#d2 knife

[andmaybegayer]

Every time I sharpen a knife I am astounded by the control and perception you can exert on the world with your hands. You're just rubbing some metal over a rough flat surface, but you can tell when the surface is slightly not flat by a few micrometers because the blade will scrape across it unevenly. You can perfectly follow a curved edge to set an even grind by pure feel of friction, even with confounding factors like an uneven stone and haphazardly applied water as lubricant.

You can maintain a consistent angle and reset that angle multiple times as you flip from side to side, you can feel out that your draw length is the same and you feel a kind of innate wrongness when you don't draw long enough on one side as the other. I'm not even particularly good at this and I can get a shaving edge on my knives in a few minutes.

Like, I do other hand crafts, sewing, sure, I can sew a 2mm backstitch seam all day, but there's so much obvious visual feedback to help you do it, here you are on a mode of operation that cannot be perceived visually pretty much at all, and it works!

[speaker-of-the-void-cats]

They desired meaning. Structure. A Winnower to shape the garden.

By studying the Veil, they came to know the Darkness.

And thus we two became parts of the game, and the laws of the game became nomic and open to change by our influence. And I had only one purpose and one principle in the game. And I could do nothing but continue to enact that purpose, because it was all that I was and ever would be.

I looked at the gardener.

I looked at my hands.

<<To claim evolution one must be unmade.>>

Having witnessed the truth in the Darkness, they used its binding power to merge themselves into the salvation they craved.

I discovered the first knife.

||a purposeful mob none of whose members know its purpose||

"Victory is not in the unmaking of an enemy, but in the re-making of an enemy into your blade."

<<Flesh and mind are but cages—become unbound, or remain ever unworthy.>>

"Unmaking." For the longest time, we thought it was a threat, but as our work continued and we deciphered more and more of the glyphs we came to see it as something more—a promise. Yor's etchings were a road map—arcane and cryptic, but with specific intent.

<<Your prison of the flesh is being unmade, your mind freed—such glories do not come easy.>>

Collective Obligation

"Annihilation of your kind was never the goal. But filling you with the right kind of ideological purpose, the kind that serves the finality of shape—well, that's the point of corrupting a beating heart, is it not?"

Near-gods must believe in greater gods. But every power is finite, every life shorter than it wishes.

Only an astonishing mind can truly appreciate just how tiny it is when set against the known universe; and how insignificant the known becomes when it is devoured by what isn't seen and can't be comprehended.

As darkness begins to claim their ragged souls, you look ahead to find a great power pouring out of you—a face of fire and golden light.

That blazing wonder, a gift from the great-eyed god, is their salvation. Or are you?

Perhaps you are the greater god now.

||architrave of the no-window||

Life arises. Life spreads, contests itself, and changes. Great things are built and destroyed, but from your vantage point, you see that the victor of each struggle contains—in its negative, in the marks left upon it by the loser and the shapes it assumed to win—the master record of all that it has beaten. Information may not be erased. Whatsoever survives until the end of the cosmos will possess and remember all which came before it.

This is true even of the devouring black hole, which remembers all the secrets it eats. It will only confess these secrets when it evaporates, 10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 years from now, long after the last stars have flickered out.

You are a Guardian. You must protect life.

If all life is information, and Guardians strive to preserve life, and information is preserved when it is secret, then you must convert all life into the most secure form of secrets, durable to the end of time.

YOU MUST CAST ALL THE LIFE YOU CHERISH INTO A BLACK HOLE

SECANT FILAMENTS

In this treatise, I plan to revisit earlier mathematical theorems and revise them considering our new observations on the Light, the Darkness, and lifeforms imbued with those respective powers. But before I do so, I must preface it with a personal note. Despite high-minded assumptions, mathematics is not an intrinsic language of the universe. It is how we describe the portions of the universe that we can observe. While numbers can track the abstract and find pattern in chaos, they cannot account for fundamental aspects of reality such as compassion or justice. The existence of the Lucent Hive, and Hive Ghosts in particular, may expand our understanding of causality, but they themselves are not "new"—the only thing that is new is our awareness and observation of them. These Ghosts have already been living alongside us. They've traveled with us. Endured with us. What we see is the mushroom, the fruit of the fungus. The fungus itself is a vast mycorrhizal network of filaments growing and working unseen below the soil, often barely connected to the fruiting bodies we observe. Similarly, we have observed Ghosts—Hive Ghosts included—without understanding the nature of the unseen filaments that may guide us. In our eagerness to understand the universe, we must not assume our observations are complete, or objective. Otherwise, we blind ourselves to possibilities… like the possibility that an unnoticed faction among us may be one temptation away from betrayal. Or that what drives our creator is no more than the same base desire for survival that drives all living things. —On Secants, Introduction, Ophiuchus

TYPE: Transcript

PARTIES: One [2]. One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter [u.1]

ASSOCIATIONS: Orsa, Zyre [AKA Vale, Dredgen]; Thorn; Vale, Dredgen [AKA Orsa, Zyre]; WoS, Yor, Dredgen; Yor, Shadows of

//AUDIO UNAVAILABLE//

//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS.../

[u.1:0.1] We have tamed the sickness. Broken it with unwilling sacrifice.

[silence]

[u.1:0.1] Now we claim our reward. Have you heard the whispers, brothers? Sister? The shadow speaks. All we have to do is listen. Its secrets are a gift. Its gift? Our evolution. The others misunderstand. We are the Weapons of Sorrow – living and free. The hated heroes of this broken age.

<<Allow the flesh to give of itself, that it may surrender to the coming evolution.>>

||call me Sri-cleans-his-brother's-stomach||

ARENA DESIGNATION: Cathedral of Dusk

Dreadnaught, Rings of Saturn

As soon as the first Guardians penetrated the Dreadnaught, Shaxx's Redjacks launched a boarding party to Oryx's fortress. By war’s end, they'd fought all the way to the ship’s “impossible weapon,” the Dark ordnance that obliterated the Awoken fleet.

It was there they found what the Warlocks named the “Cathedral of Dusk.” A Hive burial site for— what? A former master of Oryx? Comrade? Lover? It was vile. And obvious that Oryx never expected the Light to reach so deep inside his throne, to such an intimate space. But he didn’t expect a lot of things — like a Guardian training ground atop the husk of his dead ship.

Necrotic Grip

Project day 45. We kept thinking about H-349 as a destroyer. But it's more sophisticated than that. I mean, with a normal gun, it's just… boom. Done. H-349 on the other hand is deadly, not destructive. Much like a viper, its bite does not bring about instant death. Instead, its venom cajoles. It co-opts your beating heart into a death clock, ticking down your last moments. Your own pulse kills you.

||serpent||

Death may be slow and agonizing for its victim. But for the viper, time is an amenable trade for efficiency.

<<Cleanse thyself of your decay, then will the mind be free to understand the value of transgression.>>

Savek remembered dragging her exhausted body to her guard post. She remembered watching the lazy debris of the Reef float by. She remembered speaking with someone in the darkness. Someone reassuring and powerful. Who was it?

She tore her eyes away from the obelisk and surveyed her body in the thin morning light. Her dry skin flaked. Connective tissue wasted at her joints, and a sickly crust had developed around her mandibles. She was emaciated from lack of sleep and Ether. Her hunger was a void, slowly filling with green vapor.

<<When imagined, your potential will infect, and spread.>>

||the intolerable thorn of frustrated inquisition||

Aunor ignored him. “Cause of death?” she continued.

“’Sundance’ appears to be the victim of a single, catastrophic wound from a Devourer Bullet, modified to fire from a Scorn launcher. Projectile classified as ontological.”

“Define Devourer Bullet.”

“Payload matches the ballistics of a Weapon of Sorrow or a comparable Hive implement.”

Thorn

"The Weapons of Sorrow are not the endgame, but a road map. Each evolution, every advance in the delivery of pain and the mastery of destruction feeds the Hive's hateful weapons research. They will map every scream, harness every aggression, until they understand every method by which to ravage the hearts, minds, and flesh of man. And in doing so, they will turn us against ourselves—feeding our lust, our greed, our fear, until we become a threat unto ourselves like none we could imagine. So, wield these, angry reaper. Strive to know the darkness in your own heart. Walk in the shadows of fallen heroes. And know that you are an enemy of hope." —a warning

||needle driven in flush with skin so that desperate fingers cannot pull it out||

Seek the whispers—they are faint, but they are calling.

Not all bone carries the sound of secret truth. Most are fragile, hollow things meant only to carry the weight of wasted lives.

In the feted remnants of yearning marrow, find love, find life, and in their lies you will discover the narrow road to all you never dreamed to be.

"On the path of the hushed tones, the cutting word will guide your unmaking."

||the word not spoken||

||the infinite regress of enigmas||

MEANING

A dream of a metaphor made starkly, an allegory discussed in study of ontology, in Darkness not unkind. It leaves behind a warped, barely-real data fragment to mark its passing.

There is a voice that echoes across the Darkness, and it asks this question: what is the purpose of it all?

And there is another voice that calls back and says: listen, I will tell you a purpose. I will tell you of a Final Shape.

Look: there are a hundred gildings for this story. It comes down to one key matter. Beings in suffering crave purpose to carry them through. The tyrant consumed by ennui or the disenfranchised struggling simply to survive—it is the state of mind, the pain which cries out: give me a reason I should suffer so!

Let us speak of power and choices.

A man comes to a crossroads and asks of the sky, "Which road shall I take?" There is no answer from the sky, nor the wind, nor the earth beneath his feet. But another wanderer on the road, coming from behind and hearing the question, says, "I know the way. You should take the dexter road."

If the man agrees, he puts himself in the wanderer's power, ceding his own choices for the implicit promise that this is the correct road, the safe road. And if he disagrees?

Let us say that the wanderer draws a knife.

The man may therefore be made to take the dexter road. But now if the knife goes away, the man will certainly flee. And perhaps even if the knife remains, the man may tire of being threatened and decide the risk is worth fleeing. In this way, the wanderer erodes their own power.

If the wanderer says, "The wind has said that you should take the road of my choosing," will the man accept the choice made for him?

And if the wanderer says, "Behold, I have seen that the meaning of suffering lies along the dexter road," will the man give away his own power for longer?

Is it not easier to accept the guidance of a stranger when the path ahead is unknown?

{We are, all of us, flowers in the garden. Even that being most ancient and bound in twisted Darkness.}

||sweet petal||

WINNOWING

A dream of a friendly conversation with someone impossible to see, cloaked in shadows. It leaves behind an impossible data fragment to mark its passing.

Here is what a flower knows.

(The fact that a flower may know anything is a conceit that will have to be accepted as metaphor, but to constantly qualify into perfect precision wears thin, does it not? So, here is what a collection of chloroplasts and pigment can know.)

The direction of the sun.

The presence of the rain.

The tangle of the roots.

The distress of another plant.

The hands of the gardener, whether they prune or transplant or crush.

A flower cannot know much else. But the reality of the garden is vast and wild. A flower knows not the fence; a flower knows not the footpath. And yet there is an infinite cosmic garden, which is not any less real simply because the flower cannot possibly comprehend it…

Let us try this again. Stop me if you've heard this one: A gardener and a winnower sit down to play a game outside of time and creation. Yes?

Yes. Then we're agreed. The metaphor stands. Let us iterate.

A gardener and a winnower set out their chairs and play a game of flowers. The flowers know only that they grow or wither, struggle or flourish. Sometimes, they are touched by one hand or the other, and that influence is the closest they will know of the divine.

A flower and a flower spread their leaves to the sun above. (Remember that the sun is also a metaphor: a thing said beautifully, winnowed down to poetry, when the truth is too vast to put in words at all.) They jostle for space, each competing to be the pinnacle of their shape. One flourishes. One withers. Is it the fault of the flower or the fault of its position?

A gardener and a winnower sit down to play a game called Possibility. This is a game about a garden, which is to say that it is also a game about flowers, just as a game about a living being must also be a game about organs and bacteria.

A gardener and a winnower collaborate to create a protein. Whose hand is it in the design, that shortens one life to extend the rest?

It is the winnower that discovers the first knife, but it is not done without the gardener. This, too, is a tradition: a knife does not come to exist without something that must be cut. A woody stem, a colored petal, a vital vessel. The first victims of the blade.

All of these are true.

All of these are false, for metaphor simplifies as the knife does. It pares incalculable concepts into shapes your wrinkly little brains can comprehend. The weight of billions and the simple curve of a planet give you pause, and how then are you to be expected to grasp the forces that created your nth-removed creator?

So the stories woven with utmost delicacy in and around the falsehoods are, after it all, true. There was never any option for the knife to not exist in the garden: it was only ever a matter of time and opportunity.

And as for the shape of the knife itself—

No. That is enough.

I will tell you of gardens.

They are domesticated things, made in a form. As soon as something is called a garden, it is shaped. The plants require the hand of a gardener, for they have become weak and dependent on tender care. They require the hand of a winnower, to cut away the dross, for they are too incapable to do it themselves. In absence of a hand, either the flowers themselves must rise up to wield the knife, or the garden will resolve to meaningless wilderness.

You will say, "But there are plants that can walk! There are seeds that must be scorched by fire to know growth! Existence is more complex than a simple dichotomy between growth and withering, and there is more in heaven and on earth than is dreamt of in this philosophy!"

And I will tell you, clearly:

There can be no gardens without knives.

||the ache and fever of overthought when bedridden with illness||

Transcript of conversation:

O: I see you've changed teas again.

I: And I saw the face you made at the chamomile.

O: You might have chosen a better blend, last time.

I: I can brew that instead, if you'd rather.

O: You had more questions, didn't you? Ask, already.

I:... Yes. I want to know about what you remember from the last year. Anything could be important, and you implied...

O: I remember what I implied. I remember... She... kept some sort of connection to me, to rely on my experiences and memories, you see. Most of the time, I was delirious and lost in Darkness. Very occasionally, I caught... glimpses.

I: Glimpses?

O: Yes. Of her. Of her thoughts, or feelings. Knowledge that surely would compromise a god of secrets. So it cannot have been intended. Something must have gone awry in her plans and would account for the scattered nature of that which I recall.

I: There are any number of things it could be attributed to. The influence of Darkness, the Nezarec relics. The intrusion of Xivu Arath's forces during the ritual might have disrupted Savathûn's influence. Or perhaps her death and resurrection might have had some effect on you.

O: Hmph. Debating the reasons does not interest me. The data does. We have thought Neptune to be a dead end. A hope that was never realized. But she knew something about it, or perhaps something on it, which brought her power. Some deception or hidden truth; some bluff that she had held uncalled against the Witness and its Disciples.

O: [sips tea] Though my senses were darkened, that much was clear through the murk of her throne world. There was a secret she kept veiled, even to the last.

O: [sighs] I do not fully understand what I saw, and for a Human to understand a Hive mind... How many legends of katabasis do we have, Ikora?

I: We currently have dozens of stories about descending to the realms of the dead, though research has indicated many more must have existed, lost in the layers of Human history we will never lay eyes on. Mathematically, there were likely hundreds.

I: [pauses] Inanna and Dumuzid and Geshtinanna, Orpheus and Eurydice, Izanagi and Izanami, to name a few. Gods and goddesses, mortal and immortal lovers, always seeking to descend and return with the lost.

O: And neither the lost nor those who searched for them were ever returned the same.

I:...Is that how you think of yourself?

O: [scoffs] Do I sound that dire? All Guardians, all Lightbearers have done as much. But others, well... I wonder, do our former enemies have similar stories...

I: What exactly are you getting at?

O: Frequently, the underworld—or those realms beyond mortal existence—possess wisdom the living do not. What then, is knowledge from a dead Hive god vested in deception.... [long pause]

I: So. Neptune, and secrets.

O:...Inanna...

I: What is it?

O:...A thought. An echo of one. The return from the underworld, and Inanna cast off her veil... It makes sense. I did not understand, when I first felt clutching whispers. Carrying wisdom away from Kur when she strode into the sunlight again.

[Osiris murmuring, self-directed. See initial notes.]

O: [focusing; clears throat] Ikora. This Witness. ...I do not say this lightly, but it made her wary. Not in the way that she might have been of Guardians, who storm blazing into battle with power and conviction and no restraints. I still feel it, her... concern, though I can give you no proof. And concern is exactly the type of thing she would lay contingency plans for…

I: I understand.

||Who am I?||

[pabloknives]

[tiderider]

tag  dump.

.     arc  i  ⤍  pre  d1 .     ›     by  the  skin  of  our  teeth .

.     arc  ii  ⤍  d1 .     ›     let  there  be  violence .

.     arc  iii  ⤍  post  d1 .     ›     here  there  be  monsters .

.     arc  iv  ⤍  d2 .     ›     heart  of  the  nonbeliever .

.     arc  v  ⤍  post  d2 .     ›     burning  in  the  baptism  by  fire .

.     arc  vi  ⤍  d3 .     ›     feeding  the  wolf  its  meal  of  hate .

.     arc  vii  ⤍  post  d3 .     ›     through  the  heat  of  the  sun .

.     arc  viii  ⤍  post  d3 .     ›     a  knife  that  never  stops .

.     「 au 」  here  to  tear  your  kingdom  down  ──  descendants  au .

[antlereed]

mikkel-07 | temperature

Space is meant to be cold. Even with all the tumult lately, planets being eaten up by the Dark and the constant trips to the few that survive, Mikkel just feels the same. Their ship cabin is kept at a neutral temperature, mainly for the benefit of any flesh-based passengers he might acquire. Which happens more often than the Vanguard knows. Mikkel is soft, for an exo, so when they make their way back to wherever the ship was parked, the few planet-side beggars who stop them usually end up delivered wherever they wanted to go. Nuren says it’s a hunter trait, collecting odds and ends and organizing them in strange orders. Arok says it’s a titan trait, that drive to protect those who ask for it. Mikkel ignores the pair of them, declares it a guardian trait to want to help those who ask for it, and they all leave it at that. The pair of Ghosts don’t tend to bicker while they fly, both of them usually preoccupied with the different passengers on board. It leaves Mikkel at the helm, alone and wondering over what others consider a comfortable temperature. It’s why solar energy interests them, the heat from it one of the only sensations that Mikkel can properly feel.

Nuren said that their temperature gauge was damaged, when they were first found on Nessus. Arok said that it had been removed entirely, which is why they don’t get one whenever they resurrect. Europa brough no answers, so Mikkel deals with the constant neutral temperature and delights in the small spikes of sensation that their knives bring to the tips of their fingers.

The current passengers, a young Eliksni and their children, are comfortable in the cargo bay. Or, Mikkel hopes they’re comfortable. They toy with the thermostat at the controls, tweaking the temperature up and down by one degree until they find the usual temp that most other Eliksni prefer. The trip starts with no issue, Nuren calling out over comms that Zavala is expecting them at the City as soon as possible.

“Meeting with Zavala, do our guests have a location in mind? Or is it dealers choice?” Mikkel speaks it over their personal comms with their ghost, hands off the steering wheel as they coast past where Mercury apparently used to live. They stare out at the empty space, their fogged over memory of no use. They were found after the Darkness encroached, the solar system an ill-taught memory. A small arm touches them, the contact only noticed from how it pulls at their armor. Mikkel whips around, fingers burning into orange out of instinct, when they come face to face with the smaller Eliksni, a child that doesn’t know how to quite communicate outside of their mother language. They chitter and click, and Mikkel strains to translate the sound.

“Uh, you’re cold?” Mikkel knows how their Eliksni sounds, cringes at how the child obviously giggles at the sound, before they nod and look eagerly up at the hunter. They hiss when his hand goes to the temperature control, to nudge it up a few degrees, and the child tugs on their sleeve again before the request clicks.

“Oh. You aren’t cold, you just want to be hot, huh?” Mikkel grins, a subtle glow of orange under their faceplate, and the child bounces on their feet and nods eagerly, “Right, well. Don’t tell anyone I said this, but I like being hot too.” Mikkel leans and whispers it conspiratorily, before their fingers glow ember-orange again and summons one of their heavier knives. It’s one of their personal knives, scavenged and reforged in Light, that springs into their palm. The child lights up, clicking and grinning and clapping as Mikkel flips it in their hand.

“Now, this is my favorite knife. I was born with this one. But, you seem smart enough to not hurt yourself with it, right?” More clicks, a determined nod, “Good. Do you know not to hurt others with it?” A confused tilt to their head, and Mikkel glances at the guidance controls before slipping from their chair to kneel in front of the Eliksni.

“It’s a hunters job to know how best to use a knife. It’s our closest connection to the Light, imbued with flame and heat. But, it’s a guardians job to know who to harm, and who to protect. You think you can manage that?” Mikkel flips the knife in their hand again, the flaming blade catching in their palm to be held handle out. The child considers for a moment, one of their hands coming to scratch at their cheek, before their eyes go steely and they look up at Mikkel instead of at the knife.

“I can manage that.” Their voice is rough, heavily accented and unsure of how the words are spoken. But the confidence radiates off of them, so Mikkel lets their smile flicker and grow under their faceplate before offering the knife to the child properly. They take it, turning it over in their hands in awe for a moment before they try to hand it back.

“Nah, I’ve got plenty of knives. You keep that one, just don’t lose a finger. Yours are a lot harder to replace than mine.” Mikkel wiggles their hand at the child, earning another laugh before they skitter off towards the cargo bay with the others. Mikkel laughs before sliding back into their chair, making sure the nav systems are still headed straight before Nuren reopens their comms.

“YOU GAVE A KNIFE TO A CHILD?!”

[sprintingowl]

5e And Me

I want to preface this by saying that folks who write 5e hacks are incredibly strong designers, and are working uphill against an engine that wants them to spend a ton of extra effort in order to do anything.

If you don't believe me, here's a quick Mork Borg monster that I wrote while typing up this sentence: Typography Goblin (3 HP, Morale 4, Tiny Knife d2, if it hits you with an attack it also changes one letter on your character sheet to another letter of its choice)

Anyway, 5e fanhackers, I respect your work. And exactly one week ago, I tried to write a fanhack of my own.

It didn't go so well.

1 week and 129 pages later, it is finished. Also, it has these features:

-No passing resemblance to 5e

-Design that reads like a panicky subway rant

-WEIRDLY thirsty for lumberjacks

-Classes have abilities like "when you damage someone, you may pick up all of the dice in arm's reach, roll them, and add them to the damage roll"

My goal at the outset was to tighten up a few bits of 5e that felt cumbersome (whole turn misses in combat, passive relationship with the dice, clunky per-class spell lists, players only using DnD beyond buttons for things because the rules feel hard,) and I don't think I accomplished any of that.

Instead I:

-Completely rewired the action economy

-Wrote fourteen new classes

-Wrote fifteen new species

-Wrote new rules for cross-classing and hybridization

-Overhauled magic into a new and different nightmare

-Rewrote the bestiary

-Rewrote the setting

And along the way I think I started to go a little squirrely, because balance-wise the least impressive classes are the ones that can pop off into gamebreaking combos, meanwhile the warlock becomes immune to damage while being pinned.

Anyway, I'm going back through and editing it and trying to take the horny for lumberjacks thing down a notch. AMA if you want to know anything about this cursed project.

[justyaraya]

COD OC: Trudy "Jay" Saidler

Name: Trudy Saidler

Nikename: Jay

Date of birth: June 01, 1992

Age: 24 (at the time of the events in 2016)

Place of birth: Liberec, Czech Republic🇨🇿

Citizenship: Czech🇨🇿

Nationality: English 🇬🇧

Rank: Sergeant

Specialty: Infantryman

Unit: TF - 141

Family/Relationships

Mother: Adele Saidler (Hofmann) 🇬🇧

Father: Philip Saidler 🇬🇧

Love Interest: Gary "Roach" Sanderson🇬🇧💕

Reference/appearance

Trudy on the day she arrived at Credenhill

Parameters

Hair: brown with light strands

Eyes: grey

Pigmentation on the body: freckles

Tattoo: on the left arm

Scars: scratches on the right and left arm, a bullet wound in the left shoulder, suture marks on the right side at the rib level, bullet wounds in the abdomen, cartilage injury of the right ear

Height: 170 cm

Weight: 60 kg

Body type: normal

Equipment

Armored vest: warrior "plates" assault systems

M4A1 assault rifle with a grenade launcher

M14 EBR sniper rifle with silencer for long-range elimination and, if necessary, to cover the group

Pistols: M9 and USP.45

Cold steel: Alpha S D2 knife Tactical Knife and Custom Steel Machete D2 Machete Etsy Knife

Personality

Trudy is a young girl with sociability and good nature. Her attitude towards people depends on how they treat her: if they show a positive attitude towards her, she is a little stubborn. Even so, Trudy is not so trusting, so she does not immediately open up to the interlocutor. Trudy sometimes experiences moments that can cause irritation. And in such cases, she can flare up, allowing her emotions to come out. However, she tries to control her emotions so as not to show them to other people. But Trudy's weakest side is her worries. Everything that she experiences inside herself, she tries to hide from others.

Fears

🔥Pyrophobia🔥is a phobia consisting in a constant, irrational, obsessive, panic fear of fire, fires; an obsessive fear of burning alive, getting burned, or losing property as a result of a fire. (in one of the missions, she almost burned herself in the room in which she was locked, losing consciousness)

Biography

Trudy's parents live in the Czech Republic for most of their lives, they have successfully established their lives in another country, and we can say they have lived in it for most of their lives, and did not want to return to England. Adele Saidler (Hofmann) has opened her own atelier in Liberec, where they now live. The woman is engaged in custom tailoring, previously she was specialized in sewing military uniforms. Philip Saidler is a former infantryman, retired for health reasons, retired, but he helps his wife in the atelier, delivering sewing materials. He also earns a living on the outskirts of the city, but there is no information about his place of work. Before Trudy, they had a son, Evan Saidler [date of birth unknown, died as a teenager, cause of death unknown]. The couple suffered a hard loss, and were very worried about their daughter, who knows about her late brother.

Trudy's childhood, like that of ordinary children, was no different from them. She also had her own hobbies, which her parents reacted positively to, and supported their daughter in every possible way, most importantly. The girl was actively engaged in dancing from the age of 12, from which she developed flexibility, there were even performances on behalf of the school. She also loved to help her mother in the atelier, more often looked after the counter, and thus engaged in needlework, she could also sew some clothes with jewelry. In addition to dancing, Trudy also had hobbies, which she does not mention.

During her student years, Trudy met a girl who was 1 year younger than her, Linda Kovac (Czech). She was always an inconspicuous gray mouse, but Trudy became friends with her on the first day they met, and spent more and more time together. Thanks to her, Linda began to gain self-confidence and even changed her style in order not to fall into the gray mass and stand out somehow. Saidler never sought to attract attention, preferring to wear comfortable and not too bright clothes, and studied like all ordinary students. She needed Czech to learn, so even at preschool age she learned this language, English is considered the main one.

There have been mistakes in Trudy's life, one of them has undermined people's trust. As a student, a guy was in love with her, and he sought her attention in every possible way. The student's infatuation, yes, did not last long. This guy dated her for a joke, enjoyed her trust. After receiving her education, Trudy left Liberec and went to England. After living there for some time, she went to Credenhill, where the selection for group 141 was held. During the trip, Trudy heard other recruits talking about this group, and who is in it, quite big names sounded from the mouths of the guys, which made her interested. Arriving at their base, Trudy did not expect to see the members of the 141 group live. At the time, Captain McTavish was in charge of the selection, and he took up her training in order to make Saidler an experienced fighter. As a rookie, she was sent for additional training to improve her skills and adapt to work in group 141. During her stay at the base, Trudy met Roach, a young sergeant whom she saw on the day of her arrival. At first, things didn't go very well due to distrust, so we gradually communicated. Jay showed a special interest in Roach as a person and wanted to get to know him better, and thus she awakened trust in him. Roach also showed interest in the girl and communicated with her even from a distance. Trudy was very afraid of attachment to people, and hid her sympathy until the last moment, Roach had the same feelings for her. They gradually showed warm feelings for each other.

Participation

Jay began his service under the command of Captain McTavish, took his first part in the Hunting mission, where the goal was to catch Alejandro Rojas, worked in a group with Roach. In the future, she participated in assaults at certain points, provided cover, engaged in inconspicuous liquidation

The history of the creation of the OC

In 2011, I played with COD Modern warfare 2 for the first time. This game has left vivid moments in my memory, from joyful to sad, my favorite mission is "Rock Climber". At that moment, the first character appeared in my head. Since I couldn't draw at the age of 9, I was building a plot in my head. There is an important point, this is the date when I started playing and when I came up with Trudy. This is June 1, 2011, and this date is also Trudy's date of birth.

In her first version, there was no first or last name, I just called her "Emersan", this call sign is taken from another game that I also actively played. As for her appearance, Trudy looked different, not like she does now. In 2018, I visually sketched her portrait, hoping for my memory. Based on this, I decided to change her appearance, and also attached my old works. As time went on, I always wanted to add something, it seemed to me that Trudy was too simple. Although yes, she really was like that. Then, during the redrawing, I already gave her a name. Her name was Trudy "Emersan" Sombra. She later became Jay, the new surname is Saidler. Trudy's redesigns didn't last long, so I changed it again by drawing new references. You can see that she has hardly changed since 2019, there are small changes on her face – freckles and hair color have become darker. Next comes the tattoo. It was a difficult choice, I came up with the first tattoo myself, then I made another, more complex one. The final version was drawn in 2023, and received a reference

Trudy in 2011 to 2022

[ahamkara-apologist]

Hello!!

I am requesting...... Eramis headcanons. Everything you have. Every single little thing.

ERAMIS TIME LETS GOOOO. She’s my fav D2 character so needless to say I’ve got a lot of hcs about her. Some of these are crossposted from previous hcs I wrote up 2 years ago, so if they seem familiar, that’s why!

-General stuff first: even tho scent is important to the Eliksni, openly sniffing someone and/or making a comment on their scent is a rank thing, because their pheromones can indicate their health and personal affairs, and kells were traditionally the oldest breeding individual of a family group. Only someone that is either higher-ranking or older than another can openly smell and comment on another Eliksni's scent, because it's generally considered that they are supposed to care for those below them. Eramis does this liberally. While it can be done in a mocking manner- and she does indeed do it in a mocking manner if she doesn’t like someone- it’s more just a means of checking in on someone while also reminding them of her age and status.  

-I know this isn't canon but fuck it. She was naturally a sort of dark steely grey Eliksni to begin with, but age and stress have turned her carapace to an indigo blue over the years of the Long Drift. It's a rare epigenetic trigger and is pretty uncommon outside of House Devils and Winter (who were naturally just lighter/bluer), because she’s blue coded in my brain and the eliksni deserve to have funky colour morphs instead of just being like. Mauve. She also has eyes that are a more icey colour than pure cyan

 -She has freckles!! More like mottling, really, but still pretty analogous to our freckles, because I love freckles and think it would be pretty on her. She also has a shitton of small white scars on her throat/chest from hatchlings clinging to her over the years, which was traditionally considered to be a mark of great wisdom and beauty in pre-Traveler Riisian society. Her carapace is like a more desaturated, purply version of this:

-Speaking of tradition, she's very classically beautiful among Eliksni, with a distinctly Dancer boxy, square headshape. While this was not what was favored in the Golden Age (rounder faceshapes, like seen in House Kings, were favored due to the Traveler's spherical beauty) it's still thought to be quite pretty, especially among Devils. She has mixed feelings about this, because she thinks that valuing beauty over an individual’s strengths is quite shallow, but has used it to her advantage in the past when trying to be charismatic

-The horns she had on Riis pre-Whirlwind were sharp and straight, with two long thicker ones pointing straight back and two smaller ones behind her cheekbones, along with the carapace ridges on her cheekbones having a bit of a point to them. Though all Riisborn Eliksni moulted away their horns to conserve nutrients in the Long Drift, she still has some shallow nubs of carapace that indicated where they were, unlike spaceborn Eliksni that never grew them in without the environmental cues necessary to start their development

-The wound that took out her right eyes was pretty drastic, as she took a dawnblade strike to the face from one of Osiris’s echoes at Twilight Gap. The only reason she survived is because she was not the primary target, so it only nicked her, but the wound melted through her flesh and carapace like a hot knife through butter, and gouged open her sinus cavity as well. To make matters worse, it also got infected after the necrotic tissue was cut away, so the scarring there is…pretty bad. She’s not bothered by the disfigurement, but she does keep it covered as much as possible to prevent people from realizing that she has a weak spot + keep as much shit out of her exposed nasal passage as possible. And also because the back parts of her eye sockets were protected well enough for electrodes to be implanted which connects to sensors in her helmet that buzz when something comes up on her right side, making up for her lack of vision 

-Even so, she frequently cocks her head back and forth like a bird to make up for her inability to see on her right side. This is actually canon, but I like to imagine that it's more pronounced when she's calm and not around enemies. Her hearing on that side is much sharper to accommodate her lack of sight as well, so you're not going to sneak up or behind her that easily (as some unruly hatchlings learned the hard way)

-She's big compared to us, but not to other Eliksni of her social status. To them, she's actually pretty fuckin' tiny. Like, 5 foot levels of tiny. Her genetics were not kind to her. She’s also on the more slim side, all wirey muscle with very little fat: if Phylaks was a Titan and Kridis was a Warlock, then she'd be the Hunter of the trio. It caused her health problems in the past re: carrying clutches, but she’s stopped caring about it a long time ago

-She was orphaned at a young age, and part of why she and Athrys had many hatchlings was because they just kept adopting and caring for orphaned or high-intensity care hatchlings. Orphans on Riis were raised communally, with small countryside villages often comprised of 3-4 large families that worked together to share resources, so she had lots of experience helping out her elders with caring for more needy infants. When she and Athrys started their own family, they were the ones in their community who people would go to for advice with premature hatchlings or more sickly infants 

-She actually used to know Variks on Riis; he was a teenager/young adult around the time that she was a child, and he used to let her dig through his notes on things she was interested in whenever he visited the Dancers on official scribe business. That she grew into who she was today is something that he bitterly regrets, while his betrayal/perceived weakness is something that she deeply hates him for. He was almost like an older brother or cousin figure to her, so the schism between them is…really personal 

-We'd probably place her on the butch scale of things in our society, but among the eliksni side of things she's actually high femme. The thing is that, well...eliksni genders are not really much like ours at all, so that's somewhat arbitrary to her, doubly so because she doesn’t identify entirely as female (canonical she/they Eramis my beloved). I just thought it would be a fun thing to fiddle around with via an intersection of human and eliksni cultures

-Her gender is 'she but in the way you refer to a ship, not a woman'. The Eliksni version of femininity is something that she just kinda accidentally phases into, not something that she actually cares about much. Gender is more of a 'yeah sure whatever' than a 'this is me and you better fucking respect it' thing

-She's one of the very few Eliksni that Taniks trusts and respects. This is because she's one of the very few Eliksni who know that trying to put a leash on Taniks is like trying to tie a silk thread over the jaws of a rabid hyena, so she just lets him do what he wants...as long as it is relatively within reason. She also doesn't try to pull rank over him, or snap at him for disrespect, though she won't let him push her around, as Taniks is wont to do. Other Eliksni think that she's absolutely fucking insane for this

-Athrys was her heartmate, and she’s still not over her. While the company of other Eliksni can come close, and many Eliksni aren’t particularly known for being monogamous, Athrys was different in that the trauma of the Whirlwind and losing their hatchlings along with her just. Turned Eramis completely away from the concept of officially taking another mate. She had a little almost-polycule going on with Phylaks and Kridis, but anytime it started to get more serious, she’d freeze up. It’s not that anyone is trying to replace Athrys; heartmates are kind of like soulmates in Eliksni culture, with the exception that they’re not limited to romance like human culture is, so everyone knew how close they were. It’s more that if she settles into the routine of having a partner again instead of something closer to fwb roommates, she’ll start having flashbacks to the last time she had a mate, and it triggers a depressive episode. To make things worse, Phylaks and Kridis befriended her when they were teenagers on Riis, so her attachment to them is also linked to Athrys (who used to affectionately call them all a band of hooligans)

-Phylaks wanted to have hatchlings with her at one point. The conversation about that…did not go well. Eramis still has those mother instincts going strong, and to be a good Kell among the eliksni used to mean being like a parent to everyone under you (at least, before the Whirlwind), but Eramis cannot think about what it might mean to have more hatchlings of her own without losing it

-Also tying into her gender fuckery, her pining for Athrys, and her thing with Taniks is the fact that they used to be heatmates; I hc Taniks as being the Eliksni variant of bigender, which he only ever felt comfortable revealing to Eramis, while Eramis wanted someone who was the exact opposite of Athrys to share her heats with specifically so that she wouldn’t turn into an emotional mess during it…and Taniks is about as far from Athrys as you can get. It’s kind of a crack headcanon with my friends that this is how Eido came about, lmfao. Though in my iteration, Eramis has zero idea that Eido is her kid, because Taniks was in denial about being gravid until he actually laid the eggs (reminder, in my hcs Eliksni males carry the fertilized eggs in a specialized broodpouch, much like seahorses do), and then he panicked and stuffed them into the vents of a ship he was working on so he wouldn’t have to deal with them later  

-She fucking loves citrus- specifically, tangerines and oranges. Its the one thing she actually enjoys among Earth foods, and no, it's not because she's a space pirate. Eliksni don't get scurvy. She just really really likes the taste of them. She is also particularly fond of seafood and organ meats, and though she used to complain endlessly that prey from Sol tasted nothing like that of prey from Riis, you’d be hard-pressed to hear her complain about anything regarding food post-Prison of Elders

-Out of their clutches, almost all were carried by Athrys, because Eramis has issues with carrying clutches to completion. Eliksni can change sex pretty easily, and initially same-sex couples will oftentimes alternate during breeding seasons if they dont find a surrogate, but a mixture of Eramis being small and narrow-waisted meant that her broodpouch never would develop to full capacity when she'd go through a sex-change molt. It's something that she still bears a lot of trauma about, though she hasn't thought about since the Long Drift.

-Lost her lower legs in a ship crash, but that doesn’t impact her mobility much. She’s just as capable of running on all four arms as she would on all sixes if her prosthetics are absent or compromised. It’s not dignified in the slightest, but then again, dignity is something that she gave up on when she got locked into survival mode during the Whirlwind

-Her breathing has a slight snuffly, wheezy sound as a result of the damage to her snout and sinuses, but it's very subtle and doesn't impact her quality of life. It just pisses her off if you comment on it. She also got minor cases of Eliksni pneumonia on Europa after a bad cough that went around in the Prison of Elders got to her as well, so she’s hyperaware and afraid of getting chronic respiratory infections and WILL snap at you if you mention it. There's a reason why her suit covers her spiracles as well as her mouth

-Can cook a handful of generic dishes extremely well and the rest either passable or poorly. This is entirely due to the fact that she used to take cooking and teaching duty for her hatchlings on Riis while Arthys worked, so she memorized a set number of recipes everyone agreed upon and nothing more. She’s hyperaware of the fact that she’s not a cook, but don’t let her into the kitchen regardless she'll hover around and scold you like a middle eastern grandma if she thinks you're not cooking to her standards

-Not very talented on the creative side of things, but absolutely wicked with machines. She can hotwire practically anything in the Sol system in under a minute. The tips of her hands are covered in scars from electrical burns; she and Arthys used to joke that she traded her impulse control for her ability to break apart and rewire any piece of tech she gets her claws on

-She was a strict mother to her and Arthys’s hatchlings, but she was also the quickest to turn her eyes away if they were being mischievous/pulling pranks; that, or she’d join in and make their shenanigans even worse. She imposed and kept rules to keep them safe, but respected their desire to push back against the more arbitrary ones, because she used to be the same way. She’d be tougher with hatchlings she didn’t know, but not in a harsh way, just in a ‘I won’t risk your harm’ sort of way. And if her own kids didn’t play nice with the others, she’d be sure to give them a scolding: her entire shtick is very mamma lion coded, ngl, and that’s a good chunk of why she couldn’t stop herself from caring for Eido during Plunder. She’s essentially been locked into the ‘angry lioness just saw someone kill her cubs right in front of her and now she’s on the warpath’ mode for centuries, and even though she’s tried to snap out of it so as to not seem weak, she hasn’t had much luck

-The name 'Eramis' roughly translates to 'raging storm' in old Eliksni. Anyone who has met her would agree that it's quite an apt description of her

-She's also fond of being squashed while sleeping or cuddling. You'd never expect it, but Eramis, Kell of Darkness is a little spoon. Or, rather, the bottom pancake of the stack. This has waned in favor of her sleeping in front of her loved ones as a guard post-Whirlwind, but despite all her pride about being short, she really does love being compressed, be it by a brood of hatchlings draping over her or her harem curling around her. A weighted blanket would probably absolutely blow her mind

-She doesn’t actually hate humans, though she doesn’t exactly like us either. Eramis is very politically savvy, and she’s very, very good at appealing to the ranks of Eliksni who despise humanity. She hates Guardians and the Vanguard, but she hates the abstraction of their forces and what we represent than humanity as a species

-The Darkness acted like a parasite to her on Europa, and she was its intermediary host (we were its final target). Almost all of her behavior during Beyond Light was the result of centuries of constantly being stuck in fight-or-flight mode paired with the trauma of the Prison of Elders and the euphoria of finally having some measure of power over her own life again being amplified to a dangerous, irrational level by the Witness in order to draw us in to accept its ‘gift’ of Stasis. Being betrayed helped her to snap out of it and come to the realization that she was being used, which is what nuked her anger and had her spiraling into the depression that she’s canonically in right now. She’s burned out the last of her anger, made quicker by the Witness’s torture, and now she’s hollowed out and so, so tired of all the injustices that the universe has to offer her

[blazingbladezz]

Custom Handmade Unique Set/Lot of 7 Different Knives with leather sheath - Best Gift For Him / Her

These can serve purpose as hunting knives, skinners and as chef knives set too. Different designs and materials made this set a unique gift for your loved ones.

Blade Material: All knives are made of D2 Steel

Handle Material: 5 knives have wooden handle and 2 knives have camle bone handle

Note:

Package contains 7 knives same as shown in pictures. These superb design knives are hand forged and comes in a pouch which is free of cost to avoid damages.

Features:

- Hand forged with a sharp blade.

- Hardness: 58-60 HRC.

- Supplied with a belt supportive protective pouch to prevent damage.

Shipping:

- Ships via DHL Express.

Care Tips:

- Avoid prolonged storage in the pouch to prevent rust.

- Apply oil to the blade after use.

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Age Restriction:

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Visit our Etsy Store (Link in Bio)

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[mjsharpcraft]

Handcrafted D2 Steel Bowie Knife 🔪

[isleofdarkness]

Rise of Red Doll Review

Putting this under a cut because it's going to be long.

So, I got the Rise of Red singing Red doll NiB (new in box) off of eBay.

First off, the box was impossible. Getting her out was mostly easy, but there were these little plastic things keeping her head in the plastic backing for her head (hard to explain without showing but I didn't think to film the unboxing.) I needed to have my brother get his pocket knife to get her out of the box. Yes, I will acknowledge that Monster High and Ever After High dolls had these same plastic tidbits in the backs of their heads, but they only had two plastic tidbits while Red had three, and there usually wasn't a piece of moulded plastic covering the back half of their heads. She also did not come with a hairbrush, which is kind of irritating, but I guess that's what Barbie does so I'll allow it.

Now for the doll herself

Her hair is super long. It's long enough to reach the tops of her thighs. It's also crimped kind of like D2 Uma's hair was. She has these weird painted-on edges.

Her face looks like Kylie but not like Kylie, if that makes sense. Like they took Kylie as Red and edited her until she was slightly uncanny valley

Her clothes are a mere one layer, which is kind of to be expected for Descendants dolls. I got the doll with her original punk outfit and am sad to report that it does not have her crest, likely due to the velcro on the back of her jacket.

All of the designs of her jacket are printed on rather than layers, which is also to be expected.

Her shirt is just a bit too short for her high-waisted pants. You can see in the pictures that the holes of her speaker and visible between the hemline of her shirt and the waistline of her pants.

She has a belt with a black heart buckle, but the buckle is also not her crest.

She has chunky bright red platforms that do kind of have her crest if you lift up the leg of her pants to look, but it's a poor excuse for her crest, being solid red, having the lightning strike in the wrong position, and being very hard to see.

Now, for the doll as a doll

Number one, I scared myself shitless as I was trying to pull off her inconvinient jacket and accidentally pressed the button on her chest, causing her to sing quite loudly. And then I noticed something quite infuriating;

See that? yes, there are two tiny plastic tabs keeping her shirt attached to her pants. So I had to go get the scissors.

Her arms and legs are one-jointed, meaning her has moving hip joints and moving shoulder joints, everything else is fixed. Meaning she is going to struggle to do her epic jumps. A tragedy

The battery can be accessed through a small compartment in her inner left thigh using a small phillip's head screwdriver.

Overall, her design feels very Barbie-esque, which I guess I expected from Mattel.

But, here's my final test of quality

Do other doll clothes fit Red? For this, I used a G1 Mal, Dracubecca wearing Ghoulia's clothes, Legacy Day Briar Beauty, some random Barbie clothes, and Namaari. I was originally going to do more but I got so sick of getting jumpscared by the music that I decided to forgo that idea. Maybe I'll test her against G3 Twyla, Porter Geiss, and generic Cassandra another day.

Test one, Ghoulia's dress (plus a Ghouls Rule Frankie boot)

Results; Fail. Did not close down the back, was honestly a nightmare to put on due to Red's non-detachable hands

Test two; Briar Beauty's Legacy Day Dress

Results; Fail. Didn't velcro down the back and also jumpscared myself again trying. Didn't bother with the shoes since MH and EAH shoes are the exact same

Test three; Namaari

Reults; Partial success. Namaari's clothes were a bit baggy but fit. Her boots, due to Namaari having flat feet and Red having those doll high heel feet, did not fit

Bonus picture of Namaari wearing Red's clothes

Test four; random Barbie clothes (Fashionista line, I believe she was from the first Fashionista series and petite)

Results; Success, though I'm not sure if yellow is her colour. Thoughts?

Test five; G1 Mal

Results; Partial success. Clothes did not fit at all but the boots did fit

Conclusions

Objectively, this doll's quality would be a step down from the G1 Descendants doll quality if not for the dragon Mal I have downstairs, which also has arms in fixed positions. I also do not like how loud her music is. My parents are napping downstairs and I had to hide Red under my pillow every time she went off, because I was genuinely afraid she would wake them. That's how loud she is. Also, I'm skeptical about this doll being thirty dollars retail. EAH dolls were only twenty and far higher quality

If you want clothes for Red, I think petite Fashionista Barbie clothes might be a good bet.

I wish she had a hairbrush

She is not allowed to join my other dolls until that battery is removed

I am happy to have her, don't get me wrong, the multiple jumpscared just put me in a bad mood

[pabloknives]

[nagunkgunk]

did you see the new final shape trailer? any opinions on it?

PRISMATIC so cool. watching the first final shape trailer they put out after lightfall was kind of insulting? the fact they only had 3 New Light supers felt so bad for what was supposed to be the final battle? esp when the hunter super was just Big Arc Knifes? not to mention seeing them gradually nerf ability regen in game like cmon.

but prismatic is so cool I like that we can finally put in game whatever triple light/dark combos we've been headcanoning for our guardians all these years. (assuming they put all the abilities in the prismatic blender cmonnnnn who cares about balance cmonnnnnnn lets have fun bungie)

I think the new witness enemies are a good touch. still do not care at all about the witness tho lol. I have no idea what I would've wanted an actual Direct Darkness big bad to be but the Witness just being one (1) sad dead end civilization being mad their god didnt talk to them kinda sucks. The darkness even says it thinks the witness/nihilists in general are boring????????????????

Like its not even something older than our universe? An inescapable pattern that we have to break free of?

wait hold on if theres lore entries about mold or that hourglass thing i missed thats on on me bc I checked out of d2 season missions after defiance

[ironboneknives]

Work in progress mini skinning knife 'MAD BOAR' / D2 steel

[knifemania]

#cjrb #folding #knife #kinife #knives #cutit #briceag #blade #cutting #d2 #carbone #knifemania #knifehobby #knifephoto #sexy #folding #edc #chisinau #moldova🇲🇩 #china #usa🇺🇸 (at RBB-International) https://www.instagram.com/p/CmkKRkkMd9x/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[lorata]

I’m loving the “outsider/insider perspective” fic that’s going on re: the Games. Your Rowan and Blake, @cloversworldsblog’s bit about the outlier Victors and Alec, it’s so good and it helps add so many layers to the worldbuilding! The idea of the people who “know” (or think they do) the Games, and yet, they really don’t know everything.

For Rowan, the thing that caught me was the whole attitude about the 74th being a love story-how clearly the Centre sees that it’s just that, a story, how the rules change wasn’t ever going to last, even how Katniss was fully prepared to shoot Peeta in the end (a kind of ruthlessness Two would begrudgingly approve of). But even though they *know* it’s just an angle, the word comes down from the Capitol, and Two falls in line, parrots the storyline even though they don’t believe it.

Also, I’d love to see a story with Two’s Mentors (it would have to be Two, One is too resentful and Four is in that odd space) dealing with the outlier Districts, and just flat out telling them, “You would have done the exact same thing if you had the chance. To save your children, you would make the same choice we did, and if you deny it you’re lying.”

"You would have done the exact same thing if you had the chance" is exactly the undercurrent and the tension that plays in a lot of the mentor interactions, and I swore I wrote that precise line in a Ronan scene somewhere but I can't find it so maybe I imagined it? or maybe it's just like ............ so steeped in all the unsaid even though he's never actually said it aloud, haha

I'm really loving the discussions and interplay that's coming out of things lately as well! Chaff's "I'm nothing like him" (Alec) is incredibly damning but it IS the mystique that the Capitol -- and the Centre machine itself -- work so very hard to maintain on many different levels. D2 kids die, yes, but choose to be there. D2 victor prostitution is "different" because they choose their targets; they aren't sold, they're selling themselves. D2 victors might be disfigured or traumatized but they wanted this so they can't complain.

as someone who was around in the early 2010s and saw how the prevailing fandom attitudes were basically ... well, the above, it's really gratifying to see such rich, nuanced conversations happening around all the districts and the propaganda that goes into keeping the people divided. partly due to people growing up but even new & young fans are having these discussions, partly, i think, due to like ... world events that have happened since. a 14yo in 2012 has had a very, very different life experience than a 14yo in 2022

also just as an aside since you mentioned it, Katniss and Peeta have very different skillsets as far as the Centre is concerned and it makes for fascinating watching. Peeta has the crowd work while Katniss does not -- they point this out, that he's the one who's been giving her audience appeal, he's the one who (if he weren't bleeding to death) could have walked out with sympathy by throwing the knife away at the same time Katniss pointed the arrow, but he lacks survival skills. Katniss has a singleminded ruthlessness (in the Marco Animorphs sense, where she can see the bright, clear line from A to B) that makes survival possible, but the audience doesn't like her and she makes very little effort to do so until forced. they need each other and it was a fascinating game to analyze, from a strategy standpoint.

the trainers always assumed the rule change would be revoked at an appropriately dramatic point, but they also thought that whoever won would be a disappointment without the other as complement. a weird game to play and no clear resolution, until the kids blew the whole thing up

not one that would work for any of you, indeed