the boat. You can surely get something caught on the line, and then your parents would reach over and get the fish off of the hook for you. Then, you throw the sucker back in, and the process repeats. Really, they’re doing all the work, you’re just sitting there to keep the rod from going anywhere when something does tug back.

And knot tying is easy. Clumsy fingers get better as time goes on, but you observe until you’re eight or nine. You don’t start the knots until you’re nine to ten because the chances of the kids fucking up a perfectly good line with a bad line, is more common than you think. Even the prodigies are prone to messing up on the simplest ones. It’s fine though, they’ll learn it in the next couple years of their life, and soon they’ll be doing it in their sleep.

When they’re bored, they’ll ask for a rope or a wire to mess with so they can fuck around and tie knots. Practice gets you everywhere in this day and age, so there’s no better way to do it than when you’re bored. If you can do it without looking, then god damn, you might as well be teaching the others. Sometimes, you still catch Reed looking down to tie them, and he’s been doing it for over ten years by now.

The room is cold, and it only gets worse as time goes on. Sometimes, it’ll ease up just a little bit, but that’s rare. Every couple of hours, you’re certain. It’s not a constant feeling of the warmth of a goddamn grizzly bear snuggled right up against your side. You wish it was though, then you wouldn’t be shivering and chattering your teeth. They hit against each other, and you think that you’ll bite your tongue or chip one of your many teeth.

Not to mention the fact that it’s wet. There’s always the sound of water running, every now and then you’ll get a drop of water on your forehead or something. Furthering the fact that you’re cold. Who knew a single drop of water could ruin the temporary warmth that you’d falsely given yourself?

You, you guess.

“I-I-It’s cold as b-buh-balls in he-here.” you mutter, going to turn over.

The stabbing pain in your lower abdomen makes your eyes snap open, a muffled scream tries to leave your mouth, but a hand reaches over to place it over your mouth. Your entire body begins to ache. From your neck to your thighs. The left side of your face is swollen and your nose is very much crooked. It’s throwing you off.

When you raise your hand to grab the arm, you see that your own are littered in purple, blue and black bruises. In a panic, you shove whoever it is off, as you desperately tear off the sleeping bag without actually ripping it.

You know who it is next to you. You can see the wide green eyes staring at you in shock. His blonde hair is stuck to his forehead like he just came through the waterfall a minute ago. He’s in nothing but his pants, probably letting his jacket and shirt dry. You can already hear him asking you what you’re doing and he hasn’t even opened his mouth just yet.

“Woah--” Finnick starts, the second you unzip the jacket, pulling it off, “Are you cold? You might have hypothermia--”

“It’s not burning!” you snap, pulling your shirt up, and only then do you slow down for a moment. To see the shirt wrapped around your waist and the blood seeping through along with the bruises blossoming across your stomach, “How many of my ribs are broken?”

“I don’t know.” Finnick sits down now, rather than crouching, “I thought you were dead when I found you.”

You look to him, squinting, “When did you find me?”

“The uh--the night that two had died?”

“Very specific.”

“A couple days after Allio had died.” he tells you.

“Three days?” you ask, you’ve barely been keeping track, and now that you’ve been out for fuck knows how long, this entire thing has thrown it off balance.

“Yeah,”

“Who died? I only heard one cannon.” you mutter, zipping the jacket back up, and you notice that the jacket isn’t very breezy in the back.

Motherfucker! He’s tied his shirt around your waist and gave you his jacket. He has to be freezing, and he’s doing it to make sure that you get better. Or Finnick has an ulterior motive, he’s trying to win you back after he pulled that ass move and left you behind.

Finnick’s face twists with worry the second your eyes turn on him, “I’m sorry, okay? I couldn’t just stay there--”

“Like hell you couldn’t!” you shout, shouting hurts your side, but it’s a dull pain.

“Playing pretend? Playing house? I don’t know how you lasted for so long.” he says calmly.

“It was going well until they fuckin’ figured out that I killed Allio,” you sigh, propping yourself up on the rocks behind you.

“You killed Allio?”

“You killed the girl from six?” you mock.

“And Thyme.” he tells you, moving away from you now, and before you can ask, he answers, “Mercy kill.”

“Who died after that?” you ask, running your fingers over your nose. You’re not too thrilled when it doesn’t hurt as badly as you thought it would. It means that it’s setting. Your nose is going to be fucking stuck like this.

“Guys from ten and three.”

You nearly choke on your spit, “Blaire? Blaire’s dead?!” 

“Is that ten or three?”

“Three!” you cry, you can feel the frown on your face before it’s even settled, “He saved me from Lennox. If it weren’t for him, I would have been beaten to death. But I guess he felt like he owed me after I saved him from starving.”

“You saw him a second time?” Finnick looks over his shoulder.

“The day you left I saw him down by the lake or something, don’t remember exactly. Spent most of my time at the pond-lake and he kept showing up. My little bit of company.”

“Leave it to you to make friends in everyone you meet.” he mutters, you glare at the back of his head.

“Leave it to the fourteen-year-old boy to bail on his first alliance to deal with the career pack alone.” you pick up the nearest rock and hurl it at the back of his head for emphasis.

He groans, rubbing it and giving you a small glance over his shoulder, “Like I said--”

“I don’t want another apology.” you tell him, “Or an excuse.”

He doesn’t say anything, staring off into the water.

“Anyone else die?”

“Boy from eight.”

“Any of those kills yours?”

“The girl from eight on the first day, Thyme and the girl from six. Then the boy from ten and also the boy from eight.”

Quick mental math tells you that it’s five. He’s killed five so far, the same as you. Ten people that were in this arena have been killed by the district four participants. Everyone back home must be thrilled. You can’t wait for people to ask you what it’s like being a murder. It happened to Mags, it’ll surely happen to you.

And your response? You’ll ask them if they want to be added to the numbers.

“Damn. You know mine already.” you begin to push yourself up, and with all the noise, Finnick turns.

“What are you doing?”

“Fresh air.”

“You’re going to get the bandage wet.”

“Then I’ll take it off, it’s bloody anyway.” you begin with the jacket.

“Wouldn’t be if you stopped moving.” he mutters.

“I’m going to give you a black eye.” you threaten.

“To go along with yours? Along with that broken nose?”

“Finnick I swear to god, I don’t have a problem with stabbing you to death in here.”

He laughs, “You’re weak. Probably can’t even hold your arms above your head.” it’s quiet for a moment as you debate if you’re willing to prove him wrong, he adds, “That wasn’t a challenge.”

“It’s about to be.” you tell him, grabbing the bottom of your shirt as you very slowly pull it off. It starts in your ribs, and then slowly travels to your shoulders. When the rim--is that the right word?--of the shirt hits your swollen eye, you wince. 

“We’re in the third week, I think. Six people left. Four if it’s just me and you.” he looks over.

Final numbers.

“Well, good.” you say, but it’s not good. You’re covered in bruises, broken bones and a stab wound in your stomach. You’re useless. Finnick could have killed you in your sleep and you wouldn’t have known. It would all have been done for you.

Once you start kicking at your shoes, Finnick realizes that you’re serious. He moves over, untying the boots and then helping with your pants. He carefully unties the bandage, since you hadn’t touched it just yet. And then he takes off his own socks and pants so it won’t get wet. Might as well come back into the little cave with dry things to wear.

It’s daytime, you can see it through the water. You put one hand over the stab place, passing through the water. It’s a little hard on the head, from the gallons of water hitting your head. But as soon as you pass through, you’re heading for the pond-lake water.

“It’s salt.” Finnick says as if you don’t already know.

You slip in, and you can hear Finnick splashing behind you. Probably worrying that you’re going to end up drowning or anything. You can swim even in the worst conditions, he can go fuck himself.

Despite this, he holds beneath your arms, helping you into the water slowly. You want to leave the second that the salt water enters the wound, but you push through it. He can clearly see how uncomfortable you are, but allows you to continue. He’s smart, knows not to try and tell you what’s best for yourself. You need to be up and on your feet, running around like you’re good as new.

Not saying that you want to kill off the last four, but there’s no way that you can stay in here for another week. Another goddamn agonizing week of eating fish, drinking iodized salt water and shivering in a sleeping bag. It has to end, you’re hungry, you’re tired, you’re absolutely exhausted to your very bones.

“Mac, Trink and Lennox and whoever the last--”

“Girl from five.” Finnick interrupts, and you nod.

“Girl from five.” you agree.

“What about them?” his hands are very gentle on your sides, and they eventually fade away in the water.

“They need to--” you try, but Finnick’s hand really is ripped from your arm now, jerking you harshly. You’re about to complain, until he’s pulled beneath the water, sending water flying into the air, “Finnick?” 

How? How has he--you’re standing in the water! You’re fucking standing in it!”

You take in a deep breath, even though your lungs complain, following Finnick under the water. And you see the crevice he slipped into. A ravine in the middle of the pond-lake, and it goes down a while.

He’s reaching up for you, pointing to his ankle, and then making a stabbing motion.

His knife is on the seafloor, so you grab it. Something is holding onto his ankle and he needs you to save him.

You return to the top for air, knowing that it’ll be your last for a few minutes, and then you dive down. It’s probably not smart to have the knife sticking out from your mouth, or for it to be placed there in the first place, but it makes it easier for moving your arms. Before you know it, you’ve hit the crack, and you’re getting closer to Finnick by the second.

You take it out of your mouth, offering the handle to Finnick. His fingers graze it, and then he takes it after. Your lungs are burning, and you wish you could stay, but you’ll only drown. He’s working at his ankle, as you’re swimming up and occasionally looking down at him.

Then, he gets free, and he’s swimming faster than you are straight towards the top. On the way, he makes you wrap your arms around his torso, before he continues. When you’ve broken the surface, he’s gasping for air, you have a pounding headache, and it feels like you’ll never be able to hold air ever again.

“We need to leave.” you tell him, taking his arm as you pull him back to the waterfall, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine.” he tells you, and hisses when you take his hand instead.

You pull it up to look at, tilting your head when you can’t see anything, but then you bring it closer, seeing all the little cuts on his fingers, palms…

“Are you using vines?” you turn to look at him, he nods.

“How’d you know?”

“Because Blaire had the same cuts.”

“Sounds like you and Blaire were getting cozy.” he mutters.

“No time for jealousy after you ran off with Thyme.” you tell him, “the cuts aren’t poisonous I don’t think. You’ll live.”

“Thanks.” he says, “Hungry?”

“I guess.”

It’s a bummer that the pond-lake time was cut short. You were really looking forward for planning out the future. What you want to do as soon as you’re better. Mags has to send shit now, you’re awake and there’s no better way to heal your wounds than when you’re cognizant. 

You’re ringing out your hair, which has grown a little longer in your time of being in the arena, when there’s a series of chimes, stopping you. Finnick looks to the sky from where he’d been staring off into the water.

“What the hell?”

“Congratulations on being the final six alive.” The gamemaker tells you guys, you feel like this is a trap, and you reach for Finnick immediately, he takes your hand, “There has been a rule change. If you and your district partner are still alive, then both of you may be crowned victors in these hunger games.”

You turn to Finnick the same moment he looks to you.

The gamemaker repeats what he says, as if you guys don’t understand. But you heard him the first time. A loud, crystal clear rule change. Who else would miss something this big?

“We can go home.” You laugh, grabbing Finnick, “Four more people and then we can go!”

“Only four?”

“Only four.” You confirm, pulling him closer.

-- CHAPTER FOURTEEN --

The rule change benefits two districts only. There’s obviously yours, you and Finnick are very much alive. District four has to be celebrating at this exact moment. Mox definitely cried when he received the news, and Reed was surprised. You can see it now.

This isn’t the first time the gamemakers have made this change. Every now and then, when there are districts with two people left in them, they’ll make this change. The particular district that wins, brings home their two kids. Celebrations are grand, bigger and better. And it’s expected that the winners are especially grateful. After all, you guys are supposed to be learning from your mistakes your ancestors made.

It’s only happened ten other times in the last sixty years. It’s not allowed during the Quarter Quells, at all. Because those are the special events. The twenty-fifth they chose the tributes, the fiftieth they got double the amount, and in eleven years there will be a third one. You’re just glad that you’re going to be a victor now. So they can’t throw a huge twist like six kids go in or something.

The rule change is never predicted, it’s a random choice. There have been times in the past where someone was able to guess that it would happen. People found out the system on why they did it, and started to find their way around it. After having the rule change twice in a row, the gamemakers realized that tributes were manipulating it.

They would choose the couples. So when everyone was beginning to cuddle up with each other—except for the huge age gaps like the twelve year olds and the fifteen—it became more common. Again, they figured this out and stopped doing it. Now it’s a once in a blue moon sort of thing.

You got really lucky.

You know that Reed is on the edge of his seat now. He’s cheering you on harder, telling you more advice, even if you can’t hear it. He has to be driving everyone around him nuts, even himself. He’ll be afraid to get on the boat to fish because he doesn’t want to miss anything important, like you or Finnick dying. Reed will be counting on Finnick to keep alive.

However, if Finnick were to die, it’s not an automatic crowning to district one—they have Trink and Lennox still alive, which is why there’s a rule change—they have to survive the other tributes. Kill one of them, Trink or Lennox, it doesn’t matter, then the rules will revert. There will be one victor only.

You could still very much win, it would be a lot more difficult. You’ll be fighting against the four others to make it home. Trink or Lennox would have to be the first to go. To even the playing fields, if one of them is dead, then they can’t team up against anyone. 

District One will probably shower the brats with all the riches they can afford. You wouldn’t doubt it if they got special treatment from the Capitol too. They have so many goddamn victors, it’s annoying. There are constantly houses being built for a new victor each year. They don’t win? No biggie, they’ll win next year.

Four won’t get the same treatment as one, or two. You guys will get the houses, the infinite riches and the celebrations the same as everyone else. But it won’t be as grand, it’ll be like the other districts. Four is a career but four is treated like it’s one of the rich districts but nothing important.

Anyway, the rule change is very important. Keep you and Finnick alive, kill the others and go home. You need to wipe out Trink or Lennox, either or, doesn’t matter. And the others will fall into your hands eventually.

“These vines are insufferable.” Finnick whines, you look from where you’re sitting to see that his hands are completely raw.

“Stop touching it!” You kick his arm with your foot, before going back to the fish.

“I can’t, it needs to be fixed.” Finnick mutters, you get up, yanking the damn thing out of his hands before throwing it through the water, “Hey!”

“Mags will send us rope or something,” you tell him, going to look at his expensive ass gift in the corner of the cave, “And then we can make a proper net.”

“Do you even know how?” Finnick puts his hands into the water to wash them off.

“Didn’t I tell you already? Blaire taught me how. I’ll be able to make a sturdy net with some rope.” You tell him.

You take a moment, deliberating if you want to go through the water or not. But the music from a sponsor makes your ears perk up practically, and you’re stumbling through the water, trying to keep your balance from the force of the water. 

Mags has sent a couple of things since you woke. The first thing is the cream for the wound on your side. You’ve been applying it every night, and it’s done it’s magic. It’s nothing but a bright pink scar now. She had nothing for bruises, or broken bones. So you’ve had to tough it out.

Finnick got his gift a couple days after he had left, sometime during the second week. You hadn’t even noticed it until you and him went back inside after the rule change. To see the silver trident staring back at you. Finnick was all smug talking about how it had to have cost thousands. All you could say was that he could have done just the same with a spear. But he told you that it wasn’t the same.

Whatever, both of you have your respected weapons now. He told you his technique on how he killed so many. You listened as he informed you of the net, that he would throw over the people, get them trapped and tangled. Then he would come in with the trident and kill them just like that.

Unfortunately, with that technique, it meant he kept losing the vine-nets. He’s made four, and he was on his way to making the fifth. Finnick wasn’t too fond of the idea of untangling the bodies of the people he killed from the nets. So instead he just let the gamemakers take them, because they’ll be able to cut it apart and take the body after that. Plus, he didn’t want to take the chance of the gamemakers getting impatient.

But with a rope, no more tiny cuts in the hands. It saves time, it means you guys can kill more people with the light through the waterfall technique. It draws people in, he nets them, kills them, and then the process repeats. But the nets took so much time to make that it would be hard to get two in a day.

Finnick splashes through the water faster than you can. On the way, he steps on the vine-net, and he hisses. Jumping on one foot for a second, holding the other he whines about the thorns. And then he continues, wobbling on his feet slightly.

“This is why you wear shoes!” You tell him, kicking the vines off to the side, away from where either of you would bother to go.

“It’s the hunger games, I don’t need shoes!” He tells you, grabbing the floating sponsor gift. He brings it all the way back over, being careful not to let it touch the water.

It would be fine, if it can float in the water, then it can sink or take in some. It’s probably waterproof, actually. But you can say that you’ve ever seen a gift sent when the tributes were in the water. This is a first for you.

Finnick stands on the rocks next to you, and carefully unravels the parachute, and then opens the lid. It’s a fairly big gift, so when it shows a shit ton of rope, you cheer slightly.

“See! Told you—“

Finnick tilts his head, pulling up the paper. It’s sogs a little in his fingers since they’re wet, but it would be the same for you. Going through the waterfall had completely soaked you like you were swimming in the pond-lake like Finnick had.

“It’s from our district.” Finnick tells you, moving it so you can see.

And clear as day, it says, “This will work better than vines, District Four.”

Tears gather in your eyes and you have to cover your face for a moment, “Just a second.”

“Don’t worry, I’m crying too.” Finnick laughs, and you move your hands.

He pulls out the rope, weighing it in his hands, “Can this stand four more?”

“It could stand the entire twenty-two had we gotten it at the beginning.” You laugh, he joins in.

You look to the water, there has to be a camera on you somewhere, “Thank you, it won’t go to waste. We love you, and we’ll both be home soon, I promise.”

Finnick nods along, “We miss you tons.”

“Can’t wait to start fishing again.” You snicker, and Finnick punches your arm this time, “No but seriously, thank you.”

You and Finnick slip into the cave, being sure to cover the rope so it doesn’t get wet. When you get inside, you unravel the coil, and grab your knife.

“Gonna teach me how?” Finnick asks, you grin at him slightly.

“Sure. If you promise to be a good sport about it.”

—

If Finnick says that it has worked four times before, then it’ll work this time too, if the others will take the bait. The singles are probably desperate to wipe out the doubles so they’ll be able to go home. It’s the same tactic that you were saying before. They’ll be able to make it home if the doubles are taken out because they can’t team up.

The fire is like luring them to their deaths, almost. The both of you are prepared to take them down, and they might be thinking that you’re stupid for even trying a fire in the first place. Wondering how you’ve managed to stay alive so long with such stupid ideas. 

Instead, you guys are clever. You guys have got everything on lock. The fire, the net ready and the trident and spears within grasp if necessary. Unlike all the other times though, Finnick has someone to help. All it’ll take is for them to get caught and for him to stab. There’s no reason for him to even bother helping you with the net.

You’ve made it big enough for them to get caught in, and you didn’t cut the string for the rim. You pull it shut, there’s no escape, and they're tangled in the mesh. Finnick can get them within a couple of seconds, send the body off, and stomp out the fire. Make a new net, rinse and repeat.

“How do you like your fish? Burnt or extra burnt?”

“Preferably not burnt.” You look over to see that they’re practically black, “Remind me why I put you on cooking duty.”

“Because you were wallowing in your own misery?”

“Y’know Finnick, it’s really not that hard to not be a dick.” 

“Some girls think it’s charming.”

“I’m not some girls.” You huff, “But I’m guessing Thyme was?”

Finnick rolls his eyes before shoving the burnt fish your way, “I didn't like her like that.”

“Try again.”

“You are jealous.” He looks smug, again.

“Were you jealous when I told you that Blaire, boy from district three that I was hanging out with for a week straight, no supervision. Just me, him, the vines and the water were together? Him teaching me how to weave the vines, me feeding him so he didn’t die? Were you jealous then?” You tilt your head, watching as the smug falls and turns into something else.

“No.”

“Your voice cracked. You’re a fucking liar.” You tell him, “And by the way, it’s your own fault that I had to make friends with other people while you abandoned me. Leaving me to the fucking hounds.”

“You managed it seems.” He goes to eat.

“That’s not the point.” You tell him, “Partners in crime. An alliance! We were in this together!”

“At least we’re in it together now.”

“Yeah,” you mutter bitterly, going to eat.

It has to be only five minutes of silence, before the splashing of water interrupts you both. Finnick jumps immediately, kicking everything out of the way as quickly and quietly as he can. You take one final bite, getting a mouthful before the net is in your hands.

“Dumbasses.” It's a female voice, but it’s not Trink.

“Who?” you mouth to Finnick, and he thinks for a moment.

“Girl from five.” he mouths back, and then shrugs, “Trink?”

You shake your head.

The splashing gets louder as time goes on, and then you can just barely see her silhouette through the water. Finnick nods to you, letting you know that you should do it.

You get a little closer, hands through the water and then you toss it. There’s a yelp, and you yank the rope, trapping her inside. Finnick goes through the water.

“Wait!” the girl screams.

“Who’s the dumbass now?” Finnick asks, and then the cannon sounds.

Crouching down, you cut the rope, “You can send her into the water.”

“The careers--” Finnick barely gets out, you grab onto the spear. Your heart is pounding in your ears when you stumble through the water.

It’s just Lennox in the water, and he’s bearing a sword. When he sees you, he hisses, “Bitch!”

He turns to leave, but you raise the spear, going to throw it. Finnick grabs your hand, stopping you, “Not today.”

“I can hit him.” you reason, and Finnick goes to your ear.

“They’re going to want a show.”

He’s right, Snow will want a show. So, you’ll just have to wait for another time to kill them. It’s a shame, because you could wipe Lennox right off the fucking map, and all you’d have to kill is Mac and Trink.

When Lennox is out of sight, you send the girl from five off. 

“He knows where we’re staying.” you lean into Finnick a little.

“He won’t come until he’s prepared with Trink,” Finnick tells you, and you watch as the girl gets taken away. You wonder how the family is taking it. If you make it, then that means on the victory tour you’ll have to see their families.

For you, five to six--you’re not sure if the five girl will count as the sixth, since you didn’t kill her directly, you just assisted--different families you have to face. Stand tall and bear your chest and try not to cry because you’re guilty to the very last cell. You killed their family. You killed that twelve year old boy from twelve.

You killed the girl from ten, the boy from eleven, Eytelle, the boy from twelve and Allio. And now the girl from six. You’ve got five deaths on your hands, and you’ll have to face them.

Is it even worth it?

Yes, it is. You’ve gone all this way, you can’t just bow out of it now. You’re almost done, three more to go.

“I’ll go make a net big enough.” you turn, leaving Finnick outside.

-- CHAPTER FIFTEEN --

The sound of a cannon jolts you awake. Finnick, who’s beside you, jumps three feet in the air as he suddenly reaches for his trident. He creeps out of the only sleeping bag that you have, and he goes to the water. Before he can cross it, you grab his ankle.

“You’ll get all wet.” you whisper.

“I need to see.” he tells you, but he knows you’re right. So he strips free of his boots, socks, jacket, shirt, and pants.

He leaves it in a disorganized pile off to the side. Out of reach of any water that might backsplash when he walks through. You watch as he winces at the cold water, before disappearing. The faint sound of splashing allows you to calm down a little bit.

It would be a blessing to get up and follow him. So he wouldn’t be going out there alone, you’d be right next to him in case there is someone else. Ready to pounce and strike.

They know where you are, so sitting here, inside of this cave makes you feel like you’re trapped. At any given moment they could show up and you would be fucked. Especially with Finnick gone, there’s nothing you can do.

Whatever you caught while being in here, it’s bedridden you. Getting up and around is painful. It’s hard enough to sleep at night when it feels like a thousand tiny needles are jabbing into your stomach. It took you over two hours to fall asleep, and you can take a safe bet that you only slept for a couple of hours.

It feels like it’s only been a couple of hours. You should be wide awake, ready to help Finnick if he were to call for help, but your eyes are drooping. Begging for another couple of hours before your body realizes you’re awake and starts the pain. You don’t close your eyes, laying your head down instead.

The spashling has long since stopped. It’s almost pure silence, except for the sound of cicadas and the random shuffling of leaves. The water is a constant, you’ve managed to drown it out by now. Not even background noise, it’s silence due to the consistency. However, you can hear the waves, coming up onto the shore of the rocks nearby.

You try to focus on them, hoping that there will be an irregular rhythm, but it turns out that they too have their own system. Before you know it, your eyes have closed on their own. You grind your teeth to keep yourself awake, it doesn’t work. Your jaw will go slack and it jolts your awake almost.

With a sigh, you push yourself up. Your muscles complain, and you’ve already stirred something in your stomach. Ignoring it, you begin pulling off your own boots, following with the socks.

You strain to hear any sort of sound that would indicate that he’s alive. Water splashing, heavy breathing, the trident accidentally hitting the rocks, but you get nothing.

The clothes come off a little faster now, socks, jacket, pants. You take a breather because the shirt is going to cause more pain that it’s worth. When you feel like you can tolerate it, two hands on the bottom of the cloth, and a quick movement. 

The stabbing appears, and the lines are blurred between your still very broken ribs or the sickness in your stomach. When the shirt is off of you, and you have a moment to breathe, nausea hits you like a truck. You place your hand on the wall to steady yourself, thinking that the cold will jolt your brain.

It works a little bit, but the idea of you puking is at the front of your mind now, unwillingly. You can’t puke, it’s taken you days to work up an appetite. Whatever you have has completely gotten rid of hunger, which is making you drop weight. Finnick can see it, you know.

He gets this worried look in his eyes each time he watches you get up and move. Or try to choke down food, even if it makes you gag. He probably isn’t on your back about it because he knows that you’re trying. You’re not trying to be bedridden, you’re not purposely starving yourself. He knows you want to live, and you guess that he’s waiting for the moment you give up.

It’s charming for him to be worried like that but it makes you feel like a baby. If you wanted to be babied, you would have acted like this since the beginning, even if you weren’t sick. Being incapable of taking care of yourself isn’t a trait that you want in here. Doesn’t get sponsors, at all.

As you get up, you feel like you’ve gained forty years of age. Your muscles are aching, everything hurts in general. The dizziness and the pounding headache comes back. Besides this all, you reach over for the spear, using it as a cane as you hobble your way out of the cave.

The water is cold, and once again, the force of tons of water hitting you nearly knocks you off your feet. On a regular day, sickness and injury free, you would be able to walk through this like it’s nothing. Look at what time has done to you. Made you the goddam laughing stock of the pen.

It’s still dark out, the moon is fairly high, you guess that it’s midnight to one in the morning. It’s an odd time for someone to die, unless Trink and Lennox we’re hunting down Mac or something. Could be the other way around and got himself killed. Mac killed one of them, got away. One of them died of the same sickness you have…

Possibilities are endless here. There’s hundreds of ideas they could have used on you guys. You just want to know what’s so special about midnight, if the gamemakers had done it. Maybe all of you are having trouble sleeping and this is their way of torturing you guys. Subtly, and with sacrifices.

There’s no sight of Finnick, anywhere. Even though you’re already soaking wet, you’re not too fond of the idea of going into the water. The night time is when the creatures come to life. If Finnick had gotten grabbed, then that’s it for him. You can’t go in to save him blind, the automatic right to the win would be given to District One.

You sit in the cold water, knees to your chest as you look over the water, and then the nearby trees. Then to the sky as if they’ll display whoever it is that died. You’ll have to wait tomorrow to see, unless that’s what Finnick is doing.

If he went to the cornucopia by himself then he’s stupid. You get the motive—he goes to see if Trink and Lennox are there, then comes back without being seen—but he’s half naked, soaked in water with a metal trident. The motherfucker is probably slipping and sliding out of his hands. 

You sit out there for another ten minutes, no longer tired, splashing the water onto your stomach every now and then to ease the pain. Eventually, you hear splashing that isn’t coming from you. Your eyes dart over, and you see Finnick, trident in hand as he wades through the water. He makes stabbing motions to keep the creatures away.

“Sorry, I didn’t think I’d be so long.” Finnick tells you, “But it’s hard to leave when they’re talking about an attack plan.”

You perk up, “You’re forgiven, what did you hear?”

“Well, Mac is the one that’s dead.” He tells you, but you guessed that already. The psychopaths from district one are smarter than whatever Mac did to die.

“That’s fine.” You tell him, “A bummer, he was nice. But fine.”

Finnick chuckles, he takes a seat next to you, and then presses a quick kiss to your lips. You scowl, because you’re not looking forward to him getting sick too. But really, he would have had to be sick by now if it’s contagious. What the fuck did you get sick off of?

“They want to attack in two days. Build up on body weight and all of that again. They don’t know if we’re the ones that are dead or killed Mac or whatever. Taking a guess it was Mac that died at least.” He informs, you nod along to it. 

“Two days to plan their murder, huh?” You quirk an eyebrow at him and he chuckles.

“Any ideas?”

“A few.” You admit, a small smirk coming over your face, “Remember how Lennox choked me?”

“Wasn’t there but yes.” He says, crossing his legs.

“And my last name is Gallows…” you trail off, splashing water a little bit.

“Uh huh.”

“What if we take that extra rope, tie it into a noose, lure him in and hang him?” You look over to see him with the same sickening grin that’s covering your face.

“Sounds interesting. Who’s luring and how are we hanging?”

—

Finnick has to watch you way more carefully now. One of your hands are either on his shoulder, so that you may catch yourself in case you stumble. Or it’s in the crook of his arm, where he’ll be able to swoop you into his arms if your legs buckle beneath you. The sickness is eating away at your muscle.

There are times when you’ll be standing, perfectly fine, and you’ll forget about the illness altogether. And then, your legs will give out, Finnick is diving across the room to catch you so you don’t snap anything like a wrist, trying to catch yourself. Your body will slump, like you’re lifeless, but you’re so very aware of it.

It’s scaring him now. He doesn’t think you’ll make it out alive, he thinks that you’ll die in here, from whatever you caught. You’re not hungry, you gag and throw up most of the food you get down. The lack of exercise is diminishing what little muscle you came into the arena with. There’s a high fever, you’re sweating almost constantly, but then the chills will swoop in out of nowhere. Not to mention the round-the-clock headache. 

You want it all to stop. You’ve never got this sick back home, it was the common flu that went around. Only the very, very poor, skinny kids would die to it, since their immune system can’t handle anything. But that’s hardly ever the case, even the poorest people in the district have a fair chunk of change to carry around.

If you’re going to die from whatever Capitol-altered disease, you’d just have it done in a snap. It’s been almost a week of you having it. And the fact that it had gotten so bad overnight is not a good sign. It was just earlier this morning, midnight when you were conspiring with Finnick on how to end this.

It evolved and it’s completely ruined your body within an eight to eleven hour time span. This means that today, tomorrow, or the day after are your final days. You die tonight, it just leaves Finnick to deal with the others. You can’t do that to him, you can’t send him home alone after all that has happened.

You’re not going to give this up.

“Eat.” Finnick shoves the fish into your hands and you take in a small breath, to keep your side from being stabbed. 

“Finnick this won’t stay down.” you tell him calmly, but you pick it apart anyway, using the water to drink it down.

And then you stop as you stare at the water, then back to the fish. There’s only really two ways you could have gotten sick. It wasn’t because of Blaire, he was healthy as fuck, and the only reason why he died was because he attacked Lennox while he was trying to kill you.

You couldn’t have picked it up from Trink, Allio or Lennox--assuming that it had some sort of incubation period--because that means they would have to be crawling with the disease too. From what Finnick has told you, they seem to be just fine. You’re the only one dying in here. 

Finnick is an automatic no, he isn't sick either and he isn’t catching it. Another reason why you couldn’t have caught it from the others, is because it doesn’t seem to be contagious through human contact.

Which narrows down the possibilities. You got it from eating berries and leaves, fish, or the water. You haven’t eaten berries and leaves in a while though, so those have to be out of it.

It’s the water and the fish, they have something to do with it. It can’t be an allergic reaction, because it doesn’t deteriorate the body like this. If it was a reaction, then you’d be breaking out in hives, through closing in and you’d been dead by now. Unless it’s a small allergy, but that’s not the case either. 

“Finnick, what are some diseases passed through water?” you ask, slowly setting the food down.

He tilts his head slightly, “Uhh, E coli, Cholera, Typhoid, Salmonella--? Why?”

Typhoid is the one you recognize, because of the few cases some of the neighborhood kids back home had. With the right treatment, they wouldn’t die, but for the few who let it go on for too long, or didn’t have the money to pay for it, their kids--or themselves--would die. 

“The symptoms to…” you lean back, “What’s the--?”

The headache seems to increase, stopping you from thinking any further. You press the heels of your hands to your temples to ease the pain. Of course, it does nothing, but it feels better than just sitting there. You clench your teeth and squeeze your eyes, rocking back and forth.

Think, think!

What the fuck is the cure to Typhoid? Hell, what are the symptoms? What’s it related to? How can you get it?

“(Y/n)? What’s wrong?”

Few cases back home. Parents who go down to the sea to collect water. Use for baths, and the kids accidentally drink it. It’s not the salt its--its the bacteria.

“Water,” you look to Finnick, “Have you been treating the water?”

His face twists, and then he pales, “I--I forgot once--”

That’s enough for you to catch it. Just a little bit of contaminated water will get it going. Your body has been fighting off this sickness for a week, and it took you this long to think it over. 

That’s not the matter, though. The matter, is that if you don’t get medicine, you’ll die from it being untreated.

“Mags, if you’re listening--it’s Typhoid fever,” you tell her, “Untreated it’ll kill me. Please, please send me something. Whatever it is that’ll cure it. One pill or sip is better than none, please.”

Finnick looks guilty, but you don’t care. It was an honest mistake, he didn’t know that the water was carrying the disease. None of you would have ever knew if he hadn’t accidentally skipped it. You’d still be up on your feet moving around like none of it ever happened.

This must be what he’s thinking, “Finnick, don’t punish yourself for this. Not now, do it later when we win.”

“What if we don’t win because of my mistake?” he asks, you point your finger.

“Hope. You have hope now, because I can’t carry it for the both of us. I forgive you, we’re going to win.”

Silence, as you wait for the sound of a sponsor gift. But the chiming never sounds, letting you know that you’re on your own. It must be far too expensive, or they just can’t hear you.

“We have better things to worry about, Finn.” you shake your head, “We need to do it tomorrow. We can’t wait until the end of the week.”

“I know.” he whispers, “Are you sure?”

“We have to.”

-- CHAPTER SIXTEEN --

There used to be a song that your mother would sing when you had caught the cold. It was more of a poem, but she would sing it like a lullaby to ease your headache and get you tired. It would always be the first couple nights of the cold, which are the worse days, and as it got better, she would stop. A bedtime remedy, to getting you to fall asleep quickly instead of letting you toss and turn through the night.

As you lay awake most of the time now, you think of it all the time. Reciting the words back to yourself softly. You can’t necessarily sing it without waking Finnick, so instead you turn it from a chant to a couple of lines at a time. You decipher the words, find meanings and then you’ll repeat it back to yourself when they make sense. 

It tires you out a lot quicker than you thought it would. Lately, it’s been working like a charm. Tonight, it offers no comfort though, because later today, you’ll be luring the last two tributes to their deaths. You’ll be using the last of your strength to win the games. If today doesn’t work, you give yourself permission to fall over and croak.

You’re in the final hours of your life. Finnick might be seeing it, but it’s not as clear to him. He’s not feeling all of it directly, he’s watching you pretend. He’s not seeing the way that you flinch and wince when his back is turned. If only he saw how much pain you’re in. 

The second you win, you’ll be fine. You’ll be on that hovercraft, they’ll be feeding you to doctors as Finnick has to watch. They’ll be hooking you up to water and liquid food, and medicine that stops the pain and diminishes the fever. They’ll be working their best to save you, because they can’t have a victor die on the craft. 

Finnick wouldn’t need anything done to him. They’d probably take him and marvel. They’d have to fix up a few scars but that would be it. There would be no reason to save him from anything. Unless something goes wrong today, he gets stabbed or something. Not going to happen on your watch, even if he doesn't like it.

The sun rises a little faster now, and you come to terms with the fact that you'll be working off of nothing today. There’s a few things to do to set up the scene, and then you’ll be able to execute it perfectly. 

“Finnick.” You nudge lightly, he opens his eyes slowly, “It’s time.”

“Did you even sleep?”

“An hour or two.” You tell him, “Woke up an hour or so ago. Not much.”

“Okay,” he says, you slip out of the bag first. Your muscles slowly stretch, making a low groan come from you. You’ve been stiff for long enough, your body thinks that you’re a statue.

Finnick slowly starts pulling out food, you make the last fire you’ll ever have to make in your life. When it sparks, your hands go over it immediately, the fever might be burning your forehead, fueling your headache but it’s also controlling the chills. The truth is, is that you’re cold as fuck. When you leave, the water will make it worse. But you’ll get there when the time comes.

The both of you heat up the food, watching as Finnick uncoils the rope, trying the noose. You don’t ask him how he knows to tie it, you just watch, and then you prod yourself a little bit. Taking in an assessment of how you’ll be able to turn your body.

Your ribs on your left side are still very painful, turning that way is like getting stabbed. It’ll take a while for them to heal, unless the Capitol has something for that, to get it to speed up and get placed right back where they need to be, not floating around in your body, causing more harm than good.

The bruises are almost gone, they’re just a very light purple now. Pressing on them doesn’t hurt anymore, it’s nothing compared to everything else that you’re feeling. Your body as a whole is weak, so there's no worry about specific knees or arms, it’s just the both of them. Not good, but you won’t have to catch yourself before you use the wrong one. You’re always taking a chance.

All cuts are now scabs, there’s a few more scars here and there, but besides that, you’re ready to go. Finnick finishes eating pretty quickly, you guys finish off all the food that you had set aside. You feel absolutely sick to your stomach, since it was hard getting it down in the first place. Overfeeding isn’t helpful by any means, until you’re trying to put on weight.

If you guys get hungry later on, it’s possible to grab something from the pond-lake or whatever. You’ll be inside of the woods, near the middle, but it won’t be that far from the pond-lake if lunch would be needed. But by the look on Finnick’s face, he’s not that hungry either. He stuffed himself just as badly as you had. 

He shoves everything into the backpack. The rope, what water you guys have, which he still looks guilty about. Small meaningless knives that you don’t need, the works. After that, he helps you onto your feet, you both take your weapons of choice, and leave the cave.

There was no point in stomping out the fire, you guys won’t be back. Which is why you guys left the sleeping bag, and all the other little things that came with the backpacks when you got them. For all you care, they can burn up in a blaze. The fire will put itself out before it reaches the water.

Finnick leads the way through the water. Instead of going straight out of the waterfall, a little to the left, you guys go right diagonally. If you were to go straight, you’d head right for the cornucopia. You guys want to do it in one of the big ass trees, out of sight of them in case they were to come looking.

You hold Finnick’s trident, as he holds the backpack above the water since it isn’t waterproof, and you guys don’t want the rope to get wet. You’d rather it be dry, it’ll be more harsh when it gets around Lennox.

“Almost home.” 

“We should have built a treehouse. I mean, it’s been a month, we had the time.” You laugh, he snickers.

“Gamemakers would have had a fire.”

“Wouldn’t have been smart. I’m sure that the tourists would have loved to stay in a personalized treehouse! Oh Finnick, do you think we have time?” You bat your eyelashes when he looks to you, he rolls his eyes.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You can hardly stand.” 

“So? It won’t be so hard.” You reason about the hypothetical treehouse, daydreaming about having one. What would go inside, how much time it would take. How you would replace materials like nails with vine and all that. Or very thin rocks that you can hammer into the wood.

“No treehouse.” Finnick tells you, and then the both of you laugh at each other.

When you reach the land finally, you guys take the time to ring out your clothes. Then you continue to the place that Finnick had picked out last night. When you get to it, you’re thoroughly impressed to see that it’s a big ass tree, and there’s plenty of land around to run around in. This is a place you could build a house, raise a family and all of that.

Finnick unpacks the rope, you take it, throwing it around your neck to keep it from going anywhere. You tuck your spear between your pants and belt, with the blade down. You take your water and put it in your jacket, Finnick kisses you quickly, wishes you good luck, and then you turn to the tree.

Spear, rope, water, a good luck kiss. Now, to climb the tree without falling. Your body will complain and give you hell for this, but it’s all for the greater good. 

You climb the tree slowly, being careful of your left side. Right hand, left hand, right foot, left foot. Occasionally you’ll reach higher than you should, wobble, but catch yourself the next time around.

The spear gets in the way and you have to keep moving the water to where it needs to be. You take a break on the sturdy branches, and continue when it’s just enough to make it to the next one.

Before you know it, you’re at the one branch that stretches over Finnick below you. You wrap your legs around the branch, and even go as far as to tie the non-noose end of the rope to your body. Then, you strip free of the jacket, dropping it for Finnick. The boots follow, and you’re disappointed to see that he dodges where you tried to drop it on him.

“Pants too?” You ask, Finnick shakes his head.

You take a long drink of water, since the sun is in your eyes. And then you take another before dropping it for Finnick, setting up the scene where Trink and Lennox will come along just to die.

Lennox is going to be heavy, he’s had plenty of food to eat from because of the middle. He’s going to weigh what he normally did when he came in. Maybe a few pounds shorter. You however, aren’t at all where you need to be. 

The big breakfast helped, but it wasn’t perfect. You’ve got one, two, possibly three pounds more than you had originally. You’ll fail when it comes to pulling Lennox up with the rope using just your muscle strength. To actually hang him, he’ll need something to balance out his weight, almost.

He’s going to be below you, you get the noose around his neck, you yank and what? Choke him for a split second? Finnick will be fucked.

You didn’t propose this part of the plan to Finnick because you knew he would say no. He won’t ever say yes to something this dangerous and risky, which is the exact reason why it’s going to work. Risky, but odds in your favor.

“I’m ready.” Finnick tells you, you nod.

“Let’s do it!”

You cut yourself free quickly, then you measure out just about what you’ll need to fall through on this. Your eyes keep darting to Finnick, worried about when he’ll yell.

You drape the extra rope across the branch behind you, out of sight out of mind. The noose rope is shorter, but still long enough to reach Lennox. Finnick comes over now, standing right next to it, and nods up at you. Perfect length.

It’s going to get shorter though. You tie a constrictors knot, which will be impossible for the Capitol doctors to get off of you, but they’ll manage. They have to save you, and your leg if it’s possible. If there’s no reason to cut it off, then they can’t. It’s not a medical problem, it’s rope.

You dangle your leg, seeing how it reaches the same height as before presumably. Then, you draw some of it back up to keep out of sight of the others when they come in.

Just in time to listen to Finnick give a blood curdling scream. You clench your teeth together, eyes on the direction the others are going to be coming in at. Listening as Finnick continues to scream for your placebo self to wake up. Yelling for Mags to send in some sort of medicine, to save you.

“Please! Please!” Finnick screams, and at the first snap of a branch, your eyes flicker to Trink and Lennox, “No—!”

“She’s not dead yet?” You think you hear Trink ask.

You wonder if the Capitol can spare a false cannon to see what happens. If they’ll attack him immediately, like a bunch of rabid dogs.

“Leave her alone,” Finnick seethes, he’s crouched over, backing up which is drawing the others to walk over. You can see the smiles on their faces from here.

“I’ve got him.” Trink chirps.

“No!” Finnick lunges forward slightly when Lennox gets close to your body, you begin to lower the rope little by little.

Lennox jumps for your body, you can feel your heart pounding in your chest when you free the rope. Only to see it come up short.

“Shit.” You curse, and then you dip your leg over, getting it right around Lennox’s neck.

Finnick attacks Trink, who’s caught up watching the rope. She goes to warn Lennox, but Finnick shuts her up.

Before Lennox can do anything, you take a deep breath. Feeling the fear try to paralyze your body into rethinking this. You don’t let it, you throw your body the opposite side, to the left.

Lennox chokes, you feel the air on your skin as you watch the branch of the tree get further away. Until the momentum comes to a slow, and you’re dangling in the air by a rope from your foot.

You look to see Lennox, face turning purple as he grabs onto the rope to relieve the pain of choking, you curl your body slightly, pulling him up a little, and his eyes bulge. The sound of a cannon startles you, because it’s clearly not Lennox, who you’re staring at, and he’s staring at you. Still alive.

You go to yell Finnick’s name, but it gets caught in your throat. The blood is rushing to your head, the headache increasing in power. The pain just seems to skyrocket the longer you hang here.

“I’m alive.” Finnick tells you, and then you watch as his trident flies through the air.

It misses Lennox by an inch or two, getting lodged in the tree. You sigh, reaching for your spear now. You don’t want to get yourself free. You want to kill Lennox, and you’re sure that it will be a sight to behold, him hanging from a tree, with you suspending him on the other side, a spear through whatever you can get. 

With it in hand, you lean forward, your left side aches from the sit up. You and Lennox lock eyes, and he shakes his head slightly, beginning you not to even though his face is a deep purple and blood is coming out of his nose, trickling down his lips.

You draw your arm back, waiting for the rope to stop swaying, and then you launch it forward, the very last of your strength going along with it. You’re not even able to see if it goes through anything. The sound of a cannon gives it away.

“You did it!” Finnick yells, but his voice is drowned, you can hardly hear it.

You can feel your body relax, arms going past your head. You try to blink away the spots, but they don’t go anywhere. In fact, they take out your vision completely. 

—

I told her so, and if she say,

That she was wrong,

Then may it be,

A quick little bug,

That will come and go.

—

She will lay,

In clean, white sheets, 

A full tummy,

And a cup of tea,

She will rest,

And she will think,

How this will be,

The very last time.

—

But here comes grey,

Water-filled clouds,

She pulls on her shoes,

And her coat,

So that she may,

Go in the rain.

—

I will come,

To the porch,

To warm her of,

What may come,

She will laugh, 

She will splash,

But she won’t listen.

Then she will come later with;

Rain-soaked clothes,

Not feeling good,

And beg me to care for her.

(the poem is a circle).

--

LACUNA IS THE FIRST VERSION OF BELAMOUR

//MASTERLIST//