#like. literally any other rational human being would probably take it as a kid playing make believe if they heard him talking like shin

[risingmoonyue]

One thing that cracks me up about Detective Conan is that of all the people that Shinichi surrounds himself with, it’s is the exact handful of people who are willing to make mental leaps such as “16-year old shrinking to a 6-year old”, like that hasn’t been a scientific impossibility for all of forever

Like. Instead of adhering to common sense, he is friends with everyone who decides nah, I’m not gonna do that today and this child is actually my best friend/this random dude I’ve only met once who is and has documented pictures of being 16.

It’s just kinda hilarious that with any other group, his identity would probably be just fine, but no. He surrounds himself with the only people in the universe who would believe that, willingly or not.

[soleminisanction]

I kinda joked about this a few weeks ago, but the more I think about it, the more convinced I become that the Bad Kids are Pathfinder 2e characters trapped in a Dungeons & Dragons 5e world.

Gonna start with Riz here because he's the one who put the idea in my head in the first place. Riz Gukgak and his parents are clearly closer in concept and design to the green, sneaky, tech-and-fire loving Pathfinder Goblins than they are the yellow, burly mobs of the official D&D goblins. (This is probably because most of the art you find when you google "Dungeons & Dragons goblins" is actually of Pathfinder goblins.) Riz also uses guns, weapons which are uncommon but well-established in Pathfinder, but barely exist at all in D&D.

Most importantly, Riz is fundamentally an Investigator, which exists as its own class in Pathfinder but not in D&D. You know what other classes D&D doesn't have? Oracle and Swashbuckler. The former of which is mechanically way closer to the way Brennan already plays Adaine's oracle powers narratively (and has its own built-in narrative hook to play with, a curse), while the latter has entire fighting styles built around dance and makes you a more effective fighter the more you show off.

For Gorgug you have to dig a little into the gritty details, because Barbarian is a class shared by both systems, but the big one is that unlike D&D, Pathfinder has actual technology rules. Non-magical technology rules, so taking on the Artificer equivalent, the Inventor, as an archetype wouldn't have had that particular synergy problem. There's also a feat, Adopted Ancestry, that would give him mechanical access to culture-based gnome feats to reflect his upbringing with his adopted parents.

Similarly, with Fig, Bards exist in both games (Warlocks don't, but multiclassing into Hexblade is mechanically similar to taking the Magus archetype) but you know what doesn't, RAW? Tieflings that are also elves, because of how D&D's races work. In Pathfinder, however, the tiefling equivalent (nephilim, specifically hellspawn) are a versatile heritage, a secondary template that can be applied to any ancestry, so "elf hellspawn nephilim" is legal RAW. And it's something where you can choose how much of that heritage is expressed in your character's appearance so, again, the mechanics line up better with the narrative re: it only being something she learned about later in life.

Finally, you've got Kristen, who is, on paper, the one who fits comfortably in either game -- a human cleric. But I will attest that, given what she's capable of, she's not just a human cleric. Given the shit Kristen has pulled off over the last three seasons, I maintain that she would be best represented by, at bare minimum, taking the archetype for the upcoming Exemplar class (playtested last year and releasing officially in War of the Immortals, Oct 2024), the only rare class in Pathfinder 2e because they're meant to be literal, actual demi-gods, legendary heroes on the same level as Hercules, Gilgamesh, Cú Chulainn and Maui. It's a class designed to essentially break the game in select ways to make the players feel awesome (hence why it's rare, so GMs can restrict access if they choose), and well. Tell me that doesn't sound like Kristen Applebees.

So yeah, there's the rational behind my crack theory that makes way too much sense: the Bad Kids are Pathfinder characters. Or growing up to be Pathfinder characters. Something like that.

[wouldntyou-liketoknow]

Comparing Killers

I sent an ask to my buddy @insane4fandoms a few days ago, and in their reply, they mentioned potentially doing a character analysis for both MadPat and my very own fanmade cannibal EgoPat Caliban in the future.

(This stemmed from one of their latest drawings. Again, thanks so much for remembering my scrunglies, friendo ❤️)

SO, being the way I am, I took some random inspiration and now I'm going through with that exact analysis myself! Just following my instincts as a writer and all that stuff.

___

MadPat:

Now, just to get this out of the way because I have a sneaking suspicion that someone’s gonna read this and automatically assume I’m being stuck-up: I really like Mad as a character. Matt has done an amazing job portraying him. . .though, Matt just has a knack for unhinged characters in general, lol.

And thanks to Matt's acting skills, Mad is an enjoyable villain. He’s cluster of chaotic problems shaped like a man in his thirties, and we all love him for it. (Honestly, I kinda see Mad’s behavior as similar to that of The Actor from all of Mark’s projects. Comedically evil with a tendency to throw tantrums when things don’t go his way.)

The FNAF Musicals have made many slight tweaks to the lore of the games to not completely plagiarize the story. So, of course, Mad is a slightly-tweaked version of William Afton: it’s made very clear that his crimes include murdering kids. On top of that, he has no problem playing long-cons with pizzeria employees before eventually killing them, too.

We’ve seen plenty of times that Mad is pretty much never afraid to get violent. Oh sure, he tries to put a mask on when he needs to, but it’s easy to see all his urges beneath that mask. (And again, much like Actor!Mark, Mad ain’t too shy about being callous and hostile to almost everyone around him.) He’s very quick to anger. To make things worse, he’s also quick to desperation.

While Mad is too smart for everyone else’s good, he’s still pretty damn impulsive/irresponsible. His crimes were all concentrated on the pizzeria; it didn’t take very long at all for the disappearances to pile up and gain unwanted attention. Now, a bunch of missing-person-cases are one thing, but leaving evidence is quite another.

Hell, in the beginning scene of Web of Lies, the wacko-in-a-bearsuit himself literally said, “Every INCH of this place is INCRIMINATING! Ten minutes of poking around this place and they’ll discover what I did. . !���

If Mad were to hear of Caliban's work, he'd probably be impressed at first and automatically assume that Caliban is just like him, just with more people-eating. However, if Mad were to actually meet Caliban and get a better read on his personality, Mad would likely end up insulting him one way or another. He'd see Caliban's professionalism as tedious.

___

Caliban Crawford:

Though I've made it pretty obvious that he's my special boi, Caliban is an objectively bad person. He may be insane, but he’s not delusional enough to deny that. Whenever his and/or Murdock's targets happen to be alive when they’re dragged to his den, he can be very, VERY sadistic throughout the butchering process. (Especially if the target has done something to personally affect him, Azalea, or any of his other peers.)

Sure, he doesn’t complain about working with dead bodies, but having a live meal is quite a special occasion. In such cases, he enjoys watching the unfortunate soul in question squirm and listening to them scream/beg. Taunting, dragging things out, making morbid puns all over the place, the works.

Despite all this, I’ve specifically crafted Caliban to be an extremely morally-gray character. (To be honest, the only fanmade ego of mine who’s full-on evil is LeviathanPat.) He’s still able to be logical/rational when he needs to. He takes pride in his self-control; yes, he has cravings for human flesh, but he knows he can’t afford to just attack any person he sees whenever he gets hungry. He knows he has to be EXTREMELY CAREFUL in order to keep his business away from the authorities. So, he only eats those he and his peers (Murdock, Azalea, etc.) are hired/paid to bump off.

On top of that, Caliban still has some humanity left. While he’s obviously nowhere close to a perfect angel, he’s still able to form genuine relationships and treat those in his circle with kindness/respect. Get on his good side, and you'll have quite a strong ally.

Though his morals are limited, one of the biggest differences between him and Mad is the fact that Caliban would never, NEVER stoop so low as to harm a child. In fact, he tends to avoid children altogether due to his own childhood trauma. (Totally not me projecting because I grew up in a dysfunctional family with verbal/emotional/psychological abuse.)

Getting back to the juicy stuff: Caliban is smart and efficient with his work. He prides himself on not leaving any evidence behind. (Yes, he still makes occasional mistakes, but even then, the aforementioned evidence still comes in very tiny amounts.) That's why he and Murdock became friends and started working together in the first place: since Caliban divides up which parts can be cooked/eaten and which parts can be sold on the Black Market, it really is easy for targets to just seemingly vanish into thin air.

Though my stories involving Caliban probably show him acting calm (despite his pun-addiction, lol), please, PLEASE don't be fooled. He's got just as much unhinged energy as Mad. He just happens to hide it a bit more often. But he definitely has his chaotic moments; half of the time it's out of unhinged joy, and the other half of the time it's because an enemy pissed him off enough to get their skin privileges revoked. (Basically, it's not that much of a stretch to see Caliban as a combination of The Hermit and Mack.)

Now, if you've seen @insane4fandoms artwork of him, then it's pretty clear that some inspiration was taken from Hannibal Lecter. And while I definitely appreciate references like that. . .well, that inspiration is mainly just for Caliban's appearance. I've said before that Caliban is nowhere near as arrogant as Hannibal. Even so, if Caliban were to see/hear about all of Mad's shenanigans, he'd write Mad off as being sloppy and unimpressive. If he were to actually meet Mad, his opinion would just get worse; he'd see Mad as a fair bit annoying and bratty.

___

@sammys-magical-au @b-is-in-the-closet @im-a-weird0 @themarpsimp @lexusinsannus @crazy-obsessed-enby @rozeliyawashereyall @gaymingintrovert @lampsforsocks @forestcouncil @x-hotrose-x @v1rus-seal

[everygame]

It Takes Two (PlayStation 4) Developed/Published by: Hazelight Studios / Electronic Arts Released: 26/03/2021 Completed: 28/11/2023 Completion: Finished it!

After quite enjoying A Way Out, it only made sense to play through It Takes Two considering I had a willing partner and it has, generally, received massive critical acclaim and awards and that.

Now. Hazelight’s company director, Josef Fares, is kind of famous in game circles for appearing on The Game Awards and acting like an lunatic in a way that is, to any rational human being (i.e. not anyone who would identify as a “gamer”) as being absolutely themonuclear cringe. And you think… god that’s so forced. On a show that is so pandering, how can he act so embarrassingly?

Then you play It Takes Two and you go… ah, no, the guy’s just off his rocker.

It’s kind of hard to really write sensibly about It Takes Two, to be honest. I’ve played some games with absurd, misguided concepts and writing, but I don’t think I’ve ever played one that’s this misguided but also this confident in it. The game is a near-endless parade of different game mechanics that have been polished to within an inch of their lives that has then been absolutely slathered in a grab-bag of insanely dissonant emotional beats.

There’s so much wildly different content in this, that all I could think about was the poor staff working on this. How hard did they have to work on a game where no mechanic is allowed more than about a half-hour, because, in Fares’ own words, it would become “less special”???

Anyway, let’s explain what the game is, I always feel like I forget to do that. It’s a 3D platformer, basically, that uses the split-screen technique from A Way Out so you can play the entire game with another person (and you have to, unless you’re an octopus.) At its simplest, the game is asking you to do things like “one of you stands on a button, so the other can go through a door, and they stand on a button in that area so the other can go through that door” but it doesn’t stay that simple for long.

Setting-wise, it’s immediately more complex, as the set-up is that you’re a divorcing couple who have just revealed they’re splitting up to their daughter, who then, uh…. hexes them? They become a couple of wee dolls and then have to work out how to get back into their bodies while having lots of “Honey I Shrunk The Kids”-style adventures, although it can be extremely tenuous that this is supposed to be someone’s house.

I’m gonna say it: a divorce is a weird setting for a 3D platformer.

It is not helped by decision to make the couple the most annoying pair of bickering arseholes you’ve ever heard, and then to saddle them with Dr. Hakim, a talking book that Fares at least must have thought was the funniest thing ever (he personally did the motion capture???) but is like… is it racist? What race is this book anyway? It feels… racist against… someone???

But seriously folks, every time this fucking book appears you’re going to be like “arrghhh we have to listen to this now!!!”

And it just seems to go on forever. The problem with coming up with all these different mechanics is that you have to use them, and for a game where you basically have to  make time as a couple to do it quite quickly becomes a chore. As polished and as genuinely good feeling many mechanics are, there’s something so utterly tedious about how much of the game the fucking book appearing and saying “Hey! In this zone you have to collect THREE things! Go collect them!” when the game isn’t either long sections where you are literally on rails, or chunks where you have to do what is probably my least favourite thing in the world, which is run around and avoid shadows that are slamming down on the ground while the ground you can run on gets smaller. Legitimately it feels like they do that about… nine times.

Which brings me onto another point. Not only does it feel just much, much too long, there is absolutely zero understanding that you might be playing with someone who isn’t as skilled at video games as you, with no way I could find to ease difficulty for one player. This is at its absolute nadir with the bosses, which from the very first are… really hard? Even for me, a Mr. Good At Video Games Man???

The game simply forces too much quarterbacking, an issue that most co-op games can’t surmount.

But really the worst thing is… the narrative. I mentioned that the characters you play are awful; but they’re also insanely selfish and stupid and in some ways drag the player down with them. There is a section where you are forced to murder your child’s most beloved toy while it cries and begs for its life. Now, I’m a Untitled Goose Game hater, and there’s a similar smell to this; I’m sure Fares thought this was really funny but I hated it. It’s cruel, and yes, there is a difference between this and shooting up lots of lovely enemies in Doom or something. I’m reminded of Michael Madsen almost not being able to do his famous scene in Reservoir Dogs because he felt it might be crossing a line:

“You have to be…playing a bad guy’s one thing, but turning it too far in the wrong direction doesn’t make me happy.”

Yes I’m comparing the sequence to Reservoir Dogs. Josef Fares would probably love that actually. Fuck!

Will I ever play it again? No, it’s too fucking long and not actually that fun!

Final Thought: Oh I suppose I didn’t really finish my point. The narrative doesn’t… go anywhere! If characters are going to not get divorced, you better hope that the game does some incredible character work to show how they’ve grown and learned how to be together, but they basically bicker until about the last level and a half and as far as I know solve none of their problems. It’s so unrewarding!!! If Fares had spent more time on writing a story rather than coming up with “funny” things for the book to say and I assume hitting his staff with a big whip and screaming “MORE MECHANICS! NO ONE GETS ANY GRUEL UNTIL I SEE EIGHT MORE NEW MECHANICS!” maybe we’d be getting somewhere with this. I mean it’s so polished! It’s just… too weird to recommend.

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[cloud9in]

Promises (Poppy x MC) Part (2/?)

Read Part ONE (summary for fic is there)

ITS BEEN A MINUTE. @iamsimpforpoppy I hope you’re still around to read :P I love this story lol. Hope you guys do too!!!

Word Count (2.8k)

Bea and Poppy’s relationship became official a month after their initial meeting. One would say they moved quickly, too quickly. But every love story is different. This one in particular seemed to have little to none flaws, if you ignored the fact that Bea was promoted to Carter’s right hand woman in the Southside Spades.

 They did end up having that conversation after all.

 “…Are you sure Carter? I mean this is a huge deal and a special role-“

 “If I didn’t think you were capable you wouldn’t be here right now Goldilocks.”

 Carter winked and clinked his half empty beer bottle against Bea’s, who surprisingly had a nearly full bottle. He took note of the abnormality. 

 The blonde instinctively rolled her eyes at the nickname, “Okay but that name has to go. We need codenames……ooooh how about bimbo and himbo.” 

 “I’m guessing…..no, hoping I’m the himbo?!” Carter comments as he promptly tries to stop the laugh escaping from his lips.

 “Mmmmmmm, I’ll get back to you on that.”

 They share a laugh and Bea feels Carter’s gaze latch onto her in her peripherals. She could sense the shift of energy in the space between them, it almost felt uncomfortable, and that was something she never felt with Carter. “I never asked you if you were okay with such a role. If you aren't, I understand completely, I just want the best for you.”

 The blonde eyes soften at his comment and she looks at him, “never doubted that, where is this going though because you never express your feelings like a normal human being.”

 He pulls on the strings of her hoodie until it completely caves around her face, burying her whole.

 “Hey asshole!” 

 “That’s for talking too much.”

 Bea yanks her hoodie open and sticks her tongue out in a mock expression. “Oh boohoo. Poppy literally says the same thing, I don’t get it. I talk, it’s a problem. I don’t talk, it’s an even BIGGER problem. Damn a girl can’t ever exist in peace.”

 Carter places his bottle flat on the table and studies the blonde’s face. 

 She kept rambling on about her new girlfriend and the gang leader didn’t know it was possible to feel happy yet anxious at the same time. He was aware of when they entered the talking stage, went on their first date, and finally became official, because Bea told him everything. As much as the experience of being in a real relationship was new to her, Bea looked up to him and somehow she knew Carter would give her the best guidance possible. 

 It didn’t stop him from worrying. Like an older brother would. He feared the two would mix, and everyone knows that love and crime will eventually combust. He is no stranger to it.  

 “Bea.”

 “Did you know she stole one of my hoodies and actually won’t give it back?? What am I supposed to do, just take it? No she’d murder me.”

 “Jackson.”

 Her voice slowly dies down after sensing the seriousness in his tone. She takes a sip of her beer to ease the silence that sat in the air, and Carter responds shortly after.

 “You know I trust you with my life right? You’re very important to me, kid.” 

 “I know.”

 Guilt was a feeling he chose to lock away in an unbreakable box and bury six feet deep. There couldn’t be guilt in a lifestyle like this. But Bea was his only exception. And she was slowly bringing that box back up to the surface. 

 “I need you to promise me that you won’t let these two worlds collide.”

 “Carter….”

 “One of you will get hurt. And I won’t forgive myself if it’s you.”

 He leaves Bea at the table, the remnants of his comment still replaying in her head. She pulls out her phone and sees a text from Poppy on her lockscreen. 

 Other Half 💗❤️‍🔥- Can’t wait to see you tomorrow 😘 

 The blonde smiles unconsciously and opens the message to respond.

 I’m missing you like crazy. I have a special surprise for you.

 Other Half 💗❤️‍🔥- You know I highly dislike surprises, just tell me. 

 And ruin the surprise? You must be crazier than I thought. 

 Other Half 💗❤️‍🔥- Jackson.

 Patience babe…tomorrow it is. 

 Bea clicks her phone shut and slips it back into her pocket before downing the rest of the beer. 

***

“You know your hand on my ass only makes them stare even more Jackson?”

 Bea bites her lips and gropes the blonde’s plump backside shamelessly while slowly whispering into her ear.

 “That’s the point, princess.”

 Poppy shivers almost instantly at the boldness. “Is this the surprise you were talking about?” Bea doesn’t answer, instead trailing her hand up Poppy’s skirt. This was definitely not the time and place for such behavior but she was clearly still learning everything about her girlfriend. 

 And it definitely felt good to call her that.

 “Since when did you get so brazen? You know you’re exactly the type of person my daddy told me to stay away from.”

 Bea laughs at that statement and wraps her arm around the blonde’s waist, “yeah? And why’s that?”

 “Well I can’t ask him now, he might rough you up and that’s my job.” 

 Poppy could feel the stares of everyone burning into them, but she could only focus on the blonde cuddled up against her. The shorter girl wouldn’t call herself an attention whore, but she sure loved the PDA that Bea projected without a care. It felt nice to be genuinely admired in public rather than putting on a mask everyday. 

 But it’s safe to say that Poppy preferred all the handsy stuff to happen in private. 

 “Do you want to grab dinner with me tonight Pops?”

 “Am I picking the place?”

 “…Yes.”

 “Then yes.”

 Bea rolls her eyes at the blonde’s downright shady self but smiles nevertheless. 

 “Now don’t cancel on me out of the blue. I will not be thrilled about it.”

 “Shouldn’t I be telling you this? Your dad always has something going on in his business that somehow has to involve you too.”

 Poppy sighs and glances over at Bea, “well you know I’ll have to take over eventually. Especially since I’m legally allowed to handle deals now.”

 “I hate that word. Legal. Ugh.” 

 The shorter girl scoffs and plants her hands on her hips, “yeah I bet you do.”

***

Bea dragged open her closet in search of clothes for dinner tonight but the dinging noise of a text distracts her. 

 C-Dog🖤- Need you tonight. Something came up, meet us at the garage.

Bea wanted to thank the gods up above that she didn’t promise Poppy that she’d show up for dinner. But that wasn’t going to save her from the fury of the blonde. Good thing it can’t get worse than that, right….?

Only it was. And Poppy will probably beat her up herself, if she wasn’t dead by the next day. 

Bea’s mind and heart races as she digs her brain for a proper excuse to tell her girlfriend, but is very unsuccessful. She’s good at drug dealing though. 

 Going with the good ole truth never really hurt right?

 Baby I’m so sorry I won’t be able to make it tonight. Got held up with the gang. I know I’m an asshole, I’ll keep in touch I swear. 

 Other Half 💗❤️‍🔥- What else could I expect from my gang banger girlfriend 🙄 please stay safe..

 You know I always do.

 Other Half 💗❤️‍🔥- Do I? We need to talk about this tomorrow.

 Of course Pops.

 Other Half 💗❤️‍🔥- Call me every chance you get or I swear I’ll track you and trust me you do not want me to do that.

 Yeah she definitely doesn’t. Especially since Carter sounded frantic over the phone. The last thing Bea needed was a paranoid girlfriend, so she played it cool like always. 

 Just simple stuff baby girl, talk soon.

 ***

“…What do you mean it’s gone?! So where is it? Do you know what this means Carter??”

 The gang leader sighs frustratingly, rubbing his eyes in efforts to gain some stability. “The product was here, and now it is not. Which can only mean it was stolen. And when I find out which son of a bitch did it, they’re dead.”

 “In the meantime, we are dead”, Bea emphasizes wildly. “This is the Red Raven gang we’re talking about. If they get any inclination that we lost their drugs, they’ll kill and replace us. No mercy. None.”

The blonde paces back and forth trying not to think about buying a plane ticket to Timbuktu. 

Carter approaches Bea and plants his hands on her shoulder, “breathe Jackson. You are my partner. The leader of this gang. So get it out of your system and start being rational.”

 The blonde lets her shoulders sag as she inhales and exhales in place for a while. The minute she’s grounded she catches Carter’s gaze and her eyes light up. “List. I need a list of whoever went in the room with all of the product. We need to narrow it down.”

***

“Jackson you’re a fucking genius.”

 “It’s called having common sense but I’ll take the praise. It’s the only one I’m getting from you anyways.”

 Carter resisted the urge to pick a fight with the younger girl, because finding stolen drugs and not getting killed seemed like a much better idea. 

 Bea figured out that Henry, one of the newly recruited members of SS was a thief, or maybe just a crackhead. Same thing. He was the last to be in that room so all eyes were on him, and guns.

 “Heyyy buddy. Henry right?”

 The shorter man trembled at the sight of a gun lodged right into his mouth. “Mmmm!”

 “Oh I’m sorry, did you want to say something? Here let me just”, Bea clicks the gun which only causes the thief to panic even more. It was almost pitiful. 

 “Alright lay off the poor sucker.” 

 Bea pulls the gun out of his mouth and sits down on a stool in front of Henry with a grin. “So…where is the stash darling?” 

 He points almost immediately to a built in storage locker with a shaky finger. 

 “Ohhh well that was so easy Henry! Glad you could comply. You should tell your friends to be more like you. But…between me and you, they might already be dead”, Bea whispers that last part slowly, smirking when Henry’s lip quivers violently. 

 “Please just do it already! Why are you guys waiting?”

 Bea raised an eyebrow in surprise and glanced over at Carter who scanned the man’s face intensely. “I guess he wants to die? Talk about kinks I mean come on”

 “No.”

 Carter reaches his arm out towards Bea but never takes his eyes off Henry. The blonde watches in confusion until she realizes the thief is looking behind her, and so is Carter.

 “It’s a setup Bea, duck!”

 She dived for the ground quicker than lightning as a bullet flies through the air, leaving a trail of dust behind. Carter ducks for cover as well and starts firing rounds towards the men who snuck up on them. He managed to hit three of them but one grabs Bea by the leg and drags her against the rough concrete. 

 “Son of a- get your dirty hands off of my Dr. Martens. My girlfriend bought me these!”

 A swift kick to the face shut the blonde up real quick but she manages to recoil and send the man sprawling backwards into a row of barrels. 

 Carter guns him down and Bea finds her footing, pistol in hand and a thirst for revenge. But they never stopped coming. 

 Her and Carter were left battered and bruised, but alive. Their product was gone again though. But atleast they were alive. Carter told her that it was a theft mission primarily and neither of them were meant to die. But it only made Bea wonder who those people were.

 And why were they kept alive?

***

“Beatriz Naomi Jackson what the actual fuck?!”

 “Oh not the middle name…”

 Bea tries to avoid Poppy’s killer gaze as she surveys the damage that had been done to her girlfriend’s torso, legs, and face. 

 The strawberry blonde could barely mutter a word. Her mouth opened and closed in brief shock before collapsing next to the injured girl. 

 Bea could see the tears flowing down her rosy cheeks, which contrasted her porcelain skin. “Poppy…are you crying? I..please don’t..”

 “What do you expect me to do Bea? It kills me to see you hurt like this. Who did it? Tell me!” The blonde chokes on her own words as her hands hovers cautiously over Bea’s wounds, afraid to make her feel pain.

 “No I can’t tell you. I mean…I didn’t expect this to happen. It was a setup and we were outnumbered-“

 “We need to get you to a hospital Bea oh my god.”

 The blonde knew that she couldn’t go there. Not with the cops on the scene of the shootout, and actively looking for the people involved. Aka her and Carter. He told her to lay low and heal up, but she didn’t expect Poppy to be sitting on her bed waiting for her when she got home. The initial look on her face made Bea regret ever choosing this life. 

 She regrets it ever since being with Poppy. But it’s like a drug, once you start it’s hard to stop. 

 “I’ll call my father, he has the best doctors available and we’re gonna get your the right treatment and-“ 

 Poppy immediately cuts off, her eyebrows scrunching up until she realizes something. “Wait…what do you mean you were outnumbered Bea?” 

 Bea swallows heavily, praying that this conversation couldn’t escalate further, but that isn’t the case. 

 “Bea, answer me”

 “It..it was just me and Carter. We didn’t think there would be an ambush. We had just gone there to get goods we lost.”

 “And where is Carter? Does he know you’re like this right now? Did he leave you, I swear to god Bea if he left you…” Poppy’s voice cracks as her whole body shivers in violent waves. 

 Bea pulls her girlfriend in for a hug even though it causes every inch of her body to sting harshly. It was the comfort that she needed though. Watching Poppy breakdown over the sight of her was too much, and she began to contemplate everything. 

 “Pops listen to me, I cannot go to the hospital right now. There are cops looking for us.” The strawberry blonde stares at her until she understands the velocity of Bea’s words. 

 “Fine. But there will be a doctor that will come to treat you at my house. And you’re coming, I don’t want to hear it.” 

 Bea knew not to protest that. It was quite obvious this whole incident has left both parties distraught and she didn’t want to try and tell Poppy how to feel. 

 “Just tell me something. Are you in immediate danger? Is someone trying to harm you right now.”

 The blonde chose her words carefully. Because even after coming home beaten to a pulp, she still couldn’t tell the love of her life the full truth. 

 “No Poppy, they just wanted the drugs. They got what they wanted. I’m not in danger.”

 For now.

 “I will be okay.”

 I hope.

 “Don’t lie to me Jackson. I can’t do this if you lie. You promised me you wouldn’t get to the point where you’d have to choose between me and the gang.”

 “I know Poppy…I-“

 “You promised.”

 “And I’m going to keep that promise-“

 “Yeah the hell you are. And you’re going to promise me that you won’t ever come home like this again. You’re going to get yourself killed before we even start our life together. Our future.”

 Bea sucks in a breath which punctures her chest. She couldn’t tell if the injuries or Poppy’s words had caused that terrible ache. “Our…Wait I..”

 “I love you Jackson. I…don’t care if you think it’s too early to say that. I don’t care if I sound too cheesy for a mean girl. I love kissing you and feeling the laughter run through your body when we hug. I love being the reason you smile. I love you. And you don’t have to say it back. I just..I needed you to know-“

 “I love you too. Probably maybe from the moment I met you.”

 Poppy’s eyes seemed to glisten once again and this time there was no sadness etched into the shape. She smiled a pure smile and wrapped her arms around Bea in a tight hug. 

 She captures her lips in a searing kiss that leads to a trail of kisses down the strawberry blonde’s neck, dip of her collarbone, and chest. Bea kisses her until her chest gives out from exhaustion and pain.

 “Then you have to promise that this won’t happen again.” 

 “I promise.”

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTES: They’re gonna be fineeeee, right guys??? Graduation next chapter woooo.

Tags: @samanthadalton @somewillwin @clowneryme  @baexpoppy @poppysmc @doey-eyes8 @veenast @straightlikewetspaghetti @phoennixxsblog

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

(pt 1) i really enjoy all your atla analyses & you've done a great job breaking down the usual arguments re how eip shows that kataang shouldn't have happened. i'm curious about your take on one specific argument that i just saw today, in an analysis of the show by a zker that was otherwise quite good and respectful (i know you've already talked about eip a lot, so no problem if you don't feel like rehashing). the premise: aang didn't just pressure katara in eip, he threatened her.

(pt 2) they point to when katara joins aang & asks if he’s alright: “aang: no, i’m not! i hate this play! katara: i know it’s upsetting, but it sounds like you’re overreacting. aang: overreacting? if i hadn’t blocked my chakra, i’d probably be in the avatar state right now!” the suggestion is he’s threatening her when he says ‘i’d probably be in the avatar state right now’ to describe his anger. i think this take exaggerates and oversimplifies it, but interested in your thoughts on it.

Hello my friend!! It is true I am Old inside and don’t like rehashing dhdlksjslks BUT your comments on my posts are always incredibly kind and insightful so I am more than willing to do a bit of rehashing for you 🥰 Besides! I’ve seen this general take before a few times and it’s always irked me for the exact reason you point out - it simultaneously exaggerates and oversimplifies the situation (and honestly that’s an impressive duality since it’s seemingly contradictory, so hats off to them lmaooo) - and now is as good a time as any to address it. So, for starters, let’s go ahead and get the excerpt they love to focus on so much:

Cut to Aang standing alone on a balcony. Katara enters and walks up to him.

Katara: Are you all right?

Aang: [Angered.] No, I’m not! I hate this play! [Yanks his hat off and throws it on the ground.]

Katara: I know it’s upsetting, but it sounds like you’re overreacting.

Aang: Overreacting? If I hadn’t blocked my chakra, I’d probably be in the Avatar State right now!

Here’s the thing about so-called analyses of this excerpt: in a manner extremely convenient to the poster, they never seek to contextualize this moment. (I mean, to do so would deplatform their entire “argument” - perhaps that’s why they avoid performing a full analysis?) So let’s avoid that pitfall from the start.

Firstly, below are some links to related posts; I’m going to do my best to summarize the most relevant parts, but for anyone who desires greater detail, I gotchu 😤

This post explains why EIP (the play, lol) is imperialist propaganda and is intended to belittle the entire Gaang.

This post explains how Aang never acted “entitled” to Katara’s affections, particularly in regard to EIP.

This post breaks down the infamous EIP kiss like Snopes Fact Checker, covering common misconceptions, important perspectives to consider, etc.

Alright. With that out the way, it’s time for some context.

Aang and Katara have this conversation on the balcony after watching 95% of “The Boy in the Iceberg,” a play chock-full of Fire Nation propaganda that demeans the entire Gaang in order to prop up the Fire Nation as superior (hence why the play ends with Ozai’s victory). Here is my general breakdown of Aang and Katara’s treatment in particular from a previous post:

- katara, an indigenous woman, is highly sexualized and portrayed as overly dramatic and tearful, because the fire nation objectifies women not of their own people and views them as less intelligent and less emotionally stable

- aang, the avatar, the sole survivor of the fire nation’s genocide of the air nomads who is incredibly in-touch with his spirituality and femininity, is portrayed as an overly-airy and immature woman. the fire nation portrays him with a female actor to demean him (like, that’s classic imperialistic propagandist tactics) and furthermore writing his character as a childish airhead reinforces the fire nation sentiment that the air nomads were weak, foolish people who did not deserve to exist in their world

In other words, these kids have just watched almost an entire play that preys upon their insecurities and depicts them using racist and sexist stereotypes about their respective nations. It is completely understandable that tensions might run a little high and that their interactions would not be as balanced as usual (Katara and Aang have a great track record of communicating well with each other, as it happens!).

So we have to keep that in mind when examining the aforementioned excerpt. But there are other factors to consider, too! Namely: they are kids. Children. Teens. Aang is 12, Katara is 14.

If we want to be scientific, a person’s brain doesn’t finish developing until they are 25, lmao, and the preteen/teen years are when the prefrontal cortex that controls “rationality,” “judgement,” “forethought,” etc. is still developing. This doesn’t mean Aang and Katara are irrational and make poor decisions 24/7 (obviously not), but it does mean that in an intense, highly emotional situation, like after watching a play that intentionally demeans them and depicts them as inferior, they are more likely to overreact, more likely to be emotional, and more likely to make mistakes. Like, I’m serious, lol. “Teens process information with the amygdala.” That’s part of the brain that helps control emotions! It’s why teens sometimes struggle to articulate what we’re thinking, especially in situations that require instinct/impulse and quick decisions, because we’re really feeling whenever we make those choices. Acting more on emotion. Our brains simply haven’t finished developing the decision-making parts, lmao.

In sum: Aang and Katara are both kids, not adults, and should be interpreted as such. This doesn’t negate their intelligence, because they are both incredibly smart and Aang is arguably the wisest of the Gaang, but they are human. Young humans. They have emotions, and we should not be so cruel as to assume they’d never act on them.

So taking that all together, we can now acknowledge the high stress Aang and Katara are under, understand why they might be upset (*cough* imperialist propaganda is hurtful *cough*), and examine how their youth might play into their emotional reactions. And funny thing - all analyses that come to the conclusion of Aang “threatening” Katara here do not usually bother with this context. I can’t imagine why!

And you know what, let’s add one more piece of context: Sokka states that Aang left the theater “like, ten minutes ago,” which is what cues Katara to go look for him on the balcony. The reason I mention this line is because to me, it suggests Aang knew he was more worked up than usual! He chose to separate himself from his friends so he could process his frustration! He did not take his anger at the play out on them; instead, he purposefully took time and space to be alone.

With that in mind, I don’t understand at all how Aang’s Avatar state quote could be interpreted as a threat? Canonly, Aang is someone who was aware enough of his frustration to separate himself from the others - yet the logical next step is him threatening Katara as a result? He knew his intense emotions were because of the play (which he says himself), so the logical conclusion is that he then pinned the fault on Katara? What?? Sorry, that interpretation has no textual basis, lmao. But I digress!

Aang tells Katara, “If I hadn’t blocked my chakra, I’d probably be in the Avatar State right now!” As you said, this is the line people point to in an attempt to justify their (baseless) conclusion that Aang is “threatening” Katara. So let’s bring in the two key pieces of context: imperialist propaganda and age. Given that Aang is 12, and given that Aang has just watched almost a full play that demeans him and everything his people stood for (and let’s not forget it also mocks his and Katara’s love for each other)…

His reaction is understandable. An exaggeration and needlessly dramatic, but understandable. He feels vulnerable and insecure and Aang is human. He is human and flawed and he overreacts here and I love that A:TLA shows how even our heroes, even people who are truly good at heart and in soul, can get overly upset (especially given the aforementioned circumstances!). Would Aang actually be in the Avatar state at that moment, had it been possible? Of course not! He’s young and he’s hurt and as such he says something dramatic to convey his anxieties and frustrations. The line is not meant to be taken literally, and seeing people do so despite all the factors that should be taken into consideration when analyzing it… Cue a long, tired sigh from me and so many other A:TLA fans.

And to be honest? I cannot fathom how people watch this episode and come to the conclusion that Aang is “threatening” Katara. To me, this episode - besides being a recap episode - is one that humanizes our cast even further. Aang snaps at Katara, kisses her when he shouldn’t (which the story appropriately treats as wrong). Katara pushes down her true feelings and retreats into herself, afraid to start a relationship with the boy she loves because she’s already lost him once before and can’t bear to do so again. Zuko further confronts the hurt he’s enacted upon others, especially upon Iroh. Toph practices being vulnerable and accepting vulnerability from others by conversing with Zuko. Sokka witnesses how others have erased his contributions and labelled him as nothing more than the token nonbender in the group. Even Suki learns that she is not the only person who holds a place in Sokka’s heart and that she can never replace what he has lost.

To watch this episode where our heroes must come to terms with how the Fire Nation deems them inherently inferior, with how they have more fights to overcome in the future with the Fire Nation than a single war, and to come to the conclusion that… that what, Aang is abusive? A monster? Irredeemable? That he would threaten his best friend, someone he loves in every way?

Wow. That says more than enough about the viewer, doesn’t it?

[zkfanworkweek]

ZFAW Fan Content Creator Interviews: HayleyNFoster

Hey everyone! We hope you’re all excited for ZFAW, and to honor (ha!) ZFAW’s commitment to supporting and celebrating fan content creators in the Zutara fandom, we’re going to be rolling out a series of interviews with well-known and widely-beloved content creators over the next few weeks. We’ve got artists and fanfiction authors, some names you recognize as well as a few phenomenal up-and-coming talents, and we can’t wait for you to meet them all!

For the second interview in this cycle, we have our best propaganda creator and this fandom’s hottest new artist/undisputed queen of the animatic, @hayleynfoster!

1. Tell us about how you came to ship Zutara. What does this ship mean to you?

When I was around 14 or 15 and caught Avatar: The Last Airbender on television, I was drawn in by the art style, the humor, and the wonderful characters. I caught the episodes out of order, and the first one I saw and wasn’t prepared to be sucked in by was The Waterbending Scroll. It intrigued me at that age, and the line “I’ll save you from the pirates” combined with the tension between Katara and Zuko in that whole scene was electrifying. I remember my teenage self thinking these two have so much chemistry! And when I saw a commercial on Nickelodeon that featured fanart submitted by fellow Avatar fans, I realized that I could do that to! So I set about making Zutara fanart for myself. I stumbled onto Youtube, practically in its infancy, and discovered that people set clips of Zuko and Katara set to music (And this was still in season 1 days… so people who made these amvs were the real mvps because they were able to make compelling narratives in their amvs with like practically nothing to work with!). The AMVs really spurred my interest in this couple, I remember distinctly one Zutara AMV using the Dido song White Flag utterly capturing my imagination. I found fandom shortly after, getting into deviantart and forums. But the ship really began to mean something to me when, as I was working on my drawings in the computer lab at school, a buoyant presence hovered over my shoulder noticing my Zutara art on the computer screen. The girl was someone I had never really talked to and had only seen from afar but she immediately started excitedly saying she shipped Zuko and Katara too! In this simple shared obsession, I made one of the best friends I’ve ever had and we’re still friends to this day. We would theorize and fangirl over Avatar like it was nobody’s business; we poured over bootleg San Diego Comic Con footage that showed spoilers for season 2 before it aired; we lost our freaking minds when we finally saw The Crossroads of Destiny. We had watch parties every week as Season 3 of A:TLA aired, and comforted each other when the show ended as it did (much ranting was shared). Those are some of my happiest memories from high school… all because this one pairing from this wonderful show. Even though Zutara didn’t happen, we still chat every now and then about it. Zutara will probably be a lifelong obsession, always bubbling under the surface. And without it, I would have never realized that animation was a viable career path. It really did inspire everything including the work I’m doing to this day in the animation industry. I owe a lot to this ship and to Avatar: the Last Airbender.

2. What inspires you to create zutara fanworks?

The resurgence of Avatar: The Last Airbender this year really helped sort of spark that dormant love I had for Zutara. The show’s ending still disappointed me on the rewatch, but Zuko and Katara’s relationship arc was as captivating as ever, so I turned to some fanfiction and looking at people’s pretty Zutara art and AMVs to just revel in fanon instead of getting to hung up on the actual ending of the show. But then I realized, with quarantine and my work load being pretty light, I had time to actually make all new Zutara art for myself, art I was never fully capable of making as a kid, but now could do with my 7 years of industry experience and just… life experience. And I was inspired to do some corrective animatics to satisfy my own desire for a different ending. I just really like exploring these two characters, doing different and interesting things with them, and frankly I’m inspired to make cute, fluffy, romantic art simply by virtue of living in a really sad and depressing world. Things are so crazy right now, creating art about two characters I love being in love, is comforting. And it helps to have inspiring music and amazing Zutara amvs to just sort of stir up my emotions and imagery in my head to make into animatics and art.

3. Be selfish - if you could request one fanwork based on your own art/fanfic, what would it be? What would you absolutely love to see someone create?

Ohhhh… Well, It’s always nice to have people write fanfiction that puts words to my animatics. I am not that great at coming up with dialog myself, so I’ve just chosen to indulge in visuals and emotions for my boards. But when I read things like RideBoldlyRide’s take on my Reunion Animatic, it makes me pretty giddy. (They finally have voices!) :) And this is the MOST selfish thing I could request, but I’m not shy about saying how much I love well done amvs, so I will literally kill for someone to make Zutara AMVs to songs I like… Like, most of AURORA’s songs but especially Exist for Love, Sunseeker by The Naked and Famous, Promises or Take Me by Aly & AJ, Adore You by Harry Styles, Human Enough by ONR, Never Let Me Go by Florence + The Machine, and/or Almost (Sweet Music) by Hozier just… I can see the AMVs so clearly to any of these songs in my head, but I don’t have the tools or skill set at my disposal to make a compelling fan video. When I was in high school, I originally thought I wanted to go into video editing simply because I loved making very crappy AMVs (they were so bad you guys), but I figured out being a storyboard artist was more in my wheelhouse. haha

4. Any words for people who are new to the fandom and/or nervous about sharing their work for the first time?

If you’re new to the Zutara fandom, just have a good time! Don’t waste too much time arguing with people over your shipping preferences. I wasted so much of my teen years having pointless shipping wars with people on DeviantArt, and I’m just so much happier nowadays because I’m just making Zutara art in my little corner of the internet, and honestly, in the politest of ways, I don’t give a shit if people don’t like my art or Zutara. haha I think that’s sort of a key thing for people thinking of posting creative works here in the fandom, just make art for yourself, satisfy your own desires for the pairing, get your creative sparks flying, and create just for the joy of creating. It’s always nice to get comments and such, but simply making the art should be what spurs you on, not the external validation. And have a good time, don’t worry too much - I say as someone who worries about EVERYTHING. But honestly, making art for A:TLA is some of the most relaxed I’ve been because I make it just for me. I’m lucky others seem to like it too!

5. What’s an idea for a fanwork that you have but haven't gotten around to making?

I have an idea for a second generation storyline with my Zutara kids that involves Kya (the eldest firebending daughter) falling in love with an airbender boy (tentatively named Gora in my headcanon who’s a bit of a rabble rouser and one of Aang’s kids he had with a Kyoshi Warrior), and then they start a socialist revolution in the Fire Nation in order to dismantle all of the hierarchical societies across the Avatar world… Together Kya and Gora Fan the Flames of revolution… ehhhhh... Get it?? Oh! Oh, and then Katara, who had put in legit liberal reforms in her time as Fire Lady listens to her daughter after resisting in the first part of the story, but then realizes she can actually play a part in the dissolution of the royalty and is also active in the revolution realizing that moderate liberal reforms are no substitute for a society free of serving royalty (which she had always been uncomfortable with but had rationalized with herself that she was doing good in her capacity as Fire Lady.) I just feel like there’s a lot of cool potential for discussing these ideas and also having some aspirational change in the Avatar world. lol For aesthetics and just happy fluffy times, I can indulge in Fire Lady and Fire Lord Zuko stuff, but really at the end of the day, I take issue with the structures in a society that have to exist for monarchies to exist. Soooo, I kind of want to do my own corrective story for that… if I ever have the time or guts. On a less ambitious note, I would love to do a Zutara sparring animatic to practice doing action, but I need a good story; I am not good at doing fights just for fighting’s sake. Those are just some things I have rattling around in my head.  

6. Are you participating in ZFAW? If so want to give us a hint as to your plans?

Yes! The most I can say is I have one animatic almost finished and one that’s still being thumbnailed. The rest are probably going to be comics or emotive single pieces based on the fanfics I really like right now. :)

[something-tofightfor]

More thoughts on Prospect

so, @the-streamer-girl posted about people’s feelings on the Ezra/Damon dynamic when it comes to Cee ... and it turns out that I have a LOT to say. 

So the question of Damon vs Ezra was one that I thought about a LOT when I first watched Prospect, and continued to watch closely with each additional viewing. The simple answer: Ezra is a better role model  + influence in Cee’s life than Damon was, even after such a short time together.

The long answer:

I hope this doesn’t jump around too much, but it might. When we first meet Damon, he yells at Cee for exploring because she can’t sleep. She’s a teenager (I HC her to be about 16/7 years old at most) and she’s sassy about the gum/stim stuff, but instead of even giving her the courtesy of an answer, he just tosses the thrower to her and essentially tells her to make herself useful. You can look at it as treating her like a kid and forcing her to learn from her actions - but I view it as him ignoring what she says and giving her busy work to keep her out of his hair. When they’re talking about the Green and mining, he talks down to her. Doesn’t give her the space to ask questions, doesn’t give her straight answers, and seems almost bitter that they’re in the position they’re in - presumably because their family is fractured, which comes down to … the death of his wife - which he is likely reminded of every time he looks at Cee. I personally thought Damon telling Cee that she reminded him of his wife was kind of creepy. I know that it wasn’t meant to be, and that the sleep aid was clouding his brain a little, but the look he gave her and the WAY he was speaking didn’t sit right with me. It was an uncomfortable scene, and again, it featured him talking down to her - about the way she pronounced the name of the planet, about the way she felt about The Pug, etc. That could have been a really important instance of father/daughter bonding, and it wasn’t. I don’t think that it gave Cee any happy feelings to fall asleep to, either. The whole landing sequence, too, was just … him, focused on the task at hand, which is fine. He needed to get them safely to the ground, but at the same time, he treated her like she was just there and only served a specific purpose. The only time he ever acted like a father to her was when they found that first aurelac deposit - and even THAT changed very quickly when he saw how large the gem was. He was short with her about the chemicals and that’s fine with me - it’s a safety issue, so there’s no time for coddling. But as soon as she suggested that they take the gem, get square for the pod, and play it safe, he changes. He doesn’t care what she thinks or wants - he wants the gems and the money and the thrill of the harvest. Again, that’s why they’re there, so it’s alright, but … he’s not even willing to listen to her (And in the future, that makes me question how he would have been with the mercs, because he’s so… short-fused, I guess? He wouldn’t have been able to or willing to negotiate with them the same way Ezra did, and they would have been in the exact same circumstances. They still needed a way home, and I TRULY don’t think Damon would have been willing to cut profits, even if only by a little.) 

 I’m not sure what Damon’s plan was when it came to Ezra and #2. Yes, he needed to keep Cee a secret, but … what was the end goal? Stealing their stuff and then just running off and hoping that the two of them - with a giant gun - didn’t somehow find them and take revenge? Damon again got greedy - with his daughter standing RIGHT there, and was only focused on what he could gain from the situation. He wasn’t thinking ahead - and it’s what got him killed. Ezra could have shot Cee in that field. He did not. It would have been simple to do so - shoot her, take her filter, go about his business. He hesitated. Damon did not hesitate when he shot #2.

 Enter Ezra into the pod. Cee shot him - and I believe that he believes he deserved it. He stays calm and collected, talks to her like an adult the entire time, and provides a logical solution to a problem that they’re both in. He lets her make a choice. Damon didn’t. Damon didn’t listen to her, or give her a chance to make a point, or to decide anything for herself. 

 Throughout the time they’re traveling to the merc camp, Ezra KNOWS that he is hurt, and that Cee is the cause, but doesn’t take it out on her. He continues to engage her in conversation, to trust her to feed him, to pull off this scheme with him. It’s like he said in the pod; if Damon couldn’t do these things, or understand what was necessary to survive on the Green, he shouldn’t have been there. He would have likely gotten Cee killed at some point, and probably wouldn’t have felt as guilty about it as she did that he was dead. 

 I firmly believe that by the time they’ve made it to the Sater camp, Ezra feels protective for the girl, despite what’s at stake. He’s coaching her on what to do, speaking rationally to her, and guiding her behaviors in the tent, just because he knows what the etiquette is. He’s very literally being poisoned to death, and still lets the scene play out like it needs to to - just  be respectful. But they make a mistake and assume that like so many others, Ezra values the financial gain of this aurelac over human life. 

 Is Ezra a killer? Of course he is. But he doesn’t seem to be the type to turn to violent first, or just because, and I also believe that the way he speaks is an indication of what he believes in - honor and being a man and making the right choices based on the situation. Damon would have left Cee in a heartbeat for that much aurelac - that’s what, 90-115000 credits, easily? Each gem was at least as big as the original one they found. So he takes those, gets the supplies, LEAVES Cee and still goes on to the Queen’s Lair? 

 Yes. Then he doesn’t have to split profits. He doesn’t have to argue for two spots on a ride off. He doesn’t have to worry about taking care of Cee into the future. He would have made her some sort of “I’ll come back for you” promise, and wouldn’t have meant it. Ezra’s facial expression doesn’t betray him - yes, he’s interested in the aurelac in the case, but not at the expense of a teenage girl’s future. 

 When she finds him in the tent, he again trusts her, even after she left him at the mercy of the Sater. Yeah, he needs her, but it’s more than that. He’s still willing to continue on and continue their plan, because he’s still focused on getting both of them off of the moon and back home. It would be easy to go on on his own after she cuts his arm off, or to say “Hey, I might not be able to do this”, but he never loses his cool or outright lies to her about their chances.

 He argues for her with the mercs in a way that Damon never would have. He’s rational. He lets her speak. He includes her in every single aspect of it - and the only time he acts in his own best interest is when he attacks with the blade and requires her to act. But they work well as a team there, and she picks up on what she can do to save him/them very quickly. They’re on the same page, and it’s only been a couple of very trying days.

 They don’t leave each other. He doesn’t run when it gets hard to let her fend for herself. When they decide how to attack Inumon, they make the plan together - and they need each other for it to work. And yes, he might think that he’s a goner after it goes wrong, but he’s sincere about telling her to go and save herself - he wants at least one of them to get off the planet.  She might still be mad at him for Damon’s death, but there’s no way that she would have tried so hard to get him to that ship if she truly blamed him and still had any thoughts of revenge in her mind. She answered his question - are you a killer - and it turns out that they’re the same. Yes. Definitely - but only when necessary. AND I SAVED THE MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR LAST: THE STREAMER GIRL SCENE. 

 We know that Damon thought what she was doing was pointless and stupid and shouldn’t have been her focus. We know that he wanted her to focus on prospecting and learning “useful” skills all the time. We know that he was set in his ways, and had a certain idea of how she should act. Ezra is the opposite. He encourages her to tell him about the book, and about what she’s adding to it. He listens to her when she tells him why she likes it so much. He’s intrigued about her contribution to the story, and doesn’t think that having these wild ideas and fantastic imaginary interactions is stupid. She’s still a kid, and she needs a distraction, and Ezra doesn’t put her down for it - he encourages her. He tells her to do what makes him happy, and this whole scene might be the first moments of levity that Ezra has had in MONTHS. In the short time they’re together, he encourages her in so many ways that Damon didn’t - that we saw or that we learned from what she said about him. He hasn’t seen a kid in a long time, but it seems like even all of his time on the Green hasn’t jaded him to the same point that a life of odd jobs and rental pods did to Damon. I don’t think Ezra sees Cee as a burden. I don’t think he looks at her as someone simply there to control/boss around. The sunlight in that scene does a lot to show the expressions on their faces - they’re relaxed. They’re open with each other, and it’s a conversation that neither of them will forget. (I was telling @the-blind-assassin-12 yesterday that I think it might be the most important scene in the whole movie.) 

 I think that when they get off the Green, they would stick together for a while. Obviously, they’re both going to go live their lives at some point, but Cee’s got Ezra now. They went through these traumatic things together, and she’s invested in his life. He - I think - feels protective of her, too, and would want to make sure she was OK on her own when they get back to civilization. Might not be a point in a formal adoption, because she’s so close to being an adult, but I don’t think that’s necessary. So, a short answer to my long answer: Damon was a shit father, and got what he deserved for being so damn greedy. Ezra is a dangerous man, but he wouldn’t ever be dangerous to Cee in the way that Damon’s actions made him dangerous (after the first encounter). She is much better off without Damon, because she needed to be around and influenced by someone that was willing to include her in decisions and let her make her own choices, not boss her around like she’s still 5. 

 There’s so much more I could say, and I’m sure you didn’t want to read 1500 words as a response do I’ll stop here … but this movie has hit me in a way that I didn’t expect it to. 

I’d love to know your thoughts, too! 

[apparentlyaswarmofbees]

I've been asking around this one question for a few people now, because I like hearing what people have to say about it...

So I wouldn't mind it if you shared a list on who's your favourite (from Most to Least) from the Obey Me! Crew (Brothers & Formally Undatables)...

Also, please feel free to ramble on about why you placed them in each space...

O-oh dear-

First off, you spoil an infodumper like me too much lol (I am happy sfjsjjdjn) and I am going to go overboard (and changing the order of things) for my own pleasure.

And so...

Second off...

Gladly

Here is My List of LEAST to MOST Favorite of The Obey Me Boys ^^

That I just did on spot because I didn't have one ready because it's hard for me to rate the characters as they all have their traits and even their flaws add something good to the character but I'll be dammed if I don't enjoy deep frying my brain for fun.

Please take note I am taking this literally and all characters in here are FAVORITES, just some will be more and some less, which mean I LIKE ALL OF THEM. Yes, I have changed my opinion on a certain two characters I have said to not like, and I am not ashamed to say I was incorrect.

So let's start this off with the right foot shall we?

#12 | Diavolo

He is still infuriating I won't deny that. And I won't pity him though he is a tragic character that is so lonely he overrates any kind of affection, that doesn't know how to interact with others without exagerating, that has no one to give an oposing opinion because of his status and so it's increasingly hard for him to learn to make good decisions, and with his goal to unite the realms I could almost say he is naive. He's a bit of a puppy always wanting some pets, but as a not dog person, I don't have enough in me to be always playing, so to me an overly needy puppy can end up getting annoying, though of course, I can't help it but at least give it a few pets before going my way.

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#11 | Simeon

Yes in the end I actually liked him all along but was just in denial after I thought about it. Simeon is a good character, he's a dick even though he's an angel and he doesn't bother to be any different, he definetelly has his own set of rules he follows and I believe he would be a Chaotic Good just like me. He's well made. And as much as he is pretty unlikeable, the mystery, the questions, the fact that he has always been the same we just didn't get to interact with him much to see it, to have a naturally asshole character put down some of his walls to help us even if part out of possible self interest. And of course he's also fun. Simeon is charming, and I have come to appreciate all of him.

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#10 | Luke

A kid. A brat and a tsundere. I Absolutely love the character development and it's extremelly adorable. He's now officially our guardian angel and I love that. He was just a prick that I rolled my eyes so hard whenever I encountered him in the game and now he's just a lil' bratty brother that is fun to tease and squish the cheeks off. He's a really nice kid in the end, just previously ignorant, but still nice because he was willing to learn and change despise saying he didn't want to. I personally can understand Luke as I was pretty alike as a kid. Again, he's a nice kid I would gladly buy some balloons and cotton candy for.

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#9 | Barbatos

The number 1 buttler, he's just, a good dude l o l. He has his distance from everyone due to his position but that doesn't make him any less interesting. He is mysterious and powerful and yet he feels, so chill. He's also fun and actually has a pretty soft personality in which he knows exactly when to switch off to strict. He's a character I respect and wish existed in real life so I could be friends with (╥﹏╥).

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#8 | Solomon

Shady sorcerer is actually a pretty good guy though mildly insane. He is actually responsable (and takes it pretty seriously seeing he's basically the representative of the human realm). He's kind though again, mildly insane, and diligent. He may have terrible food but the fact he does it with good intentions is pretty adorable, he just likes to follow his instincts and be spontaneous because he likes new and exciting things. He probably has quite a bit of angst to him due to his not only immortality in not aging but also by not being able to be killed but even so it feels that, contrary to how many human immortals end, he still hasn't lost the light in his eyes and can still enjoy things and enjoy being alive, and that is most likely thanks to other immortal/long living beings such as demons.

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#7 | Lucifer

Yep. Lucifer is actually a really fucking great character, he's fond of his family, hard worker to the point of destroying himself, self punisher, elegant, pretty af, cute at times. But not exactly my most favorable cup of tea. Seeing I can see through his bullshit all his posessiveness, all his pettiness, all his actions just becomes ridiculous and annoying. And theres also a problem with the fact we always end up submiting to him, I don't want that. For every time he disrespects me I want him to kneel and kiss my feet. His pride collides with my own, and his decisions do too. But even so he is very reliable and so he has my respect for that, I do want to hug him and tell him he deserves nice things and that he can rest now this is not the war anymore you don't have to bow down to anyone anymore you didn't doom your brothers but freed them instead, but then again he makes bad decisions because he has zero braincells for emotional intelligence and that pisses me off and makes me just want to yeet him off a cliff. Yeah Lucifer, I would gladly kick you in the balls with ♡°.•love•.°♡.

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#6 | Leviathan

Surprising is it not? But it's true, I often focus on Levi due to him not only being pretty alike to me but also because he's related to many things I have been familiar with since I was born: animes and games. His anxiousness is relatable, the outcastness is relatable, the awkwardness is relatable, the obsession is relatable, the references are relatable, the infodumping is relatable. He's very relatable to me, but not my most favorite, and all because of his envy. He's a guilt tripper, and though I am long immune to it in real life due to extreme exposure to it from my family, it still is enough for his rank to go down. I still love him though, but mostly as the character that represents the thing I am most familiar with in life: myself.

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#5 | Beelzebub

Big puppy, he's the type of guy who will talk to plants. He has big and strong hands that could crush anything and yet he will do his best to handle some things gently. He's chill and non judgemental, loyal to the core. Once you win him over, you win him over, he would die for you. He is purposely childish at times and it's cute. He is amazing. I wish I could enjoy eating like he does. He's the only character I truly feel hurt for, as he is deeply inflicted by survivor's guilt and it just pains me I can't comfort him because he isn't real ಥ‿ಥ

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#4 | Belphegor

Hoh boy. The brat. The fandom itself is pretty divided on their liking of Belphie and it's understandable lol. But I personally understand Belphie. To hide hurt behind anger, hate and spite, to turn to agression to prove a point but you end up just fucking up. But the guilt and wish to fix things can lead one to giving themselves up, and so it becomes a constant battle of getting close but not too close for the sake of both parties involved. I get this boy more than I wish I ever did, and that's why he's high on the ranking. And because he's cute ngl.

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#3 | Satan

H o h b o y, another one that reminds me of myself, only it's the aftermath of the above where one bottles up all their negative feelings because being emotional is not being rational and who the fuck even wants to not be rational. Where you have no fucking idea who you are because all you know is to stomp your feet and scream for the sake of making an statement but that just proved all your enemies a point so now you turn to smarts to prove yourself. To make others angry, to make them frustrated and infuriated with your knowledge because you want to prove yourself, be reconized for who you are, to be someone and also, hopefully, change other people's ways, to make them understand they are wrong because you deep down actually want to get along with them. Yeah, Satan is high on the list, and it's also because he likes detectives uwu.

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#2 | Asmodeus

What a fucking icon he is I love him okay. It frustrates me when people use cheating as a angst prompt for him as he's obviously someone who just isn't made for monogamy, and he's pretty honest and I feel he would have nothing to hide and would talk it all out with all his partners. He's a sweetheart that works hard on daily basis and hour after hour to mantain an image, he likes the attention, he wants to be loved. If anyone mildly self centered ever told me 'I love you as much as I love myself' I would marry them on spot. Asmo is just incredibly sweet and I love all his affection and respect him for all the work he does to make a good impression and look up to that self confidence even though most of it is actually just him trying to convince himself. Also perfect example off gender is an ilusion lol.

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#1 | Mammon

Yep, our number 1, The Great Mammon, the most lovable dumbass that has been by our side from the start though with a bit of whining. This man is perfect. He has incredible self control over his powers, and as someone who used to be an angel to be able to use money all you want bro. I wouldn't feel bad either. He's our protector from start to end to the point he focuses on us instead of the queen in the Dame event. He isn't stupid just has selective focus just like me! And all the people with ADHD and many other neurodivergents. When he wants something he does is perfectly and diligently, he just needs the right push at the right time. He's the most good of all demons and even angels and he loves all his brothers deeply, he is always there to support everyone to the point of even allowing himself to be the punching bag for the sake of them not turning too much on one another. He was literally our first SSR card, our first call, our first pact, our first and the best. He IS great, truly.

[camels-pen]

A Half-Ghost in its Natural Habitat

DannyMay Day 15 - Nature

Summary: After becoming the laughing stock of the school thanks to the so-called ‘hero’ of Amity Park, Wes decides a little payback is in order.

Ao3 Link

~

Wes knew Fenton was Phantom.

He tried to be civil about it, tried to talk to the guy like a rational, mature human being.

But this? This means war.

---

“Whaaaat? Pfff,”—Danny pulled at his collar—“Me? Phantom? That’s ridiculous!”

“You look exactly the same except for your eye and hair colour.” Wes held out his hands and began counting off on his fingers. “Your name’s a stupid pun. You slip up and call the Fentons ‘mom’ and ‘dad’. You hang out with Foley and Manson who literally have no other friends.” Two indignant “Hey!”s cut him off and he sighed.

“Look, I’m not asking for you to reveal yourself to everyone and risk getting shot at by your wacko parents 24/7. I just wanna know I’m not crazy about this.”

Danny slapped his back. “Wow you’re such a kidder! Seriously where do you come up with this stuff?”

“I literally saw you transform in the bathroom, like, ten seconds ago.” The boy’s nervous grin twitched.

“HA! That’s so funny, dude!” He forced out a few laughs and turned to the crowded hallway, waving his arms. “HEY EVERYONE! WES HERE THINKS I’M PHANTOM!” There was silence in the hallway for a few seconds before most kids erupted into roaring laughter.

“Fenton?”

“That spacey dweeb?”

“He’s not even dead!” That comment got even more laughs out of the crowd, many now directing their laughter at the basketball star. A vibrant blush spread across his cheeks and ears that only served to feed the laughing fire. Then a low voice beside the shorter boy spoke up.

“That was a little harsh, don’t you think?” Manson asked, nudging her friend's shoulder.

“I panicked, okay!”

---

Wes scoffed. 'Panicked' his ass. That stupid charade the ghost boy put on was all an act. He and his friends were probably laughing at him for being caught without any hard evidence to back up his claim. Honestly, as a member of the journalism club he should’ve known better than to make accusations without any proof on hand, but that didn’t excuse the other boy’s actions.

He thought back to the countless snickers behind his back, the pictures people took when they thought he wasn’t looking, the stupid Instagram memes with his photoshopped head. Curse this small town and its rabid high schoolers thirsty for entertainment. Wes clenched his fist around his pen. Then he took a deep breath and relaxed. It didn’t matter; all of this would go back to the way things were very soon. He smirked to himself.

The ghost boy and his friends wanted to make him the laughing stock of the school? Fine by him. After all, two could play the humiliation game.

“Wouldn’t that be ‘four’ since there’s three of them and one of you?” Wes slammed his journal shut.

“Shut up, Kyle!” He threw a pillow at the door. “And get out of my room!”

---

We find ourselves in the ghost boy's natural habitat. A large overcrowded prison of sorts filled with countless meaningless tasks for the ghost boy and his pod to fall asleep doing. There are large groups of humans moving around them like they are but a few steady rocks weathering the push and pull of a mighty tide.

Oh, it seems to have heard us, let’s wait and see how long it takes to—ah there it is.

“Uh, Wes, what are you doing?”

The ghost boy is attempting to communicate with our cameraman, but it doesn’t seem to be saying anything intelligent.

“Dude, that’s not even a good British accent.” And now the nerd is stepping in to help its leader.

“Is this about that joke from yesterday?” Its nervous now, pausing to rub at its neck. “Sorry if you’re normally shy about that stuff, but, uh, it was a really good joke.”

Fascinating. The ghost boy seems to have completely forgotten the hint it gave our determined cameraman the other day.

“Hint?”

Indeed. Hard evidence is the only way it will give a straight answer so we at Weston Documentaries strive to acquire said evidence.

There is also the matter of humiliating payback that is part of our mission statement. Thus our brave cameraman has volunteered to follow you closely for the next couple days or so to capture much needed blackmail, er, valuable footage as necessary.

Oh look, it's groaning now.

“Just don’t be a creep about it.” My my, in less than a second it looks like it hasn’t slept in years! What an impressive feat. “That’s more accurate than you think.” It even knows how to mumble and lower its voice. Amazing. Though one has to wonder why it didn't do that the other day instead of making our handsome cameraman the laughing stock of the school.

“Better yet, why don’t you just leave Danny alone and go back to your dumb jock stuff.” Our cameraman must tread lightly here, goths tend to be very territorial when it comes to their pods. This one in particular has been known to break kneecaps. “Flattery will get you nowhere.” A smile caught on camera? Quite the rarity our boy has filmed today.

Blaring alarms are going off. We believe that is the indication that there’s a ghost around, isn’t that right? Goodness, the ghost boy seems to be getting quite pale. Of course, that’s because it must find a place to change forms away from all the prying eyes. Ghost boys are a typically shy and private species after all.

And he’s off! Let’s hope our trusty cameraman can keep up!

“Will you knock it off?! This is serious!” Now we see the agitation from the ghost boy in a display of glowing green eyes. “They’re not—ugh, just get to safety, moron!”

It’s almost breathtaking how easily the ghost boy jumps over trash cans and nearly flies around corners. But our cunning and athletic cameraman has no equal when it comes to parkour.

Kick through the doors! Slide down the railing! Weave through the crowds! Jump up the—

“What the hell?!” Wes slipped on a book and tumbled to the ground, camera lens cracking as it smacked against the tile. He turned back to see a redheaded girl smiling at him.

“Oops! Sorry about that; I can be so clumsy sometimes. Here let me help you up.” She walked in front of him and accidentally kicked the camera into a large group of stampeding students. “Darn, I actually didn’t mean to do that,” she mumbled to herself before apologizing again.

Wes clenched a fist and pounded the tile. “This isn’t over, Fenton.” He watched the casing break open as it was launched into a wall and ground his teeth. “Not by a long shot.”

[ilguna]

Redamancy - Chapter Seven (f.o)

summary: it’s time to forgive and repair.

warnings; swearing, murder, HEAVY GORE. BRIEF MENTION OF SUICIDE

wc; 14.5k

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

–

There’s a familiar feeling of dread when you wake up this afternoon. A bottomless pit in your stomach that sticks with you no matter how hard you shake. You sit in bed for an extra twenty minutes, hoping that positive affirmations will be enough to get some of it to go away. Dread is an unbearably uncomfortable feeling, and it doesn’t go away either.

You have to get out of bed at some point, so you drag your feet around your room, getting shit ready for the shower. Ripped white skinny jeans, an open-back light blue shirt, white underwear. You drop it all onto the white bathroom counter, turn on the shower, and let it run for a couple of minutes as you lean over the sink bowl.

Maybe you’re just hungry. You’ve felt this same hopeless feeling before, and all you had to do was eat for it to go away. You’ll have breakfast, and by the time you get to the betting room, your heart and stomach will be full. It’s hard to convince yourself this lie, knowing that it’s deeper than that.

You take your time in the shower too, no longer feeling sorry for Finnick for taking so long. He’s got Gloss and Enobaria down there, and they’re not so bad when you get to know them well enough. Unlike their crazy tributes inside of the arena, they know when and how to dial it down without causing too much trouble. Every year, it’s like the tributes ramp it up for entertainment. You wish they knew just how fucking insane they looked, how unappealing it’ll get to the gamemakers.

The Capitol likes fun, big and new until it’s gross and they can’t stomach it anymore. It might take them a little longer to get to that point, since they’ve been watching this shit for years, so they’re more desensitized than the rest of you. But it’s going to happen, and the moment it does, the gamemakers are going to censor everything possible to get their exciting program back on track.

It’s sickening, but it’s always sickening.

You wrap it up in the shower, allow the Capitol hair machines to work their magic on your hair. And while you’re at it, you go ahead and decide to let the body blow dryers do the exact same thing. You close your eyes and imagine that you’re not in the Capitol. You’re at home, on the beach surrounded by your friends and family. It’s late spring, early summer. You’ll picnic on the beach after you’re done with the water, and then you’ll play games until sundown. Walking home in the dark is especially fun, Reed drunk is a sight that never fails to amuse.

And then the blow dryers stop, and you’re right back home. You get dressed, one article at a time. Underwear, bra, pants, shirt. To avoid an endless stare in the mirror again, you go out to the dining room. 

You turn on the tv, sit at the table, and watch as the avoxes serve a big breakfast. Good, you want to make sure that you’re full. The sooner the shitty feeling goes away, the sooner you can start focusing on more important topics. You take your time getting through it all. Pancakes, with assorted berries, syrups and candies to place on top. You get orange juice, coffee and hot chocolate served in a heartbeat. If you don’t want the berries, you can opt for oranges, apples, plums, mangos. If not fruits, then vegetables. 

You stick with the pancakes, mixing and matching your food to try and find the best combination. You’re procrastinating, you know it. The longer you take, the less time you’ll have to spend inside of the betting room. You eat and eat, but find that the feeling isn’t going away. This shouldn’t be how today is going, especially not after the shit you just went through yesterday. It might not have been your tributes directly, but it was bad enough.

At least lady fate has been nice enough to give you a warning, right? Right?

It’s one-thirty in the afternoon. Everyone inside of the arena is awake and working on their own projects by now. Nine girl is relaxing off to the left, she’s got a fire started, and she’s cooking some animal that you’ve never seen before, over it. She’s content, and you think that she'll be able to kite the games easily, if she doesn’t go and pull anything like Bauhinia did.

Had Bauhinia just minded her own business and stuck next to the dam, she’d be alive right now. It wouldn’t have made for an interesting day, but that’s okay. You still can’t believe that she thought it was a good idea to try and attack them in the first place. Sure, it was only one of them, but she really didn’t think that she’d get away with it. The careers aren’t just going to let it go.

Sometimes there’s genius tributes, who can make their way around the arena, fight other tributes and survive off of worms in the ground. And they have everyone fooled, right up until they make their first not-common sense decision. A part of you can understand how they made it so far, because they’ve obviously got the skills for it. They’re just lacking literally the most obviously important details.

Bauhinia had the chance of winning, and she blew it for herself.

District Seven is awake, but they haven’t moved from the huts. They don’t look like they’re planning on going anywhere, either. The dam is leaking water, which has them mildly concerned, as they should be. They’ve just decided to ignore it for the time being, take advantage of it while they can before they have to actually go to the stream.

Annie and Marsh haven’t gone out to their snares at all. You don’t think they’re planning on moving today, either. They’re holed up inside of their shack, splitting food and talking about how they’re going to ration it. Maybe they’re finally going to try and make the push to the village tonight? That’s good, they should make one last round with the snares and gather what they can. Just in case there isn’t any food over there, they’d have some rabbits, squirrels and whatever else to hold them over until their next trip. Same thing goes for stocking up water.

As for the careers, they’re getting a slow start to today’s hunting day. They eat, discuss, go quiet, and then repeat the process about a hundred times until they eventually agree on just heading towards the stream. They pack up their things agonizingly slow, keeping the wretched kama with them so that no other tribute can run across it and keep it. It’s smart, but also a waste of space, considering they broke the strap on the outside of the backpack that would’ve held it for them.

And the only tribute that’s left is Five boy, who is a lot farther along than you thought he would be. He’s practically at the stream, and the path he took was on top of the careers. How they didn’t see him is a complete mystery to you. Like every other tribute that moves through the woods, he’s not very quiet. 

Then again, the careers are dragging their feet, so yesterday must’ve tired them out. After walking for several hours, and then running, there’s no way that their legs aren’t sore. Plus, they’re carrying backpacks chocked full of goods they’ll need for a couple of days. At least this shows that they’re some form of human. You’re sure that they’re going to find some way to change that thought in the next day or so. With what you’re feeling today, it’ll probably be in the next few hours.

You finish breakfast, still watching as Five boy gets closer and closer to the stream. With where he’s at currently, Annie and Mash shouldn’t have a thing to worry about. Hell, the kid isn’t even geared up, no backpack, no weapons, he’s just letting the wind decide where he’s going. Even if he did manage to run across your tributes, he wouldn’t be able to defend himself. He’s harmless.

The careers get ready to go, heading the exact same was as Five boy, of course. Again, if they stick with the path that they’re on, they shouldn’t be a problem with your tributes, either. However, if that were the case, you’re sure your heart wouldn’t squeeze each time you think of the idea of them getting close to Annie and Marsh.

You brush your teeth in your bathroom, no longer taking your time getting ready. You’ve wasted thirty minutes eating lunch alone, dragging your feet isn’t going to delay the inevitable. If today’s going to be a bad day, it’s going to happen with or without you.

Plus, Finnick’s probably wondering where you’ve been this entire time. You know that he didn’t leave to go to the betting room until early this morning. With the confirmation last night that the careers wouldn’t be doing anything else, he decided to sleep for a little while longer. You didn’t really see any harm in it either. The important part is that he got down there this morning.

The elevator down makes you anxious, you press a hand to your stomach, hoping that it’ll ease your nerves. But the more you walk towards the betting room, the more the dread spreads from your stomach to your chest. By the time you’re actually inside of the room, you’re sure that being dead would be better than feeling this for the rest of the day.

Finnick is standing up instead of sitting, arms crossed while he watches the tv screen. Gloss is standing next to him, talking about something. Every now and then they’ll glance at each other, but for the most part, they’re reasonably interested in what’s going to eventually happen. It’s a matter of time before the careers and Five boy run across each other, isn’t it?

As for Enobaria, she’s in a group of sponsors, chatting away. You’d say that you’re surprised or that she’s gearing up for something, but the truth is that it’s a ritual of hers. She’ll lose a tribute, and then she’ll go talk to Capitol people all day to make her feel better. It’s a way to take away from the self-hated. The Capitol people are a fucking escape, with their rich lives, accents and complete obliviousness to social cues. It’s hard not to get lost in them.

Mentors are usually pissed at the Capitol for encouraging the games, but it works a little differently with the careers. You’re supposed to love the Capitol for favoring your districts all because of what you guys produce. The truth is that keeping up appearances is hard, and constantly trying not to be mad at them is even worse. At some point you’re going to snap.

And Enobaria wouldn’t want to ruin the perfect reputation that she’s built up all this time. To be fair, neither would you. It’s hard to get the Capitol to like a district that isn’t very good at the games, and it’s even harder to do when you’ve insulted them constantly. This is why you insult your own district to ally yourselves with the Capitol to make them think that you’re over being a savage.

Anyway, you wouldn’t be surprised if Enobaria doesn’t speak to any of you all today. She should be right back to it tomorrow, though. Nothing is permanent when it comes to her. She could be mad at you today, bounce right back at it the next day. She’ll also probably find a way to blow off steam.

The Afternoon Line Odds say that everyone is still at their respective places. Annie and Marsh are still at a 6-1, Sanguine is at 1-1, and Geare is at 2-1. As for everyone inside of the arena… you wouldn’t say that they don’t have a chance at winning, you’d say that they don’t have a chance at getting sponsored. The higher your odds, the more people are going to keep their eyes on you.

Before Bauhinia died, she was at a 14-1, which isn’t horrible, but isn’t the best either. Nine girl is at a 10-1, you can’t remember what she was yesterday. You can imagine that getting that backpack from the cornucopia has worked wonders for her. The more supplies she has, the easier it’ll be to live out in the woods. You still think that someone should make a run for the village before it’s too late. None of the careers are going to see, and do they really think another, lesser tribute is going to chase them down there?

The village is barren, it’s practically the golden ticket. Plus, Nine girl doesn’t even know about the stream on the right side of the woods! All she probably knows is about the dam leaking water, but that’s not really an efficient way to drink, right? Who knows how many diseases lie inside of the lake water behind the dam. The water probably has concrete dust anyway.

Though, you can’t completely blame them. If you were in the same spot as they were, you’re not sure if going out of your comfort zone would be a number one priority. In your arena, you always went to the pond. And after the pond was slowly being sucked up, you were apprehensive to go to the waterfall because it was uncharted territory… not really claimed, either. On the other hand, though, you knew that other tributes were in that area. Made it a little harder to want to go around there in the first place.

You appear behind Finnick and Gloss, who don’t seem to take notice of your presence at all. With the angle they’re turned at, Finnick could look to Gloss and still not see you. As you listen in, it’s basically meaningless conversation, until Finnick starts asking questions.

“Is she normally this stressed out?”

“You don’t even know half of it. Compared to the last couple of years we’ve known her, this is absolutely nothing.” Gloss lets out a breathy laugh, “I mean, she used to eat, sleep and breathe this room. None of us really understood how she’d survive down here. Sleep deprivation, hours without eating.” Gloss looks at Finnick, “The tributes would die and she wouldn’t even get mad. It’s hard to forget she’s human.”

“Do you think she unintentionally flirts with the Capitol people?” Finnick asks.

Your mouth opens, face twisting in disbelief as you look to Finnick. You have the urge to slap him upside the head hard enough to rattle his fucking brain with a question like that. You don’t mind that he’s asking these questions, he was practically asking the same exact ones last night before you went to bed.

After the Anchor question on the balcony, more followed. He had three years to catch up on, and you guys didn’t even get to finish. You got too tired to go on, so he let you go on the promise that you’d resume the questionnaire another night. He asked practically everything that he could think of.

How you were doing after all these years, what you like to do, how you fill your free time when you’re not in the Capitol. What your brothers have been up to, how Alyssum’s been doing in school, what they do now that they don’t have to work every hour of the day to provide anymore. And then went the questions for Caspian’s family and if you’re still close with them, which is an obvious yes. More questions about Mags, Anchor and Luther.

You think this is a good sign, like it’s Finnick’s own personal way to weasel his way back into your life. You’re practically down for whatever gets him to stay this time around. You don’t want him to be participating in this year’s games but completely fall off the radar by the time next year rolls around.

Anyway, Finnick turning to Gloss to ask these same questions is only natural, you’re sure that if Cashmere and Enobaria were over here too, they’d be more personal. To some extent, you think that Finnick isn’t trying to dig too deep, like he’s unsure of whether or not Gloss is one of your best friends or not. However, if he was going with that path, he wouldn’t have just asked Gloss whether he thinks you’re flirting with the Capitol each time you open your mouth.

“Uh,” Gloss says, smart man. He shouldn’t be quick to answer, but if he’s finding a better way to word whatever he’s thinking, he might have earned himself a hard slap to the side of the head too. “I wouldn’t say that it’s unintentional. We all know that the more you compliment the sponsors, the more willing they are to sponsor. So, I’d say that when she does, it’s on purpose too. She’s good at getting her way.”

“So I’ve heard.” Finnick mutters.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” you ask, causing the both of them to jump.

Gloss places a hand over his heart, “Holy fuck, (Y/n). Again?”

You hardly pay attention to Gloss, eyes focused on Finnick, who’s beginning to turn red because of guilt, “I didn’t mean it in a bad way.”

“That’s what everyone says when they’re caught.” you roll your eyes, looking at the screen, “What’s up, Gloss?”

“Watching Enobaria unintentionally flirt with the sponsors.” Gloss snorts.

“Ha!” you elbow him, a smile peeking onto your face.

“(Y/n), I just meant that I’ve experienced it first hand. The elevator? The train?” Finnick says, you barely glance at him, “You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?”

You shrug, a cheeky smile on your face, “Hey, I’d be careful next time, though. Who knows what corner I’ll be lurking behind next?” you reach over, fingers finding Finnick’s sides.

Finnick squirms, giving you a glare, “Get your dirty fingers off of me.”

“Fine, I guess I’ll just turn to Gloss instead--”

“I’m not ticklish, living a life with Cashmere will do that to you.” Gloss says.

You pause for a second, “She’s your younger sister.”

“Sisters are cruel.” he says.

You snort, going for his sides anyway, “You’re a liar!”

“Grab her!” Gloss shouts, Finnick laughs.

You move out of the way before either of them can do some real damage. Gloss had been going for your wrists, Finnick for your back. You knew it was only going to be a matter of time before they tried to torture you. But unlike them--the total liars--you’re not actually ticklish. 

It’s always the older sibling that messes with the younger ones. Of course, you’ve had your fair share of impish moments and getting on your brothers’ nerves. But you’ve never had the opportunity to hold down Reed and give him hell until he cried and begged and promised to do shit that he didn’t want to. Plus, the idea of Cashmere going that far on Gloss is heinous. Does he really think you’re that stupid?

“Anyway, hear the tributes talk about anything important?”

“For a while the gamemakers let us hear Annie and Marsh. Catch any of that while you were taking your sweet ass time getting down here?” Finnick asks, giving you a raised eyebrow.

“Not my fault I feel like shit.”

Suddenly, Finnick’s no longer suspicious, “Sick?”

“Probably not, just a gut feeling.”

Gloss lets out a laugh, “Well, that’s not good. Last time you had a gut feeling was last year when… both of your tributes died on the same day?”

“Yeah.” you huff, “And if this year is a repeat, I’m going to fucking lose my mind.”

“I would too. You’ve got quite the streak going on.”

You punch Gloss’ arm.

“So on top of everything else, you’re also psychic?” Finnick asks.

You place your hands on top of your head, “Yeah, something like that. What was Annie and Marsh saying?”

“Village, talking about going there before it’s too late. They both want to go tonight, they’re still worried about finding a water source, though.”

“Figured.”

The further Sanguin and Geare walk, the more they seem to awaken. No longer dragging their feet, conversation has picked back up into its usual vicious state. Mostly about what happened yesterday, and they can’t believe that the chase went on as long as it did. You can’t blame them, at first glance, Bauhinia doesn’t look like a girl that ran track in high school. Then again, appearances can be deceiving.

Five boy has made it to the stream, deciding to take a break. He’s sat on the right side of the bank so no one can sneak up on him from the way he came. He sheds some clothing, dipping his shirt in the water, ringing it out a little to not let him be completely soaking wet, and then puts it back on. You didn’t really consider the fact that it could very well be hot inside of the arena. It looks like it’s the middle of springtime there, like it can’t be more than seventy degrees.

Whatever he does, he doesn’t shed his shoes. He’ll sit in the stream water, let his pants completely soak, but taking off his shoes is out of the question. In fact, he even goes as far as to lift his feet in the air to make sure that they don’t get wet at all. You guess it’s not a completely fruitless idea. Walking in wet shoes isn’t comfortable at all, especially when your skin begins to wrinkle. Plus, if he were to take off his shoes and someone else were to show up, he’d be stuck running through the woods barefoot. If there’s one thing that no one wants to do, it’s run through the woods barefoot.

Rocks, dirt, sticks, needles, poison ivy, beetles, spiders, snakes, whatever can be lying in the grass. Hell, you’ve seen grass that looks like it’s harmless, but it turns out it has razor edges along the blade. It wouldn’t be a problem, if it weren’t for the fact that the grass had reached above their shoes, constantly cutting and reopening wounds on their calves. Didn’t make for a very fun time for the tributes.

You can appreciate the determination going on with Five boy. He kinda reminds you of Six before he went and died via forcefield. The both of them have their own set of determinations. While Five boy has, for whatever reason, made it his goal to make it across the woods in a little less than two days, Six boy had been moving to get away from the dam.

Although, you’re really not sure what Five is up to. If he was looking for water, he found it. But you can’t imagine that’s why he traveled across the entire arena. If he’s lasted this long, that means he’s had his own supply off to the far left for a while. Why leave what you know is working? You’re all for taking risks until it’s unnecessary.

Upstream from Five is your tributes, who are still inside of the shack. You can’t hear the conversation, as usual, so you try your best to read lips. You think you catch Marsh saying that they should hole themselves up inside of the shack until tonight comes. Annie asks what they would do if someone came along and wants where they’re saying, he says to fend it off or just make a fucking run for the village.

Annie says splitting up isn’t a smart idea, he agrees, “What choice do we have?” Those words are the clearest. Annie doesn’t really respond, she just brings her legs to her chest and rests her chin on her knees. Then, she shrugs. You can’t blame her, it’s hard knowing what to do when you don’t really have options. And with them being inside of the Hunger Games, everything is a risk at this point.

If they don’t move on, they run the risk of someone coming across them, their shack, their snares and taking one of them out. If they do move on, they leave behind shelter, the way they’ve been getting food, a certain water source, and they go on the chance that they might get caught on the way to the village. It’s not really a winning situation unless all conditions are perfect. Which is hardly ever. Oh, and also if they stay, the dam will eventually be their number one problem.

Marsh says that he’s going to step out and get fresh air, he’ll just be outside of the doorstep. Annie says she’s fine with that, watches him leave and then closes her eyes for a while. They’re not really splitting up, so you can’t see a problem with him just leaving for a moment. If he wanders off, that’s a whole new ordeal, though.

Sanguin and Geare are fast despite their sore legs. The map that the gamemakers show you, tell you that they’re basically on top of the stream. A couple more minutes, and they’ll be able to see it through the trees. And with the path they took, it’s parallel to what Five boy took. This is a fight waiting to happen. Any fucking minute now.

“Back to back.” Gloss says.

“Can’t wait to see what Sanguin has instore for us today.” Finnick says.

Gloss looks over, “You heard what happened?”

“Saw.” you correct, “Showed him what happened when I got back yesterday. Let’s just say that Finnick can eat and watch shit like that all day long.”

“O-kay.” Finnick draws out the world, but he starts laughing along with you two.

And like you predicted, Sanguin and Geare spot the stream through the trees. They’re not really overjoyed, just relieved that they finally found it after all this time. They take their time getting there, dropping off their stuff in the bushes along the treeline. Geare crouches down to splash water on his face, Sanguin complains about her hair being greasy.

They fill back up on water, talking quietly amongst themselves because there’s no use to shout if they’re next to each other. The moment they comfortably fall into silence, Five boy’s voice is heard. It’s not clear, it sounds distant, but it’s unmistakable. You watch as Sanguin and Geare share a look, hands finding their weapons, then dropping the things they don’t need at the moment before they head off toward Five.

A part of you wonders that if Five boy takes off running, if they’ll follow or just let him go. You wouldn’t believe your eyes if they just decided to go after him. But you also couldn’t believe your eyes when you watched Sanguin single-handedly rip apart Bauhinia like she was a fucking animal and not a human.

The careers disappear into the trees for better coverage, taking their time with getting down to where Five boy is. They’re definitely going to chase after him. And if they don’t chase, Sanguin will probably just throw her sword out of nowhere or some shit. Surprise all of you at the same time. If the odds could go to 0-1 with her, you’re sure that they would.

Five boy is humming to himself, turning a rock over in his hand. You watch in silent horror as Sanguin and Geare manage to get closer and closer without being detected. Actually, you’re sure that with their skills, they could easily cross the stream and still not be figured out. If they can do this in broad daylight, what can they do when they have the night as their veil?

You don’t like the chill that goes down your spine.

No words pass between Sanguin and Geare, they must decide that they’ll be able to handle Five boy in whatever way they need. The way that they simultaneously come out of the trees, with their hand-picked weapons brandished and the strict expression on their faces. They look like a pair of villains in a children’s fairytale. However, normally those villains are easy to beat and seem to have a chink in their armour. Sanguin and Geare are not like that.

Five spots them almost immediately, eyes widening and darting up, mouth parting as he watches them. You can see the glint of the sun off Sanguin’s sword land in his eyes for a moment, before disappearing off into the trees. No words come from any of them, he just stares as they get closer.

Sanguin and Geare split, wanting to take Five from both sides, which seems to finally set him off. Five jumps to his feet, crouching over slightly, caught in the decision of fight or flight. Would be he able to hold them off? You don’t think so. Would he be able to outrun them? You don’t think so, either. They’re good fighters, Sanguin’s an even-better runner. There’s no way he’s making out of this alive.

Doesn’t mean he can’t try, though.

And like a fucking psychopath, Five boy screams at the top of his lungs. And while that momentarily catches both of the careers off guard, it also makes Annie jerk to life inside of the shack. She grabs her short blade, throwing the door of the shack open to find what’s the matter. Marsh is already on his feet outside, eyes on Annie.

“What was that?” Annie asks, you can hear her this time.

“It’s not far away.” Marsh says, “We shouldn’t stay.”

“We can’t leave now, can we? Where will we go?”

“Up?” Marsh asks.

“Are you fucking crazy?”

Another scream, Five boy has brought his fists up to his face like he’s getting ready to fight. He’s an idiot, he’s going to get himself killed. If Annie can take out One boy--Colt--without blinking her eyes, Sanguin and Geare can both easily do it with their eyes closed. You have slight hope for him, looking at the Line Odds to see what the gamemakers are making of him. He’s at 15-1, worse than Bauhinia.

“He’s fucked!” you exclaim.

Sanguin bites, swinging her sword right at him. He ducks out of the way, jumping at her legs. He takes her out, scrambling on top of her, getting the sword away from him. He raises his fist up high, and before Geare can catch it, slams his fist straight into her teeth. You can feel the ache in your own front teeth, especially since he gave her all knuckle. She’s got to be feeling something.

Geare grabs a hold of Five, yanking him off and backwards into the water, which is now a huge factor. It’s splashing everywhere, getting all of them wet, slowing their movements down. The stream seems to get heavier, moving faster to make balancing impossible. No thanks to the gamemakers, you’re sure. A little interference never hurt anyone, right?

Sanguin scoops up her sword in her wet hands, which are still stained red from Bauhinia’s blood yesterday. She rinsed them off with the water from her water bottle, but even after that, and scrubbing them in the stream not five minutes ago, they’re stained. And they’re about to be stained again, you think.

Geare holds Five boy in place, raising up the sword. Five stays still eyes on the silver blade that’s about to make its home in his chest. His life is probably flashing before his eyes, every mistake he’s ever made is suddenly at the front of his mind. What he said to his family last before they had to say their goodbyes. It’s all he can think about.

Marsh has now geared up for the fight, completely switching gears from his original intention of running, “What if it’s the careers?”

“What--are you hearing yourself? You’re right! What if it’s the careers--you just want to run right on in?”

“There’s two of them, Annie!” Marsh shoves Annie’s backpack into her hands, “And just in case you forgot, we’re careers too! This could be our opportunity!”

“Or it could be our death sentence!” Annie grabs a hold of his arm, “This is stupid.”

“Come or don’t, I’m going down there.”

He tightens the strap on his backpack, quickly making his way down the hill. Annie stands there for a moment, runs a hand through her messy hair, and then lets out a sigh. She heads down there after him, tightening the straps on her own backpack, and gripping and regripping the short blade in her hand. This is bad, very bad.

The fight is about to go from three to five. The original stakes are now unmatched, now that two more careers have been added to the equation. District Four versus Five boy versus what’s left of the career pack. Who’s going to fight who, you wonder. Will Sanguin and Geare stay focused on their original plan, or will they be completely distracted by your tributes.

The tension in your chest has met its breaking point. Loud, shaking, vibrating. This is it. Exactly what you feared is going to happen. Last year, a couple of tributes had managed to kill both of your tributes at the same time. This year, it’s going to be the careers, since Sanguin is dead set on killing Annie at least, and Geare will naturally go for Marsh to finish District Four off once and for all.

“(Y/n), breathe.” Finnick’s rubbing your back.

Sanguin brings the sword down, she misses Five boy by a hair. He turned sideways just in time, but Sanguin’s not fucking around. She’s desperate to get this over with, tired of outsider tributes slipping through her fingers like sand. She raises her sword much quicker now, and slams it through his arm, pinning him to the ground. He screams.

Marsh quickens his pace, Annie quietly ushers him to slow down. He doesn’t listen to her. They both make it down the hill just in time to see Geare pin Five’s other arm down with his foot. Sanguin holds out her hand, Geare hands over his own weapon. One moment, they’re all still, Five has no way of escaping, Marsh and Annie are an audience to some sick show.

Chaos is what happens next. Sanguin moves faster than Marsh had predicted. She easily kills Five, a cannon going off. But Marsh has revealed where he was, moving towards her, swinging his own sword before she can pull hers out of Five. He brings the blade up high, Sanguin flinches to cover her face with her forearm. The blade slices right through her skin, blood flying, a yelp of pain leaving her.

Annie moves forward too, apprehensive at first, like she doesn’t know where to start. Attack Sanguin or Geare? Does she even want to be placed in the middle of this? If she ran now, she could save herself. Fuck, she could run all the way to the village and none of them would be able to catch her. She’d be able to hide herself somewhere where they’d never be able to find her.

And then Sanguin catches sight of Annie, and suddenly the whole mood is shifted. With her target spotted, Marsh is an easy object to get out of the way. She shoves, rips her sword out of Five, blood gushing down her arm at an unhealthy pace, and storms her way over to Annie.

It’s too late for Annie to run now. Her chin lowers, she makes sure that Sanguin can see the shortblade, and the fight really starts. Sanguin swings, Annie dodges and moves closer. It’s the same dancing game that she played with Colt, except this time, Sanguin knows of Annie’s games. For every step Annie takes forward, Sanguin moves backward to keep her away.

At some point, though, she can’t run any further. It’ll make her look like a coward. Annie is persistent, she won’t let up until Sanguin conforms or runs. Subject yourself to the fight, or find a way to get out of there before Annie does some real damage. And since Sanguin isn’t a career for nothing, she steps up. 

Blade on blade, over and over and over again. Annie swings up, Sanguin blocks, slips and goes downward. Annie will narrowly get out of the way before bringing her blade down as hard as she can, breaking through any barriers that Sanguin thought she had built up. You’ll have to say it, they’re evenly matched.

The adrenaline that must be running through them is fucking nuts. Sanguin swings upward, Annie backs out of the way, bringing her short blade down. Sanguin just barely dodges, but you know that she’s in pain because of her arm. Annie tries to fake her out like she did to Colt, but Sanguin works faster than that. It’s okay, Annie recovers.

As for Marsh and Geare, it’s not as intense. They don’t have problems with each other, not like Sanguin and Annie. All Marsh really has to do is take out Geare before Sanguin somehow gets an upper hand on Annie. Once he’s gone, Sanguin will be too. Her pride is too big for her to just run away from a fight she’s been itching for since she first saw Annie during the bloodbath.

Marsh seems more successful. Geare might have scored a ten, but he’s lazy. Almost like he’s trying not to take it as seriously, as if he could also do this without trying. He can’t, the number that Geare scored was a reach. He too, looks like an eight or nine at most, he fights like it.

Annie keeps pushing, her strength never-ending. She’s got the same amount of stamina that Sanguin has, maybe more. The careers can run for hours on end, but you never saw use in something like that. If they get caught in a fight, they’re going to want to keep going, they don’t want to die. Annie can always go back and forth between running and walking, anyway. It’s not that easy when you’re using a sword, or in this case, a short blade.

Sanguin lets out a shout, moving faster than Annie can catch her. Instead of swinging her weapon, which is no doubt having its way with her arms now, she shoves Annie back hard enough for her to topple over. Annie hits the stream water, creating a wave that briefly reaches into the air, and then it comes all crashing down. 

All at once.

Sanguin rolls her wrist, spins toward Marsh and swings. A strangled scream leaves your throat when you cover your mouth. Geare moves out of the way, far back enough for the blade to not even come close to touching him. However, Marsh is unsuspecting, back turned towards Sanguin. He can’t see the blade coming, much less has a reason to think he’s in any sort of danger.

For a second, it’s not as bad as it seems. Sanguin’s blade forces Marsh to his knees with how it hits the back of his legs. But then Geare moves forward, sword over his shoulder, eyes locked on Marsh. The two of them work together seamlessly, it’s almost like they’ve been brainwashed with how their movements are mechanical. 

Geare brings his sword down, sword connecting with the side of Marsh’s neck. There’s no way he can defend himself, Annie just has to sit here and watch. Sit here and take it. The blade goes clean through without a struggle. His silver sword, glittering beautifully in the sunlight, has blood all along the blade.

Another cannon blasts.

Where Marshs’ head was before, has now been replaced by a fountain of deep red blood. The body falls forward, legs slanted uncomfortably. The gamemakers show Annie, and you can see she’s on the edge. There’s tears in her eyes, face slowly turning red. She’s no longer sitting, she’s already on her feet, knuckles white from how hard she’s gripping the hilt.

A stand still, you think. Where will they go from here?

Annie launches herself at Geare, completely pissed. He’s already covered in her former district partner’s blood, but with the way she collided with him, it rubs off on her. They struggle, Sanguin trying to grab a hold of her too. Logically speaking, there’s two against one. Annie shouldn’t get the upper hand here.

But Annie didn’t volunteer for the Hunger Games for nothing.

With one hand wrapped around his forehead, yanking it back, stretching his neck so that it’s accessible, the other hand has her blade sheathed. And with no hesitance, because the longer you wait, the bigger the chance of interference, she slits his throat, and shoves his body forward.

Like yesterday, with the bloody freckles across her face, Sanguin gets a face full of blood. She catches him, arms wrapped around him to make sure he gets down comfortably. Annie spins her blade between her fingers, and finishes off Geare, her short blade in the back of his head. 

Another cannon. Enobaria and Wade are going home.

Annie places her foot on Geare’s back, pushing him forward while she yanks her sword out. Sanguin can’t handle all the weight, so she falls back, trapping her beneath the dead body. Annie stares down at Sanguin for a moment, breathing heavily. She’s caught in a decision, should she take out the last career, once and for all?

It’ll take away the threat. Four people left inside of the games after Sanguin is gone. But it also goes against her moral dilemma of killing people when it’s not needed. She just needs to do it. Sanguin will keep following her if she doesn’t, Annie doesn’t want to be chased, does she?

She’s shaking, eyes filling with tears, “This is your fault. It’s all your fault.”

Sanguin opens her mouth, eyebrows drawn in. She doesn’t speak, only stares and waits. Annie lifts her sword, taking in a deep breath, and slams the blade right through Geare’s back, and into Sanguin. It doesn’t kill her, but it’ll keep her down.

Annie gathers the backpacks, transfers the goods without a single word, and then scoops up Marsh’s sword, finding a spot for it so she doesn’t have to carry. She takes one last look at Sanguin, and then spits on her. Saliva mixed with blood, it lands on Sanguin’s cheek. 

Only three tributes dead, maybe four if Sanguin’s wounds kill her anytime soon. Annie takes off through the trees, straight downhill and towards the village. It’s a shame that it took for Marsh to die for the plans to finally fall through. Either way, she won’t have to worry about Sanguin going after her. She can take her time getting to the village. 

“Okay,” You breathe, “Okay, it could be worse.”

“Why didn’t she just kill Sanguin?” Gloss asks.

“Because she doesn’t need to.” Finnick tells him, “Sanguin isn’t a threat to her, and won’t be for a while.”

It’s quiet, you let out a slight laugh, “We know how stupid it sounds. If Annie had the choice of running away from Geare and Sanguin instead of killing Geare, she would’ve just run.”

“Huh.” Gloss hums.

Enobaria no longer needs to talk to the sponsors. You watch as they all let her go, she slowly bids each and every one of them goodbye. When she finally has her back turned to them, she gives you three an eye roll. Enobaria stops a few feet away.

“Insufferable.” She huffs, “Had I known Geare would be dying today, I would've just stuck with you guys. They act like I need the condolences.”

“Yeah, that’s why I don’t talk to them unless I have to.” Gloss gives her a smile, she glares.

“I’ve got to go tell Wade the news.” She hugs Gloss first, even after what he said, “I’ll see you next year. Good luck.” You're next, she gives an extra squeeze. Finnick gives her a one-armed hug.

“It was good seeing you.” You smile.

“Yeah, whatever—“

Gloss snorts, “I’m sorry for your loss!”

Enobaria flips him off, you all watch as she leaves the betting room. You look at the Line Odds next to see that Annie and Sanguin have moved. Sanguin has gone down to 2-1, probably because Five boy got the jump on her, and Annie was able to match her power. Annie has moved up to 3-1, whereas previously she was 6-1.

Good news, it’s all good news. Annie’s alive, she’s moved up on the odds board. Even if she didn’t kill Sanguin, she at least injured her enough to keep her away. You know for a fact that Sanguin’s going to go running to the cornucopia with her tail between her legs. She’s not going to bother to go after Annie.

For the most part, Annie’s fine. She’s got a scratch here and there from not being able to move out of the way in time, but other than that, she’ll be able to easily overpower Sanguin. Beforehand, Sanguin’s idea of revenge could be supported by her health, now it would be a stupid move. It would be stupid for her to do anything but go home.

“Shouldn’t you be loading up a sponsor?” You ask, looking at Gloss.

“I’m going to let her suffer some. Maybe that’ll make her more humble.”

“I’m pretty sure Annie letting her live was grounding enough.” Finnick mutters, you all laugh.

Annie runs through the trees, she’s almost out of the forest. She’s going faster since it’s all downhill, but the clearing beyond the woods is flat. And the hills will slow her down even more. The problem isn’t so much Sanguin anymore, but the other tributes seeing her. Nine girl, who has her own weapon. The Seven tributes, who are working in a pair.

But as far as you can tell, they're not near the tree line. They seem to be stuck where they are, probably confused about the three cannons. One and two are normal, signifies a small fight, maybe the careers ran into other tributes, or the careers lost one of their own altogether. But three is bigger, even if it doesn’t seem like it.

Sanguin is still laying underneath Geare, wincing each time she moves. A moan will leave her mouth when she tries to push him off, the sword blade digging around in her wound. She pants, pauses, and tries again, gritting her teeth. Geare is bigger than her, it’s going to take a moment to get him off of her. She’s probably under some sort of pressure, knowing that everyone is watching, that the gamemakers are waiting to collect the bodies.

She presses her hands against Geare’s shoulders, slowly pushing him off. It’s like peeling a bloody shirt off of a wound, you’ve got to do it slowly if you want little to no pain. All at once is going to hurt like a bitch. However, at the angle she’s going with, it’s probably making things a whole lot worse.

She barely slips out from underneath Geare before he comes crashing back to the ground, sword hitting the dirt next to her. She lets out a groan, fingers finding her stomach. She’s in the same situation that you were in five years ago. Except her wound is all surface, hardly goes that deep. Your entire knife got shoved in, five to six inches, maybe more? Sanguin is going to survive.

She gets to her feet, grabbing her sword. Annie left her nothing, so she’s got to get to the cornucopia before sundown if she wants to be safe. She stands around the area for a couple of seconds longer, looking over Five, Marsh and then Geare. Her face twists angrily, and she shouts.

Sanguin brings her sword up, and then slams it into Geare’s back, “Fuck!”

She leaves, turning the way that she’d come with Geare and Vanilee a day ago, and starts going downhill diagonally. She keeps with this path for a while, a couple of hours, at least. The stream was only three miles off to the right of the cornucopia, with where they had started on the first day, it made it seem a whole lot longer.

Either way, Sanguin makes it to the cornucopia at the same time Annie makes it over the one important hill that’ll hide her from Sanguin. With the village right in front of her, Annie starts running again. The second that she’s stepped foot onto the washed-out soil, she collapses to her knees.

You stand from where you’re sitting with Gloss and Finnick, “Is she hurt?”

“Why would she be?” Gloss asks, he presses his lips together, and then sits up, “I’ve got to send Sanguin some medication. I’ll be back.”

Gloss finds his usual people, always ready on-hand for him to come by so they can send his tributes a gift. They talk for a moment, and then he leads them over to where he’ll confirm and send the sponsor gift.

As for Annie, her hands have curled into fists, body shaking. You’re not sure what’s happening until you’re allowed to hear, just in time for her to gasp and sob, whimpering. She sniffs, slamming her fist into the dirt a couple of times, turning her knuckles red. Annie sits up, staring into the village with bloodshot eyes. She wipes under her eyes and nose, a frown on her face.

The relief that goes through you really is like a wave. She’s not hurt, just grieving for Marsh. It’s natural with tributes that are close to each other. Annie and Marsh have been side by side since the beginning, partners in crime. Losing him was inevitable, they’re so far into the games now. It’s been less than a week and there’s only five left. From here on out, they need to treat the games like they’re almost over.

You take a seat back on the couch, lacing your fingers and leaning forward on your knees. You’re all allowed to watch a split screen of Sanguin receiving her sponsor gift, and Annie pulling herself together enough to find a place to stay for the night. She drags her feet through the dirt, but it’s not deep enough path for a tracker like Sanguin to come around and follow it.

Annie walks for thirty minutes before picking a three-story house. When she walks inside, you can see that the floorboards are rotting, the yellow-flowered wallpaper is curling off the walls, and the staircase on the first floor is missing quite a few steps. Annie doesn’t care, she tightens her grip on her belongings and takes one step at a time. The second floor’s staircase is much sturdier, same for the floors. The walls are just as bad.

She picks a far back room, sets everything down, and rolls out what she’ll need for tonight. With how she’s not unpacking everything, and putting things back after she’s done, Annie doesn’t want to stay where she is. Or she’s keeping everything ready just in case someone does come after her. After today, you can’t blame her, but she’s all by herself inside of the village.

Sanguin sits herself in the grass, carefully pulls her healing cream out of the silver package, disregarding whatever note that Gloss has decided to give her. Speaking of which, he joins you guys back at the couch, sitting on the arm. Sanguin squirts the contents of the tube onto her fingers, and then lifts her shirt for everyone to see.

Not a pretty sight, where the short blade had cut her is a huge gash. Dried blood around it, with how she flexes her stomach when trying to look for herself, more blood surfaces, and runs down her skin. She glares, grits her teeth, and then digs her fingers inside, trying to spread it inside to make the healing process faster. Her face turns a deep shade of red, holding her breath. When she’s done the first time, she lets out a breath of air, recuperates, and then goes again.

It’s six in the evening before anyone in the arena begins to settle down for the night. Annie has made her bed, she eats and drinks water, trying not to cry anymore than she has already today. Sanguin doesn’t have any water, which means that tomorrow she’ll have a decision to make; stay inside of the cornucopia, where she knows it’s safe, or risk going out to get water. You have a feeling that her pride is too much to allow her to just stay inside and be thirsty.

As for Nine girl, where she’s stopped is actually fairly close to where the Seven tributes are. Maybe a mile or so apart, the Seven tributes are at their huts as usual, towards the top of the arena. Nine girl is somewhere in the middle, if she continues traveling up tomorrow, she’ll come across the team easily. For now, she makes a bed of grass and uses her backpack as a pillow.

“I think I’m going back to the apartment.” Finnick says, he yawns and pushes himself up from the couch, “You’ve got it handled?”

“Yeah, of course.” you give him a smile, “I’ll go and get you later. Eat before you go to bed.”

“I can take care of myself.” he says, and then waves to Gloss, “See you later.”

“Bye.” Gloss holds up his hand briefly, and then turns back to the screen.

You get comfortable on the couch, tucking your legs beneath you. Not everyone is turning in for the night in the arena, but they might as well be. Something tells you that there’s not going to be another big event in the arena tonight. You can take it easy, probably even go out to dinner and come back and relax.

“When’s Cashmere supposed to be down here?” you ask, looking over at Gloss.

He hums, “A couple of hours, why?”

“We should all get dinner together before you switch out.”

“Sure.”

--

Without the weight in your stomach holding you down to the bed this afternoon, you slip out of bed with a yawn. You stretch your arms over your head, dragging your feet to the closet to pick out today’s outfit. Your fingers fumble, still half-asleep and squinting to be able to see properly. 

Dark blue jeans, a red tank top, black underwear. You throw it all over your arm as you reach to grab the tennis shoes, not really liking all the other options. You’re actually fairly sure that the last time you wore flats, you got blisters on the back of your feet. It’s hard to focus on your tributes when you’re complaining about the pain in your feet all day.

You throw your clothes onto the bed, as well as the shoes. On the way to the bathroom, you lock your bedroom door to make sure that you’re not going to get any unwanted guests. The shower water is warm almost instantly, but as soon as you’re dipping your fingers inside to double-check--a force of habit--you’re quickly turning the knob to make the water more cold.

Naturally, the Tribute Center has an automatic system that adjusts the heating and AC to make it comfortable for everyone inside. But this afternoon, things are particularly hot. It’s been that way since last night, when you had to shed practically everything to even get your body to a normal temperature. For good measure, you took a second shower, also cold.

It must be some sort of heatwave, thanks to the summer. And the window that you’re dealing with inside of your room probably isn’t helping all that much, either. By allowing the sun rays inside, you’re subsequently signing yourself up for the warmth that comes with it. Unfortunately, the windows don’t really come with blinds, so you just have to put up with it.

You do have to say that the heatwave inside of the Tribute Center is nothing compared to what you deal with at home. You have AC in your victor house, of course, but all the years prior when you’d just have to bear the sweat and flushed faces was like existing in hell. The only way to get away from the heat, if you weren’t swamped with housework via your brothers, was to go down to the beach and sit in the water for a while. But shedding clothes meant sunburns, and sunscreen goes up in price during the summer.

You’ve gotten used to it over the years, as you’ve grown older, you’ve also developed the philosophy of not letting stuff like that get to you anymore. Especially with not how Alyssum is getting older. If you pretend to act like everything is just fine with the heat, eventually she’ll have to stop complaining when she realizes that no one relates to her mundane problem.

However, shirts sticking to your back, using folders as fans and the irritating feeling of sweat rolling down your skin isn’t always ignorable. At least she doesn’t have to deal with you, Reed and Mox telling her that she should’ve felt what it was like to live in the shack for all these years. There’s been a silent agreement not to compare the previous living situation to the one you have now. It’s not her fault she’s living the way she is now. Plus, you think that you’d rather save those stories for when you’re old and wrinkly.

The cold water feels nice on your skin for a while, until it begins to make you cold. You step out, tie your hair out of your face and get dressed. Looking in the mirror today, there’s definitely a difference on your face. You’re not as sullen, yesterday it almost looked like someone told you that your dog died. Might as well have, Marsh is gone, and he’s not coming back.

Marsh placed seventh, with a final Line Odd of 6-1. He scored a nine on his training score, he had the Capitol in tears during his interview. He’s memorable, especially with the way that he went charging toward the careers. His intention might not have been to save Five boy, but it was still noble to face them head-on. You can only hope that none of this is in vain, that Annie will survive.

You get dressed, place your ring on your finger and hurry out to the dining room. It’s almost one already, and you haven’t even eaten yet. Dread isn’t the only thing that can ball and chain you to a bed, worry is pretty good at it too. Even better when you don’t fall asleep until late in the morning.

You shouldn’t be stressing yourself out like this, Annie is fine. She’s in the village, far away from Sanguin, who’s still injured, as far as you know. All the tributes that she would have had to worry about before are now miles away from where she is now. Hell, Sanguin would have to walk hours up and down hills just to get to Annie. And then what? Annie would be able to defend herself.

The tv is already on when you get out there, which makes you think that the avoxes had done it so that you wouldn’t have to ask today, until you see that Elysia is sitting at the table. There’s a mug in her hand, it has coffee in it, you don’t even have to pretend like you don’t know. It might be the afternoon, but she takes in caffeine like it’s an alcohol addiction.

“Hey.” you say, making her look up.

She raises her eyebrows, a smile crossing her face, “Good afternoon. How are you holding up?”

“Could be a lot worse, Annie’s a survivor.” you sit at the table, watching as cold cut sandwiches, fizzy beverages and potato chips are placed on the table. It’s not much of a fancy feast, the Capitol does this sometimes when it’s a casual afternoon.

“I’d say.” Elysia looks over to the tv.

You look over too, it’s focused on Annie at the moment. It looks like she’s finally unpacked her things, but she hasn’t moved from the back corner. Sanguin, Geare and Vanilee’s bed rolls are placed inside of each other. It’s a good way to keep warmth and make it a little comfortable. 

Food, knives, water are spread around her. She won’t be needing water refills anytime soon, she’s inherited all the dead tributes’ water jugs. You think that if she drinks enough to keep her body going, she’ll have enough to last her a week, maybe two if she really tests her limits. 

She’s sitting in the corner of the room, legs to her chest, arms wrapped around them to keep them from slipping. Her hair is messy, eyes bloodshot, bags beneath her eyes. She didn’t sleep at all last night, there’s no question about it. But at least all the scratches and cuts that were inflicted have healed. She applied the medication last night before she laid down to sleep.

You sat down in the betting room for a while with just Gloss. As soon as Cashmere came around, you kept to your idea and went out to dinner with them. It wasn’t anywhere fancy, you didn’t even bother to get a private room to eat at. It was a soup and bread place, you stayed as long as you could before Gloss fell asleep on the table.

It was nice catching up with Cashmere, she said that she’d seen Enobaria and Wade just before they left for the train. Wade was reasonably upset, but Enobaria didn’t even look phased. In fact, Cashmere leaned across the table and whispered; “Enobaria says that she hopes Annie wins.” You’re glad you have these guys as your friends, even if they have to go home, there’s no malicious intent.

They’re your best friends, through and through.

After dinner, Gloss went back to his apartment, and you were left with Cashmere for a little while. You caught her up on a lot that’s happened inside of the arena, your opinions, how you guys hung around Cecelia for a while. Cashmere agreed that Sanguin’s experience with Annie was probably enough to bring her back to reality. They’re teenagers, tributes in the Hunger Games, they can’t control anything, much less try and play god. 

As soon as the first conversation was over, Cashmere started a second one about Finnick. Which made you groan with a, “It’s not that important, Cash.” But she wouldn’t let it go until you answered her questions. She hasn’t been able to ask you all the juicy details in private like she’s really wanted to.

There’s not much to tell. You let her know that Finnick was asking about you to Gloss while you weren’t there yesterday. And the night before you spent hours talking on the balcony after Bauhinia died. The two of you came to the conclusion that Finnick is deciding that he’s going to stay for a while--which you’d partially come up with by yourself yesterday.

Cashmere said it was a good sign, good for you when it comes to mentoring and the boarding school. You can finally chill out and be there for Alyssum more after school instead of relying on Reed and Mox to take care of her all the time, “You don’t want to be the absent older sister, trust me.” She’s right, it would be a shame to be so focused on saving other teenagers in District four, and completely miss out on Alyssum’s innocence while she still has it. A couple more years and she’s enrolling into the boarding school early.

After that was over, you went ahead and got Finnick before you would be too exhausted to get up this morning. Your attempts were, obviously, futile, as you hardly slept last night and you’re tired anyway. Finnick’s lucky you’re reliable, otherwise you would have considered staying in bed for a little while longer. What ruined that idea is the sweltering heat of the fucking Tribute Center. 

And since the betting room is quite literally under a glass roof, you can’t imagine that it’s very cold in there, either. In fact, you’re sure that it’s going to be worse. Which now makes you partially consider changing into a pair of shorts so you’re not stuck sweating the entire day. The tank top is nice, but it only brings you so far.

Ugh.

Sanguin is up and at it already, heading towards the woods in the direction of the stream. Figures that she wouldn’t wait a little while to give herself time to heal. She’s always on top of it, always moving. A part of you wonders if she put on healing cream as soon as she got up this morning, or if she’s waiting to do it later tonight.

Either way, she’s got a full backpack again, her sword is propped up against her shoulder with the blade flat. Exactly how she’d carried it before she went and murdered the boy from Three. To think that was only two days ago is fucking insane, it feels like forever. But you guess that’s just what happens when you get back to back days of absolute mayhem.

The Seven tributes are wandering around, heading into their own personal uncharted territory of the left side. Well, actually there’s a lot where they haven’t been before, always keeping to their safe bubble. It’s not a bad strategy, but they can get away with it for so long. The gamemakers don’t like comfortable. Comfortable means you need to be pushed outside of your boundaries and experience new things.

As for Nine girl, you think she’s unintentionally stalking the District Seven tributes, with how she’s trailing them. She could very well be tracking, but the path that Seven is leaving isn’t all that obvious. It’s too obvious to be a coincidence, maybe she’s just trying to play it off that way? Or see where District Seven leads her? You’re surprised she isn’t cloud watching today. She’s sitting pretty, does she really need to follow the other tributes around?

You eat your sandwiches, watching the tributes move around inside of the arena. Annie stays put, Sanguin gets closer to the stream, Seven is nearly in the section all the way off to the left. When you’re done eating, you have the avoxes pack up some sandwiches for your friends inside of the betting room, and get ready to go.

You take one step towards the door, before you’re stuck where you are, watching what’s unfolding on the screen. 

Uncharted territory can be dangerous for obvious reasons. The tributes don’t know what they’re heading into, which means that they don’t know what to expect. Foreign animals, plants, traps set up by the gamemakers to ensure a pleasant surprise. Heading off into the unknown means that you’re expecting unpredictable situations. Anything can happen the moment you’re no longer in your safe space.

Because of this, it’s important to keep a schedule. Let the gamemakers come to you, they’ll be playing on your side of the court for this reason. But walk right into what they want, you’re subjected to their own house of horrors. And the only way of making it out alive, is fighting for freedom, or hoping your counterpart isn’t as good as you are.

The gamemakers hardly ever allow both tributes live. If they did that, it would take away the entire entertainment aspect. Not allow the Capitol people to see tributes like Annie fall apart at the seams because she doesn’t have her best friend around her anymore. You’re not sure what’s so fun about a depressed, sleep-deprived teenager but… to each their own.

Seven girl is leading, with the male tribute just behind her. Everything appears to be just fine, there’s no visual signs that they’re about to be submerged into frigid waters. Then they’re warned, a howl loud and clear, telling them to turn back and go away now, before they continue to make the mistake that they’re working on.

Maybe the tributes don’t hear the wolves, maybe they’re so caught up in their own heads that the silence breaking doesn’t register. Or maybe they choose to ignore it, because it’s a couple of wolves, and animals tend to run away once they realize that there’s something much bigger trying to challenge them. Because of their blatant obliviousness, they’ve fucked themselves over.

They’re not any ordinary wolves. They’re Capitol-made and controlled mutts.

The first one breaks through the trees, huge, black, eyes belonging to the devil himself. The girl catches sight of the genetically mutated mutts, comes to a complete stop, and then spins herself around. She takes off running, grabbing onto her district partners arm, snapping him out of his daydreaming daze, bringing him right back to reality.

They run together, arms pumping at their sides. The boy doesn’t care what path he takes, through thickets, thorns, and between trees that shouldn’t be possible to squeeze past. The girl however, is more careful about where she goes, thinking that it’ll help her move quickly, knowing where she’s stepping and that the path is definitely clear. It’s working the other way around. For once, a lack of carelessness is going to be the downfall of a tribute.

She falls behind, the wolves gaining on them both more and more. The pounding of their paws against the dirt is loud enough for the Capitol cameras to pick up. Like a heartbeat, a steady thrum against the ground. It’s also a telling sign that the Seven girl needs to give up her act or accept her death.

It’s frustrating, especially since she doesn’t even seem to notice her mistakes. One of the first rules of being chased is always being aware of how close they are. She doesn’t have to do it by looking behind her, which is always a mistake the idiots seem to make. She can just hear the footsteps all by themselves, getting louder and louder. Doesn’t she have any will to live?

If she does, she doesn’t get a chance to prove it. The lead wolf uses its hindlegs to launch itself at her. It’s mouth unhinges like a python snake, revealing rows of sharp teeth, drool coming out as a long string. It pounces on Seven girl, snarling, and bites straight into the back of her neck. The screaming is loud, you wince and sit back down at the dining room table.

The wolves around the leader continue after Seven boy, which comes as a fair surprise to you. But then again, the girl isn’t necessarily dead just yet. As soon as that cannon goes off, it’s like a whistle to the dogs. They’ll all go back to whatever hell hole they crawled out of. They might even be used a different year, for the exact same purpose that they’re serving now.

The leader bites down, and whips its head to the side. A mouthful of flesh rips out of the girl, her scream loud enough to be heard as a warning to both Seven boy, and Nine girl. Run, and run fast if you want to survive. The blood coats the tree bark around the girl, drips off the flesh that was previously attached to her body. Her hands twitch, eyes open and rolling to the back of her head.

It’s more or less the same situation that Bauhinia was in. But instead of it being done by another tribute, which will definitely leave a permanent impression on mentors and future tributes alike, this is being done by a mutt. The Capitol has specifically engineered these guys to do this. Bite, rip, rinse, repeat. Seven girl’s screams start off loud, but slowly die out like she’s lost her voice.

The next wolf that is leading on Seven boy, jumps at him just like the last wolf did to Seven girl. However this time, instead of all the other surrounding wolves continuing forward, they swarm and maul the boy. Their teeth are just as sharp, but without all the rows. You’d say that his situation is better, but he’s got more mutts going at him from different angles, with no time to breathe in between bites. 

By the time that Seven girl does die, allowing the wolves to go home, the boy is severely hurt. Puncture wounds from the teeth, shredded skin, half his face is missing. He doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even make a noise. He just lays in the grass like he’s already dead, the only thing keeping him from being collected by the gamemakers like his district partner, is the cannon. 

He’s a living soul in his corpse of a body. 

It’s like sleep paralysis. He can’t speak, can’t move. He’s stuck where he is, like a suffering dog that just needs to be put out of his misery. But there’s no one to do it. You all will just get the pleasure of watching this poor boy wheeze and bleed. Doesn’t mean much for entertainment, his life is practically over.

The only tribute that’s nearby is Nine girl. But there’s no promise that she was following the Seven tributes in the first place. It looked like it, now you’ll just have to wait and see if it was true. This could take hours, and she has a bigger chance of accidentally missing him than stumbling upon him in the bushes. It’s not like he’s being loud.

You stand up from the table again, “I’ve got to get downstairs before anything else happens.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

You go down the steps and through the door. You punch the elevator button, head down to where the betting room is, bad quietly walk down the hallway. It’s all barren cement, no one hangs out here, and the peacekeepers standing outside of the door are required. Just in case a few mentors get too upset, because the Capitol people hardly ever care about rivalries.

The moment you open the door, a cool breeze hits your face. No wonder why the Tribute Center is so hot, the betting room is hogging all of the air conditioning. The glass ceiling is now blocked by a white cover to reflect the sun and ensure that you all won’t be sweating like pigs. Because of the cover, it’s dark, which is why there’s colored lights strung up on hooks. Almost like Christmas lights, but somehow less fun and more sophisticated.

Finnick and Gloss are already sitting at a white table, so you head over and drop the basket of food in the middle. 

“Did you see what happened?” Finnick asks, watching as you unload the basket.

“Yeah, Elysia and I watched it together.” You then move the basket off the table and onto the floor, sitting down and crossing your legs, “I guess the gamemakers were bored.”

“Or they have a vendetta against the Seven mentors.” Gloss cocks his head in the direction of where they’re standing off to the side. Arms crossed, angry faces. They’ve been screwed over, you can’t really blame them. Their tributes couldn’t even defend themselves, “Thanks for the lunch.”

“Figured you guys were hungry.” you look at Finnick, “What are you making of Annie?”

He shrugs, uncapping the bottled fizzy drink, “Well, besides the obvious fact that she’s some form of depressed, I think she’s in shock. How long did her and Marsh know each other?”

“They were only a year apart. So, since Annie was fourteen and he was thirteen.”

“Four years.” Gloss says, “A long time to build a friendship. What about you and Finnick, how long did you two know each other prior to your Hunger Games? I remember you guys being mentioned as friends at some point.”

You make a face, not entirely sure, “Well, I was a sophomore and he was a freshman…”

“Middle school?” Finnick proposes, but he doesn’t look confident either, “Only a year or whatever. We mostly saw each other in the hallway, and then it went on from that after my girlfriend dumped me.”

“Which one?” you ask, half-kidding, half-serious.

Finnick gives you a look, “I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember which girlfriend?” Gloss asks.

You snort, “He has brain damage from all the girls he’s gone through. I can name fifteen he went through while we were just friends.”

“It was not fifteen!” Finnick defends, face turning a shade of red, “Probably only five or something.”

“Probably.” Gloss has a smile on his face, clearly enjoying Finnick’s discomfort.

“Finnick, just trust me for once when I say that it was fifteen.” You muse.

“Except there weren’t fifteen girls in my class that liked me like that. I should know.” 

You and Gloss share a look, and then laugh. He wouldn’t know, it’s not always obvious when girls have crushes on people. Girls learn to hide it when the guy or girl they like is after someone else in that moment. You wouldn’t be surprised if his entire grade of girls had liked him, and only a quarter of them showed it. Finnick thinking that he’s aware of everything is a complete joke.

The Afternoon Line Odds say that all the remaining tributes are standing where they were yesterday. There’s only four tributes inside of the games, about to be three as soon as Seven boy is gone. Annie, Sanguin and Nine girl, who you really need to find a name for to make it all easier to say. 

“Do you guys know the name of the girl from Nine?” you ask, running a hand through your hair for any snarls that might exist in your ponytail.

Gloss’ face scrunches up, eyes finding the Line Odds too, “Uh…”

Finnick tilts his head from side to side, also thinking. They’re just as clueless as you are. You can’t even remember if anyone mentioned her name outside of the training score and interviews. Everyone normally stops paying attention after District Four, for obvious reasons. No one can really compare. The only person you think would know her name is Annie, mostly because she likes to keep track of stuff like that.

It’s not like you can really ask her. And you can’t really pull a name out of thin air, anyway. When it comes to the districts, you guys have ridiculous names just as much as people in the Capitol do. Gloss? Cashmere? Enobaria? What about Anchor and Marsh? Even Sanguin’s name isn’t really a name. It’s an adjective, based off the word sanguine, which means positivity or something dumb like that.

Of course, this philosophy can’t apply to everyone. Finnick’s name is normal, so is Mags, Luther, Scotch, Wade and Cecelia. It only really falls apart when it comes to last names, like Gallows or Golding. At some time or another, you all came from the Capitol, or you great grandparents changed their last names to make them more fierce during the rebellion. That last part is especially true when it comes to your family.

You don’t remember the original last name, just that Gallows wasn’t inherited through a husband. Your great-grandmother had changed it after the nickname she got from the people around her in District Four. She was in on the plan before the rebellion had even started, and got a head start when it came to taking out peacekeepers and Capitol officers in the district. It was suspicious after a while, how every single one of them committed suicide the same way, one by one. After all the known Capitol people were gone, she was onto traitors, and she was good at finding them.

Hanging people from rope relates to the gallows. However, after the rebellion failed, she wasn’t able to go back to her regular life. With the conspicuous last name, and the way that people would talk when she came around, her position was found quickly. She was a wanted woman inside of District Four by high-standing officers. By then, she’d already birthed your grandmother, who was being held at someone else’s house during the day, and went unfound by the peacekeepers when they went looking to wipe out your family.

Your great-grandparents died, as well as any of their siblings, grandchildren, cousins, whatever. The only person left was your grandmother, who got sent into the foster care system with the last name still attached. And since there was no family to help her revert back to the original last name, she just kept Gallows out of spite. What are the peacekeepers going to do eighteen years after the fact? Kill her? She was a baby when it happened, wouldn’t even be able to recall the details, much less looked like she had an inkling to continue her mother’s murder path.

It’s a fun story to tell to the older kids, you know that your brothers enjoyed it when they got to exaggerate every little detail and add in facts of their own. As you got older, they filtered out the bullshit to make it more believable. Even now, the entire story seems like it’s out of some dark fairytale or something. With no happy ending.

“I think it starts with a T.” Finnick says.

“Huh?” you ask, looking at him.

“The girl’s name.” 

“I think you’re right!” Gloss says, he’s rubbing his forehead, “What the fuck was it?”

“Something stupid that ended in a vowel.”

“That starts with a T?” your face twists.

Finnick hums for a moment, listening as Gloss tries out names. Then, Finnick’s face lights up entirely, slamming his hands on the table, “Tekla!”

“Tekla?” Gloss pauses for a moment, “Oh fuck, you’re right.”

You nod slowly, taking their word for it. So, Seven boy, Tekla, Sanguin and Annie. The boy dies, it only leaves the three girls. What an accomplishment, to completely unintentionally wipe out the guys. You don’t want to say that they’re a bigger opponent, but they typically have an upper hand when it comes to fighting. It’s like they’ve been taking drugs.

Finnick and Gloss eat their lunch, you all come down with your final predictions on what’s going to happen inside of the arena. You all think that Sanguin and Annie will be fine, since they’re miles apart and both caught in their own worlds at the moment. The real problem is Tekla and her moving around so often. She knows that Sanguin is alone in the cornucopia by herself, and she also knows that she could sneak up on Sanguin since she has a weapon of her own. Courtesy of when the careers had left the cornucopia alone.

Seven boy is still alive an hour and a half later. Tekla has slowed down in the direction she was heading. She doesn’t look unsure, more that she’s lost motivation, you guess? Or maybe she’s lost the path that the Seven tributes were taking before they stumbled into the Capitol trap. Either way, there’s no telling whether or not she’ll actually be able to find the boy.

Every time you think that the boy has finally breathed for the final time, he inhales sharply, like he’s being pushed back into his body. It’s a shame, watching him struggle like this. You’re sure that he should be dead by now, well past his expiration date. Hell, soon the bugs are going to start to get to him. If you thought the wolves were bad, watching him being eaten alive is going to be worse. Much, much worse.

“I’m going to use the bathroom.” Gloss says, gathering the trash, “I’ll be back.”

“Don’t have too much fun.” you smile, he gives you a mock look before leaving. You turn to Finnick, “I’m thinking of going out and drinking after this. You wanna come?”

“With or without Gloss?” Finnick asks, eyebrows drawing in.

“If it were with Gloss, I would’ve asked while he was here.” you wiggle your eyebrows, “Come on. Me and you, at that awful drinking place, The Victory Speech.”

He purses his lips, “You think it’s a good idea?”

“Annie’s safe inside of her house, what’s the worst that can happen overnight?”

“The dam breaks?”

“You think that the Capitol would do that right after mauling two tributes to death?” you look at the timer above the Morning Line Odds that says how long the tributes have been in there for. It’s a couple hours less than seven days, “The games haven’t been even going for a week, they’ll want to draw it out for a little while longer.”

Finnick gives you a look.

“Don’t start acting like a parent, I’m older than you.” you point at him, “Yes or no. Or I’ll ask Gloss and Cashmere--”

“Yes.” Finnick says.

You grin, “You won’t have some sort of relapse, right?”

“Haha.” he rolls his eyes, “Ready to get shitfaced off the water-tasting alcohol?”

“I am going to have three of those in a row just to see what happens.” you laugh, he does too.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. You’ll give yourself alcohol poisoning.”

“I’ll probably be fine.” You shrug, “Won’t be my first near-death experience.”

Finnick cracks up, shaking his head.

It’s only another thirty minutes before Tekla does come across Seven boy by accident. She wouldn’t have even known he was there if it weren’t for the wheeze he let out as a warning before she stepped on him. He’s hidden under bushes, camouflaged in. The only obvious sign that he’s there is his legs, but even then, they were easily missed by Tekla.

She stands over him, eyebrows drawn in. Her eyes will occasionally flicker up like she’s looking for someone, like it’s some sort of trap and a tribute is waiting for her to be off her guard to attack. Unfortunately, it’s none of those things. Just bad luck, and horrible timing. She crouches down next to him, face twisting as she carefully moves leaves out of the way to see him properly. 

“Gross.” she says, “I don’t even know how you’re still alive.” Tekla shakes her head like she’s getting rid of her thoughts, standing back up on her feet, “It’s over now. Rest easy.”

She raises her weapon and puts him out of his misery. A second cannon goes off, making Sanguin stop in her tracks, looking up at the sky for a moment. The Fallen won’t show until later tonight, but the tributes all have the same reactions, anyway. It’s because the sound comes from above them, so naturally they’re going to want to see where it comes from.

As for Annie, she barely snaps back to life long enough to squint, allow wrinkles to appear on her face, and then she relaxes again. She sets her head back against the wall and closes her eyes, gripping onto her sword tightly. You wonder if she came to the conclusion that she’s one of the final three inside of the arena now. Annie’s made it, she’s beaten all the tributes from District Four that came before her.

Hang in there, Annie. You’ll be home soon.

--

REDAMANCY IS PART 2 OF A TRILOGY //MASTERLIST//

add yourself to the TAGLIST

@f1nal-g1rl / @starlight-selene / @neenieweenie / @amixedwitch / @accxio / @suranne-doesstuff

[antialiasis]

Morphic: the Musical

The Thousand Roads forums have a fanfic music thread. While I don't really do those kinds of threads usually because I don't really listen to a very wide variety of music and generally have a hard time associating music that already exists with unrelated fiction, one of the questions in it is this:

Talk about what would happen if some Broadway hit-maker scooped up your fic and turned it into a script. What songs would be in it? Describe a dance number/dance battle?

And immediately, the musical analysis glint lit up in my eyes. This question was presumably intended in a lighthearted jokey sort of way - imagining some fight staged as a dance battle, a hypothetical Broadway hit-maker doing the adaptation. But that's not enough for me, say I! Musicals are a good and interesting medium for serious fiction that I care about and I am going to serious this up.

See, to me, the musical format has two major strengths as a narrative medium. The first is that it can explore the inner worlds of characters in a pretty unique way. Characters get to monologue in a sort of heightened, non-literal manner, intensified by music: we can learn what they're about, what makes them tick, what's going on in their heads in a particular moment, in a way that wouldn't really make sense presented as actual inner monologue in another medium. The music aspect itself then adds a layer to it that's impossible to replicate in any other.

The second strength of the musical format is that it's really good at highlighting recurring themes, parallels and contrasts. Reprise the same melody, the same lyric, a parallel but opposite lyric, and you've instantly connected two things together. Is there a character arc? You can highlight what has changed. Are there two characters going through something similar? You can draw that out. Is there a recurring theme throughout? Use a recurring lyric, a recurring melodic phrase! Nudge the viewer into forming connections! Delicious! And you can do subtler things on the music level itself - particular instruments with particular connotations, recurring motifs...

So naturally I decided I should think up what a musical adaptation of Morphic would be like. It'd be a fun exercise in putting all my thoughts on musical adaptations into practice, but also an interesting way to help sort out some of my thoughts about characters arcs, etc. for the actual Morphic rewrite. And in the process, I may have gone slightly overboard. I regret nothing.

(I'm about to spoil most of the fic here, if this wasn't obvious)

Morphic: the Musical - tracklist

(Note: this musical is not sung-through; there are regular non-musical sections with regular dialogue in between. Morphic would almost definitely not make for a good sung-through musical.)

Act I

[Intro song] (Brian)

A monologue by Brian at the TV studio as he tries to work through what to say, how to explain or justify any of this (which conveniently serves to exposit to the audience as well as introduce his character). He makes nervous false starts and cuts himself off, starting the verse over each time, and through these false starts we learn what's going on, that the press has been calling them Pokémorphs, that this was all Dave's idea, that alcohol was involved, that it was meant as a basis for further research, that there were never supposed to be *children*, that he doesn't know what he'd even do with a kid, that Dave roped him into going on this show because he couldn't.

[Dave song] (Dave)

This musical properly introduces us to Dave via Jane walking out on him followed by this song, wherein he contemplates chucking baby Jean out the window. It's a dark rock song with big emotional contrasts and raw lyrics that is almost definitely my favorite song in this musical in the hypothetical reality where it is an actual musical and I didn't write it, because I am me. Probably starts with a couple slower lines of desperate disbelief before launching into wild anger about fuck that fucking whore, followed by what I will be referring to as the everything-is-shit verse (please bear with me), just a general cynicism rant about why the world is a shitty place not worth living in, followed by him wildly fantasizing about killing his infant child. What a delightful human being that I adore. The song ends abruptly, he's standing there staring at her in his arms for a moment, then he silently goes to feed her. On the soundtrack you probably might think he just did it.

Fatherhood (Brian)

A montage song covering the timeskip, which probably reprises [Intro song]. Brian initially has no idea what to do with his new squirming horrorblob child and is convinced he will screw it up the way he tends to screw up everything. Makes a couple of false starts again, but then gains confidence as time passes as he genuinely bonds with Gabriel and legitimately thinks he's a pretty amazing kid. There's a repeated line along the lines of that Gabriel's a weird, weird kid, but he's his, initially in a tone of "oh god I'm responsible for him what do" but towards the end is said with pride and fondness.

[Villain song] (Isaac and Jacob)

A duet between the two brothers, exploring what makes them tick. Isaac is all about this heavy pressure and sense of responsibility, originally imposed by his father, that he continues to impose on himself. He's been appointed to take over leading the family/cult and was raised with that constantly in the back of his mind as his future, and he believes that they're God's true righteous people and he cannot go wrong. He has dreams with some regularity that he interprets as visions from God, as he has been encouraged to since childhood by his father. When he has one about murder, it frightens him but he sees it as basically a divinely-appointed mission.

Jacob privately doesn't really believe any of that. He is trapped in this cult and goes through the motions but is not actually driven by any of the things that are driving Isaac. He's fairly quiet for most of the song - as Isaac is going on about his vision, Jacob has a line here and there obliquely challenging it, but Isaac has an answer for everything, and he doesn't press it, instead moving seamlessly on to suggestions for how he should do it. Jacob gets a quiet variant of part of the everything-is-shit verse from [Dave song], expressing the same kind of cynicism in a more reproachful, apathetic way - all in his own head, of course.

Just Like My Hero (Jean and Will)

Jean sings about how she is just like her hero, Sarah Hooter! Starts off describing how they look the same, moves on from there to how she will torch anyone who's mean, etc., just like her hero. Halfway through, Will joins in, and it becomes a counterpoint duet: Jean may be immature and ridiculous, but he deeply wishes he was confident and adored and nothing would get to him, and he admires and envies that about her. His just like my hero has a bit more of an ironic vibe, he'd hardly properly call her his hero, but he looks up to her more than he'd normally admit nonetheless.

Storming the Castle (Jack and Gabriel)

Jack and Gabriel are playing a D&D game with their friends, arguing about the best course of action. Jack is eager to waltz into the bad guys' fortress, storm the castle, while Gabriel urges lying low, says they're too weak. Jack wants to take the leap and try it; Gabriel insists no, we're not taking the leap, it's stupid. "It's brave!" Jack counters. (In the end, Gabriel gives in and they go ahead with it, and it goes fine.)

Unique (Mia and Lucy)

Mia and Lucy play one of their games. The song is about how Lucy needs someone like Mia to challenge her and let her actually indulge her powers, which are otherwise unsettling to people and she's ashamed and self-conscious about them, while Mia needs someone like Lucy to get a real outlet for her hunter's instinct. The word the lyrics are built around is unique; by being the precise way they are, they are each the only person who can provide this for the other.

Mia doesn't sing. She speaks her lyrics in her usual monotone, not even rhythmically. They also don't rhyme. It's technically a duet but really it's just Lucy singing and Mia talking.

[Peter/Katherine song] (Peter and Katherine)

A counterpoint duet between the siblings, contrasting their experience as Pokémorphs. Peter can pretty easily hide that he's different and be treated mostly as a normal kid, and feels free in his privilege, not confined quite the way the others are, able to be a bit reckless and incautious. Katherine, meanwhile, has a very different experience, being extremely noticeably different, getting stared at, and struggling with basic activities, and feels a huge sense of responsibility weighing her down, worrying about Peter and grounding him and reining him in. There's a lyrical contrast involving something something bird freedom plant rooted down something.

Brian's Death (Isaac and Dave)

This is one of those mostly-instrumental pieces that they include on the soundtrack anyway, but Isaac gets a couple of sung nondiegetic lines in here, a sort of frantic excitement, realizing in a brief panic that he shot the wrong guy before rationalizing that God must have planned it this way.

Dave is probably also in there screaming and attempting to call the police, because I am always in favor of screaming and panicking on musical soundtracks.

The Funeral (Gabriel and Jack)

Begins with Gabriel at the church during the funeral, singing about his vague discomfort being there, but slowly becomes increasingly frantic and anxious, working up to a breakdown where he exits and finally manages to cry for his dad. There's a verse about little things, how they ordered pizza the night before he died, etc., culminating in the bit about him having been in the middle of this mystery novel and never getting to learn who did it; the verse trails off quietly there, backing instruments gone, as Gabriel breaks down. Jack follows to comfort him.

Act II

[Montage song] (everyone)

A montage of the days after the attack, where everyone gets a couple lines about how they're coping, scared and grieving.

Dave's lines are like, spoken slightly too desperate annoyance at having to do some work that Brian didn't get to finish, or rebuking somebody who asks how he's doing by saying he barely even knew Brian. He is not singing along with this kind of grief-porn bullshit, fuck you.

[Villain song II] (Isaac and Jacob)

The brothers come up with a new plan. Isaac is agitated, reprising some of his bits from the original villain song in a quicker, more frantic tempo, while Jacob picks up the slack, walking him through a new idea. Isaac takes to it with conviction and goes back to the original melody/tempo, talking again about his God-given purpose. Jacob does not join in with any of that, only with the bits about the actual plan.

The Kidnapping (instrumental)

I'm just going to say this is on the soundtrack too and contains panicked Gabriel noises because I want it to be.

Storming the Castle Reprise (Jack)

Jack tries to rally the others for a rescue mission, echoing the D&D game from Act I. The lines about storming the castle and taking the leap make a reappearance.

Just Like My Hero Reprise (Jean)

Jean, on the bus, miserably contemplates how she is unlike her hero. Again, it begins with a verse talking about how she looks - not a thing like Sarah Hooter anymore - but then moves on to how she's scared and pathetic and running away, unlike anything a hero would do.

Church Sequence (Will, Jack, Mia)

A single track, largely instrumental/dialogue/sound effects, with a couple of brief song snippets:

- Will reprises "Just Like My Hero" as he wills himself to go on. He is cut off mid-line as he is shot.

- Mia slits that guy's throat and she actually sings a few words, for the first and only time, before she is also cut off mid-line by a gunshot. The line is something about, like, warm blood in her face or the guy's satisfying death throes, reprising part of the melody of "Unique".

Strong (Gabriel)

Gabriel discovers his powers. Starts slowly, calling back to the bits from "Storming the Castle" about lying low, being weak. But as the song continues and he makes his discovery, the tempo builds, and he starts reprising Jack's bits instead: he is strong, taking the leap, storming the castle.

Perish Song (Lucy)

Another brief reprise of "Unique", distorted and deafening and terrifying, mourning her sister.

[In the Hospital] (Jack and Gabriel)

The two of them work out their feelings about what happened. Includes Jack going "It was stupid" (i.e. the rescue mission) and Gabriel responding "It was brave", echoing the bit where they said the opposite in "Storming the Castle". Jack blames himself for how it all turned out, feels stupid and weak, while Gabriel actually felt kind of awesome. (This is also calling back to their opposite bits of "Storming the Castle".) They end with a shared duet verse as they realize they've both got that same innate desire to fight and win. Possibly calls back to the weird, weird kid line from "Fatherhood".

Eulogy (Dave)

Dave's eulogy for Mia (which also touches on Will, but this is Mia's funeral). It reprises "Unique". There will never again be anyone like the two of them, two of the only truly unique people on this Earth. (And, while he doesn't say it straight out because hahahaha, he needed Mia, too).

Taking the Leap (Jack and Gabriel)

Jack's suicide attempt and his swirling inner turmoil as he tries to talk himself into taking the leap once again. Gabriel, of course, comes in with don't take that leap. Am I overusing this one line by putting it in like half the songs in this thing? Well, who's going to stop me.

[Peter/Katherine song reprise] (Peter and Katherine)

The two of them contemplate indefinite house arrest (in contrast to the freedom Peter's enjoyed most of his life) and Katherine's failure to stop all this (despite her sense of responsibility). In the end, they both find their own ways to accept the new state of things and support each other through this.

Finale (Dave and Jean)

After Dave breaks down on his couch and Jean comes in to ask what's wrong, Dave sings a reprise of the everything-is-shit verse, going over the many things he's angry about, because that is the only emotion involved here clearly. At the exact point where Dave's song originally went from there to fantasizing about throwing her off the balcony, Jean throws her arms around him and sniffles "It'll be okay, Dad," and after a stunned "What? Jean, I'm--", he continues with a slow, hesitant *inverted* reprise of the everything-is-shit verse, "Everything'll be fine", constructing a little fantasy reality for her (and himself) where everything turns out all right in the end. It's backed by, like, a simple, quiet, slower piano rendition of the original melody, and trails off at the end, never quite coming to a satisfying conclusion before he tells Jean she should go back to bed.

[grandinventor]

At the risk of sounding like a Jindosh apologist here (I am.) I will preface that Jindosh is a bad guy, he has either killed people personally or got them killed for experiment purposes by his Clockworks and has dissected the dead so he is not good, he is a villain, I acknowledge that.

Now with that out of the way I wanna criticize the narrative surrounding him and his mansion and how it sometimes falls flat on it’s face trying to demonize them thanks to a lot of points my friend @divaythfyr​ brought up. I’ll put all of that below the cut:

Yesterday I was told this line and I won’t lie it is...bad. Line in question: 

Billie: "His home is supposed to be full of marvels. Locals go in as a test of courage, or because they're desperate for a meal. Kids, even. People say you can hear them at night, pounding on the windows, calling for help."

But because I couldn’t live with the idea that he kills children you know the simplest villain demonization tactic in writing history (kick the puppy, kick the child whatever) and I think it’s pretty cheap to try and make him worse than Sokolov, I talked to the Jindosh apologist committee and thot about it so I’ll go over this line by line. 

1. "His home is supposed to be full of marvels.“ - Okay but isn’t his home also supposed to be scary? Isn’t the whole “Why would anyone build a scary mansion like this?” line from Emily/Corvo as they enter supposed to tell us that this is a scary place? Which is funny because in reality the mansion itself isn’t scary at all, in fact it’s extremely logical in the way it unfolds and exposes the rooms. It’s perfectly functional and as someone with a major in architecture, I can say it’s the best designed house in terms of organization in the game. There is no way to die in the mansion unless the Clockwork Soldiers and the guards get you - which goes for literally any important/rich person’s house? You walk in someone’s house uninvited and their guards get you. You can die if you get behind the walls but it’s extremely difficult to do so especially in the places where you can get squished. The house itself is completely harmless. So the whole idea from Jindosh’s end that it’s a maze is stupid on it’s own too, the house is perfectly logical and Stilton’s manor is an actual maze because I got lost 10 times in there. 

2. “Locals go in as a test of courage, or because they're desperate for a meal.“ - okay first part is correct people go in his house to either steal, test their skills or kill him. He says as much himself. He says fabled thieves and assassins died there. Again probably from his guards and Clockworks since you can’t die from the house in any rational way. And then he dragged them half dead or dead in his lab to dissect them. He has a fascination with watching people die because he is like evil and a villain like that. Which brings me to the next point which is:

There are only two ways to get in his mansion without powers. There is the bridge below which is broken and the railway which is guarded and has a Wall of Light on the other end. So how will anyone that is not prepared with a grappling hook or some kind of way to close this gap gonna get in? How is your random average person gonna go in? And most importantly why? Do people just walk in aristocrat’s houses and expect not to get out in a body bag or? 

Besides he has a) a lot of free food and drinks in the lobby which is his threshold as to how far you are allowed to go so if someone wanted food they can just walk in and take it and leave (after you know, scaling a mountain for whatever reason because there aren’t easier houses to steal from) and b) he has an audiograph, because I am sure he assumes people can’t read, which tells you “Do not enter or you will die and I will dissect your remains and this is a promise.” Like why add a warning if you wanna lure people in? Unless those people think they can outsmart him so they come with intent and not just because they need food/shelter. Also he has food right next to that audio. 

3. “Kids, even.“ - okay this one, the scary line. I won’t lie this made me uncomfortable. So like if we assume that normal people can enter by normal means (which in point 2 is clear they can’t unless further elaborated by the game on How? and Why?), a child going in as a dare and dying is possible. Billie after this line goes on to say that she saw a child dare his brother to touch the wall of light which vaporized the child, so the implication is possible. It’s possible a child went in his mansion as a dare and bad things unfolded. It’s also equally possible that it didn’t. We know of adult men dying because we see the bodies. For this one is just a rumor. You can take it either way depending on how you feel about Jindosh. It’s very unlikely a child would get this far though, unless this was some kind of Disney movie. Also Jindosh wouldn’t personally have a reason to kill a child you know, like I know it’s the easiest “this villain is super evil!!!!” writing tactic, but he had a pretty shitty childhood, he felt hated by his mother and probably wasn’t treated so nicely by his (bastard) brother. He likes to exercise his lack of control during his younger years by having control over other people through his house and toying with them. He is very childish in a sense too (with his toy house and toy soldiers), and because of all of this I truly don’t think he would kill a child. He wants a real challenge and to test out his machines and his house against the best and smartest Karnaca can offer, not children. Though my opinion here can be highly biased. 

Also many children can casually pull 6ft tall levers I’m sure--

4.  “People say you can hear them at night, pounding on the windows, calling for help." - we know people have died in the mansion and they have been crying for release, as he says so himself. But again the above points kind of challenge as to who these people that died inside were. However because you know I’ve been playing with his mansion for four years cause I am a dumb hoe, I can say that there are very little windows. In fact the majority of windows that aren’t blocked off by the cliff or the mechanisms are around his laboratory.

 Now yes people could go there and bang on them sure. But they literally...face the lab and chances are no one is gonna hear you bang on that side. The other windows not facing the lab are in the foyer where...you are allowed to be and nothing is gonna happen to you. 

And the windows that actually face a side where let’s say someone could hear if someone was banging are the windows on the front of the house. Only the thing is, there are no windows on the front of the house except in the foyer. 

Here are the buildings from across his mansion which I guess can maybe hear if someone was banging on the windows. But again no windows on the front of the house. 

The fake windows is where the mechanism for the ceiling over the gallery in the upper hall is. The one that kinda extends and unfolds from there. So isn’t entirely possible that the banging and screaming or whatever people heard is just...the mechanisms of his house? The scary evil child killing house? Which is actually moving and making a lot of noise at all times?

So in conclusion? Yes, Jindosh is bad, he has no regard to human life, he divides society as innocent bystanders and criminals. He does dream of an army of Clockwork Soldiers to eradicate all crime. Be, he isn’t a senseless killer, it’s his neutrality and fascination with death as well as his black and white thinking that makes him dangerous. He doesn’t see people as human. In the majority of cases we know of (except one for some reason? That cursed baker who got his brain fried why did you have to do that Jindosh!?) he experiments on people who he deems criminals without sympathy. Also in situations where he thinks it’s justified - breaking in to steal from him or hurt him, the Blade Verbena, prisoners that can actually provide a learning experience for his Clockworks and Sokolov. He doesn’t go kidnapping people off the streets to experiment on them. 

And despite his evilness being completely logical, the whole game tries to paint his mansion as this big puzzle and trap when in reality it’s...really just a house. The level design is beautiful and amazing but I think it doesn’t really carry the point as strongly simply because it’s not any more dangerous than any other mission and it’s just more fun when it comes to gameplay. The design is great but it never gave me the feeling of it being a horror house. So I think that demonizing Jindosh through hearsay instead of through his actual mission is a bit of a weird choice. A lot of things don’t reflect how evil he is, but not in the good way of “The Grand Inventor doesn’t seem evil but he is.” and instead you get it hammered how evil he is from the start without actually ever experiencing a climax of his evilness you wouldn’t expect. It’s not that every story should have a twist, but usually when you say someone is evil, you either make them good at the end or even more evil. Jindosh never has that climax, he is the same start to finish and that is... mildly annoying and slightly threatening. Like his level is pretty but not scary and they keep trying to convince you it’s scary which makes it weird which I guess is because if you listen to a lot of his unused lines and old concept art, he was supposed to be this stereotypical mad scientist but in the end they changed his visual design and lines so much he comes off as lukewarm. I understand what they tried to do with Jindosh but I feel like they failed to do it and had to rely on everyone saying he is super irredeemably evil to justify lobotomizing him.

Anyway this post is too long, sorry if the read more doesn’t go through somewhere and please feel free to counter my points I am open to different and non biased views (or even information I might not know because I haven’t read the books or found everything). 

[kingborb]

Spill the tea bestie :0 I'm pretty curious. Deadass I'm so glad, literally EVERYONE I know loves nick and/or dogmeat ONLY and it's so tedious and stale to me. It also makes talking about fallout 4 so boring bc they haven't traveled with anyone else but Nick and dogmeat 😫

Yeah, that's a huge problem and I'm having it too, especially when the tier S companions for me are Preston, X6, Hancock and Gage XD Ok then, I think I can adress few things, why not c: It will be the longest post ever, cause I will try to write everything I can about this topic (cause it bothers me so much). You don't have to read my rumbles of course, I will make tl;dr version somewhere at the end just in case you get bored, my friendly anon <3

Oh and if you want to talk about any companion (I've done everyone except Dance), you can hit me on dms or asks, feel free to do whatever suits you! :3

So I have a few problems with Nick, some of them might not be that serious or game changing, others were huge when I encountered them for the first time. Let's spill some tea on one of the most beloved characters in this game!

1) People see Nick as an empathic person who wants to help people, makes rational, unbiased decisions, and has a good reason to be against the Institute. When I can agree with some of those things, this image of him was ruined for me in the Acadia. Okay, okay, I understand that DiMA actually murdered Avery and it wasn't a good choice. However, it bothers me that Nick sees nothing against forcing DiMA to confess to people from Far Harbor about what he had done in the past (and Nick actually likes this choice!). It is pretty obvious that he would die there and every other synth on the island would share the same fate if not now, then probably in the nearest future. And even if Aleen kills 'only' DiMA (because of the speech check with you) Acadia would fall anyway. Why? Tell me - who would be their next lider? Maybe the ex-courser whose mission is bringing back synths to the safe place because DiMA said it's the right thing to do? Or maybe 'dearest Faraday', depressed after the fact that some random wastelander came to the Acadia and convinced his loved one to literally commit suicide? The only safe place for synths who don't want their minds to be wiped by the Railroad or the Institute would be gone forever and for Nick, our 2nd gen hero, it is the right thing to do. Great. Fantastic. I love his logic.

2) Nick sees DiMA only as a murderer, even though he kills with you so many people on everyday basis... I know it's not the same. But c'mon! DiMA killed once because he knew his people were in danger. It was them or Far Harbor, and obviously he chose the Acadia. What a surprise. I wonder what Nick would do in that situation... I know I'm a bit biased with some of my opinions here, but I love so much the concept of the Acadia and 2nd gen gay nearly-pacifist Plato that DiMA is. Nick doesn't understand that the whole Acadia is in constant danger because of some bigotry in Far Harbor and Children of Atom being, well... Children of Atom. And he does nothing when people from Far Harbor murder not only DiMA but the entirety of Acadia - a group of innocent synths. Their lives apperently mean less for Nick than hiding one bad thing done in the past...

3) So now we can begin the next chapter which is the Railroad. Nick loves their every move, of course he does... I don't want to talk about them too much, but here I can mention their fantastic standards, when it comes to synths. They're killing the 1st gen and the 2nd gen, they're saving the 3rd gen... and what about the coursers? Desdemona is calling them per 'IT'. Fucking hypocrisy hits hard on that one. I know they're enemies but man... Why are you objectifying them? Why are you assuming they don't have personalities only because they're fucking brainwashed and controlled as hell? The existence of Chase and Harkness shows that coursers can resist too, so... Yeah I have a general problem with the Railroad and their double standards, but this fact is killing me every time. And about Nicky, oh... I'm sorry man, but they will shoot you on the side, when you will take off your clothes and appear as every other 1st and 2nd gen.

4) So here's the another thing, which is the atmosphere around him and a character building. People seem to like Nick because he's a unique synth (that's actually a great point) and because of the noir/detective vibe around him (as with Deacon/Railorad and their secret agents vibe - I get that too). I know, I know it's pretty fun to have the 2nd gen experimental synth as a companion who has memories of the detective from the past with... A DEAD FIANCÉE. Yup. Another one. That's why I don't like Deacon's and Maccready's stories too (and the main plot of fo4, especially when I want to play as a character without a wife and a fucking kid...). I like his storyline, don't get me wrong. However I think some companions in fo4 are well-written as well, maybe even better than Nick (I like in them the lack of dead wifes!). The last standing Minutemen, depressed and traumatised, who is such a sweetheart anyway. A killing machine which turns out to be real human being with fears, emotions and insecurities. An asshole who becomes a raider because he didn't want to suffer the same pain as his parents did, and has trust issues because of his past. A lonely, depressed drug addict who wants to see good in people but was rejected by his own brother only because he has became a ghoul. Again, don't get me wrong - Nick's story is really interesting and tragic as hell. His problems with his identity, personality splited between the prewar detective and the 2nd gen synth... It's all fascinating, however I will not forgive the developers recycling over and over again the same fucking cishet tragic story with dead wife/fiancée/whatever. It gets boring and repetitive after the main plot honestly.

5) WHERE THE HELL DID KELLOGG GO AFTER CORRUPTING NICK'S MIND ONCE?! TODD. WHY. It would have been much more interesting than another dead loved one plot. Todd, you lazy ass. He had offered so many, and he gave nothing back... As he always does.

6) The last one, I promise... Nick's reaction after siding with the Institute bothers me so much (the same deal with Piper). I. Am. The. Director. Of. The. Fucking. Thing. And it means I can do whatever I want, cause the director has a pretty authoritarian power there. So I can change everything, including the way they treat synths, accept or deny their experiments, say goodbye to some nasty scientists... The Institute route is not ideal in any way, however I see it as the only reasonable path in this game, even from the lore perspective. The Brotherhood is just a bunch of shitheads in the blimp, and I've said enough here about the Railroad earlier. The Minutemen are great but I would like to have an option to connect their morals with the Institute's resources and wabam - you've got the true happy ending in fo4. I understand why Nick is pissed, however if you are with him on the highest level of the relationship, he knows that you are an emphatic person who wants to make Commonwealth a better place for everyone including synths, ghouls, etc. It would be logical for him to not see you as a traitor. But well, I guess I'm wrong. Whatever, Nicky, whatever...

So here's the lazy version:

1)/2) Nick likes convincing DiMA to tell everyone in Far Harbor that he killed Avery. Nicky does nothing when people from Far Harbor kill innocent synths.

3) The Railroad and their double standards, when it comes to synths, especially coursers, but 1st and 2nd gens too. Nick loves it when you're helping the Railroad, even though they would kill him on a spot if he forgot to wear his clothes, so...

4) Another companion with dead wife/fiancée needs your help.

5) Kellogg in Nicky's mind. Missed opportunity for a good plot... What a shame, Todd.

6) Siding with the Institute and Nick's reaction to that, even when you're at the maximum level of the relationship with him.

[catboymingi]

daddy

navi/masterlist

pairing: mingi x reader

genre: fluff; somewhat family au

word count: 3k

warnings: i don’t think there are any!

a/n: literally this is the purest fluff ever don’t assume freaky things - also this is inspired by @latte-fairytaekwoon​ s super soft scenario!

sometimes the biggest gifts are ones you don’t even realise you’re giving

sometimes, you suspected that mingi loved your daughter more than he loved you. she wasn’t even his daughter, yet he would give her the entire world if he could, absolutely in love with her. and though you’d pout at him and tell him that he was your boyfriend, not hers, you secretly were just glad that he’d accepted her as part of his family so readily, even when he’d been far from ready for a child when he’d first gotten to know you. but he’d fallen for you, for you and your positive attitude and the way you managed to see something good in everything. and when he’d met your daughter - of whom you’d informed him right away, just so you both wouldn’t waste your time - he was sold, entirely in love with that little bundle of joy that had immediately found enjoyment in the zippers on his pants when you’d brought him over, your mum smiling at him brightly when she saw him coo at the much much smaller human, not even caring that if your daughter was just that tiniest bit taller she’d probably have unzipped his pants all the way up to his waist, revealing his underwear for all to see.

the first weeks after that he’d often be found watching baby tutorials on youtube, leaving him to be teased by his friends that told him they hadn’t known he was into milfs, at which he’d defended you, saying that you weren’t just a milf but an incredibly kind, strong, amazing, beautiful, impressive, inspiring-

at which point his friends had interrupted him, saying that they were just joking, but that they’d love to meet you someday, which is how you’d found yourself accidentally collecting seven uncles for your daughter without any conscious efforts from your part.

and all eight of them had stuck, the boys even offering to play babysitter when mingi and you wanted some time for yourself, wanted to go on dates or even just wanted to relax. you were grateful for all of them, but you were the most grateful for the man who’d become your boyfriend and had accepted your daughter as a part of his life just as readily as he’d accepted you. he’d tried his hardest to support you, to take as much of the father role as was okay, he’d done all he could to catch up on all the things you’d learned in those two years you’d already had her. he’d supported you in your studies - which you’d thought you’d have to put off at least until your daughter was in school, but mingi wasn’t having that, giving you the option to study as soon as you moved in together at age 20, a year after you’d started dating -, he’d supported you financially, and most of all he’d made you feel like you no longer had to handle everything by yourself. he maybe wasn’t perfect, but he tried his best, and that was as close to perfect as even a biological father could ever get.

and he stayed. even when you argued - which you did sometimes, it was inevitable with all the stress and all the insecurities both of you held - he’d never not once threatened to leave, never not once told you that he wanted to break up, never not once even hinted at it during your arguments. instead he’d waited until both of you were calm and able to think clearly, and he’d asked you if you thought it might be better if you ended things, and both of you had talked about things without upset emotions, calmly and rationally. and every single time you came to the same conclusion - you were the best thing that had ever happened to each other. so you stayed together, and over time both of you got more secure in your relationship and in being good enough for the other, even when he wasn’t your daughter’s father and even when you came in a package deal with a child from a past relationship. you made it work, you loved each other, and mingi loved your daughter just as much as you did; it didn’t matter to him that he wasn’t her biological father, because over the years he’d come to feel like she was his daughter, even if only emotionally. it didn’t matter much to him.

your daughter loved mingi, too. adored him, adored the sweet giant that had her win all the fights in kindergarten by just threatening to get him, because his height and his deep voice were enough to scare off the kids that didn’t know that he’d happily bought himself princess-adjacent clothes so he could play royal tea party with her, that only knew how intimidating he looked. he made sure she never had to miss anything, and it seemed like she never did.

“will daddy be here soon?”, she asked on her seventh birthday, though, surprising you a little because she hadn’t asked about her father ever since you’d told her, once you deemed her old enough to know, that things hadn’t worked out with her father, but that you hoped that mingi, who’d been your boyfriend since she was two, could be enough for her. it was obvious he loved her, absolutely adored her, so it was not a matter of him accepting her - she’d just have to accept him as the man in your life, too. and she did seem to, still seemed to even after she knew that he wasn’t her actual father, which was why asking about her father more than a year after she’d last mentioned him striked you as especially odd. it worried you a little, to be honest, made you sad to feel like you couldn’t give her what she wanted for her birthday, couldn’t have her daddy be there with her.

“no, i don’t think he’s coming at all, darling”, you told her, patting her head softly, trying to comfort her.

“who’s not coming?”, your boyfriend (who had taken the day off because he couldn’t miss his little gem’s birthday, absolutely not) asked, having overheard the last part of the conversation from when he passed by in the hallway, and now his party hat-clad head was poking into the living room curiously.

“you lied!”, your daughter told you accusingly, “daddy’s already here!”

the emotions both you and mingi experienced in that moment could not be put into words. you were so indescribably happy about this, happier than you ever thought you’d be, because she’d accepted the man that had been there for you since you were nineteen and still struggling to figure out how to deal with the whole teen mum thing as a part of your family, a real part of it.

and mingi? he was proud, mostly. happy, touched, but mainly proud. proud that he’d managed to make her feel as loved, as appreciated and as important as a biological parent would have. proud that he’d been doing a good enough job at taking care of his little family for your daughter to fully accept him. proud that she’d made this choice, and it was a choice, because she knew he wasn’t her biological father, she was old enough to understand this, old enough to understand that technically, he wasn’t her daddy. but now he was.

“oh, you meant mingi?”, unable to hide the surprise in your voice as you tried to play it off as if it was no big deal despite the way your heart was racing.

“of course, i don’t have another daddy”, she just explained, then got up from the sofa to run over towards him who was now fully in the door frame, holding out his arms to catch her little form because from the way she was running he could just tell she was going to jump into his arms.

“happy birthday, princess”, mingi said after he’d peppered her little glitter-covered face in kisses, having to stop himself from ruffling her beautifully braided, tiara-adorned hair because she’d probably be angry if he ruined her hairstyle.

“why are you home?”, she asked, knowing that he was usually at work at this time, when she came back from school.

“i had to cook my princess a birthday meal”, he informed her, bragging a little by calling it a meal when it was really just a huge portion of her favourite instant ramen and a few cups of mug cake - which he’d covered in sprinkles, the most cooking he’d actually done by himself without a recipe.

“don’t get your hopes up”, you teased him by warning your daughter, “you know he’s not good at cooking.”

“but daddy tried! that’s what counts”, she insisted, and there it was again, that little word that made his heart skip a beat or seven when she said it. still, he wanted to be sure that she didn’t feel pressured to call him dad if she didn’t feel comfortable with it, if she didn’t want to.

“you know you don’t have to call me dad, right, princess? i’ll love you just as much if you just call me mingi.”

“do you not want to be my dad?”, big round eyes staring at his face insecurely, scared she wasn’t good enough because she wasn’t biologically his, and he immediately went to reassure her, because he couldn’t accept it if she even for a second doubted how much he wanted her to see him as her dad.

“no, princess, i want to, don’t worry! you’re my little girl, have been ever since i saw your cute little face for the first time. but i know i’m not actually your father, so i don’t want to take that spot if you don’t want me to, you know? just in case you’d rather have a real dad.”

“you are a real dad”, she shut him down, little hands clinging onto his shirt tightly as she continued.

“you’ve always been with mommy, and you bring me to school every single morning and cut my sandwiches into silly shapes” - an art he’d secretly practiced whenever he’d had the time - “and you cuddle me when i’m sad and protect me from the closet monster. if that’s not what makes you a real dad then i don’t need a real dad.”

these words were incredibly serious for a seven-year-old, but they came from the heart, and they left both you and mingi furiously blinking away the tears that were threatening to spill.

“thank you”, he told her, even though she didn’t fully realise why yet. she didn’t fully realise just how much these words meant to you two. in all honesty, she hadn’t thought about it much, it had kind of been obvious to her that mingi was her dad - he’d acted like it ever since she could remember and probably longer.

“stop crying, daddy”, she ordered him in reply, because he’d apparently not been fast enough at blinking his tears away, “it’s my birthday so you’re not allowed to cry.”

the sternness in her little voice made him laugh, her shaking in his arms as his body vibrated, both her and you quickly joining in on his laughter, so that the somewhat serious atmosphere returned to one of bubbliness and excitement.

“i want my cake now” was her next order, telling mingi, her noble steed, to bring her to the kitchen, which he immediately did, no hesitation, no complaints even when she used his ears as the reins, pulling on them to urge him to move faster.

“you get to pick which one you want, that’s why there’s no candle yet”, you explained once in the kitchen, your boyfriend proudly showing off the mug cakes he’d made and maybe talking about himself in third person so he could call himself her daddy, though if you’d comment on it he’d without a doubt deny it.

she picked the one with the most sprinkles - you swore if you hadn’t been there when she’d been conceived you wouldn’t be able to say without a doubt that mingi wasn’t her dad, because by now she had more of him than she had of you -, eyes shining brightly when he lit the candle for her, blowing it out with way more force than was needed for a single candle, but it was just so incredibly adorable that you of course had to clap for her to show her how proud you were of her birthday candle blowing skills.

“let’s eat, shall we?”, and only because it was her birthday was she allowed to start with the mug cake rather than the actual meal, eating it at a speed that had you worried she’d get a bellyache later.

and as if mingi could read your thoughts he asked her to eat a little slower, so she’d be able to enjoy it longer and so her upset tummy wouldn’t ruin her birthday. he really did act like her father, having learned all the essentials about raising children in the time you’d allowed him in your life already. it only made you love him more.

and you swore your love for him couldn’t have gotten bigger when soon after he leaned in to you, mouth close to your ear to ask a question he’d secretly wondered about forever now, but had never dared to bring up because he didn’t think your daughter would ever want it.

“do you think she’d let me adopt her?”, your love asked you quietly, though apparently not quiet enough for her not to hear.

“you could do that? even though i’m already big?”

“if your mommy lets me then i could do that. you’d just have to want it, too”, smiling across the table at her chocolate-covered face as she looked at him curiously.

“and then you’d be my dad for everyone else too?”, and the rest of her mug cake was momentarily neglected as her bright, hopeful eyes looked at him, excited about the prospect of being able to show him off as her dad; because while he most definitely was her dad to her she wanted him to be her official dad, to be her dad in a way no one could argue with.

“yup. i’ll even still be your dad if your mommy doesn’t like me anymore.”

“don’t say that”, you told mingi, not even wanting to imagine a day where you’d not be with him anymore, the thought alone enough to make you sad.

and mingi seemed to notice that, the little bit of residual insecurity about him not actually wanting to stay with you long-term, so he added on: “though i won’t make it that easy for her. i’m going to stay with you two unless she drags me out by the ear. which she won’t, because she can’t reach my ears”, joking only so your daughter wouldn’t notice how he was trying to reassure you that he didn’t plan on leaving, and especially not if he did adopt your little gem.

“when can you start adopting me?”, the little girl asked, her birthday seemingly entirely forgotten about because this was so much better.

“i’ll have to talk to mommy about it, but we can do that tonight after we brought you to bed, and then we can see what we need to do. does that sound okay?”, a question directed at both her and you, to which you were the one to answer.

“that sounds perfect.”

“you have to say yes because it’s my birthday”, a stern little voice told you, causing yet another bright smile to appear on both you and your boyfriend’s faces.

“i’ll keep that in mind. want to get your presents now? and we can eat the ramen afterwards.”

her small head bobbed up and down enthusiastically, tiara almost falling off, and then she was running to the living room, looking like a little bunny because her step was so bouncing that she might as well have hobbled there.

“which one is daddy’s?”, she asked, carefully examining the two presents - one big, one small - to figure it out for herself, though without success.

“we got both of them together”, he explained while you pouted at her, because not only did your boyfriend like your daughter more than he liked you, no, your daughter also liked your boyfriend more than she liked you. what an unfair fate.

“i’ll start with the big one!”, ripping at the paper with an enthusiasm you could only wish she’d ever have when it came to her homework, quickly revealing a princess dollhouse - dollcastle? -, which made her squeal in excitement.

“this is so cool! thank you, thank you!”, one of her tiny arms wrapping around one of your and one of mingi’s thighs, pulling you into a kind of awkward but incredibly precious group hug.

“we have another one, angel”, you reminded her, which caused her energy to be focused back on opening the second package, though you told her to be careful with that one because if she wasn’t she might break the present, the only warning that worked as she now carefully unwrapped it.

“what’s this?”, holding up what looked like a reading exercise to her with a bewildered expression, and maybe it was a reading exercise, but an amazing one.

“read what it says”, smiling down at her with your love’s arm around your waist as he watched her just as fondly as you did.

“amusement park?”, she asked, her head shooting up as soon as she’d made out the most important words, and when you nodded she placed the tickets back in the box, with all the self control she held in her little body, before she started jumping up and down excitedly, grabbing one of each of you’s hands as she tried to get you to jump along.

“amusement park with mommy and daddy! this is the best present in the world!”, little hands clapping excitedly as she smiled up at you, and in that moment it seemed like she had more energy in her significantly smaller form than both you and mingi probably held combined.

little did she know though that no present you could ever get her would be better than the one she’d given you today.

[themonkeycabal]

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, ep 3

Good morning!

Spoilers! of course

Previously on:

The new Captain America is a massive tool, but his buddy, "Battlestar" (lol), is a little bit adorable. They work for something called the Global Repatriation Council, which sounds like a bureaucratic delight and joy.

Bucky got arrested for skipping his therapy appointment to go to Germany (nothing good ever happens to you in Germany, Bucky. Stop going to Germany.) on a mission with Sam (the mission went badly). And once he's sprung from the clink, he and Sam are suckered into the most awkward team therapy session in many an age. Things Are Said and everybody ends up mostly feeling pretty bad about everything.

Speaking of feeling pretty bad about everything — we discover there was a black super soldier in the US Army during the Korean war who was repaid for his service by being imprisoned and made a lab rat for thirty years. Just as awful as it sounds.  

Also our pseudo-terrorists from the first episode turn out to be a pack of idealistic kids who grew up in a blipped world and whose goals are probably as murky to them as they are to me. They, however, have pissed off somebody much bigger and badder (probably by stealing super soldier serum). 

To find just what in the sam hill was going on with the super soldier serum being out in the wild, Bucky suggested they go talk to that very stable and rational repository of Hydra knowledge, Zemo. I'm sure this will go swimmingly.

I've got my chips and guac and beer, it's 12:30 a.m., and I'm ready for some good ol' fashioned fisticuffs! Bring it, Marvel,

And we open with a sunny, smiley propaganda ad for the Global Repatriation Council. Helping you get back to the way things used to be. Reset. Restore. Rebuild. Cut to a shady black police van with the GRC logo and militarized police hop out along with Captain Massive Tool and the shield that really shouldn't be his. They seem nice.

"Don't give them a second to delete, shred, or breathe," says Captain Biggest Bestest Hero Ever as they prepare to breach a graffiti covered building. Ah, it's the hideout in Munich where Karli and the flag stompers gang were bunked last episode. The owner refuses to give up any info, calls them brutes, spits in Captain Tool's face, and Captain Biggest Bestest Hero Ever roughs him up and yells "Do you know who I am?" The owner replies for us all, "yes, I do, and I don't care."

Captain Tool leaves and grumbles about not having intel on that super dangerous criminal 12-year old, Karli. Battlestar (lol) points out she's giving shelter and meds to displaced people, and so they're loyal. And I'm just going to let that go at this point, because last ep she was on about how the GRC only cared about helping the returning people and not the people who were there all along, and the Flag Smashers wanted to return the world to how it was during the blip. But now suddenly they're all about helping the displaced, who I thought were the ones who were gone, thus, you know, being displaced when they come back to a world that's moved on without them. And I'm letting it go …. now.

Or not. I mean, I guess we could say that they're helping the displaced the GRC doesn't want to help, because they're not politically useful or the GRC is funneling its massive resources somewhere else. Or … something. Like I said, it's all very murky at the moment. I could keep watching and probably discover the answer. And I'm sure the GRC is corrupt as hell, so you go Karli! Though, she's like 16 (okay, maybe early 20s), and I'm not sure how she's managed this level of pull and resources in the few months since the great Un-Blippening and also she's got like a team of 8 (or 7, one died last ep) and she's not exactly oozing charisma. But, never mind. Moving on. For real this time.

That's all my way of saying that 3:48 into this episode and I'm already super done with Captain Massive Tool.

In Berlin, Bucky and Sam are visiting Zemo in prison. How'd they get permission? The guard seems very chill about them being there, he even leaves so Bucky and Sam can go to Zemo's cell alone. Which is so very weird. Are they hoping somebody will shank the weirdo who sits in his cell listening to opera and playing chess all day? "Oh no, he's dead, how sad. Heinrich! Get the mop!"

Anyway, Bucky says he'll go in alone, because Sam's an Avenger and Zemo doesn't really have warm fuzzy feelings for Avengers. Sam, who is currently in possession of the duo's one (1) brain cell, remembers how Zemo literally stalked Bucky and tried to frame him for a bombing and mass murder. "He was obsessed with Hydra. We have a history together," is Bucky's very questionable counter-argument. Well, I mean, technically yes, I guess.

Seriously, they just let him walk right in. Wow.

Zemo steps out of the improbably dark recesses of his cell and immediately starts reciting the Winter Soldier control words. "I just wanted to see how the new you reacts to the old words." By staring. It's his thing.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry. It was never personal." I don't know why, but this made me laugh. His delivery is great. It's just like "hey man, good to see you again, hope you got past that whole framing you for murder and the global manhunt thing. Sorry and all. I just really hated your BFF for that time he dropped a city on my family. Bygones, amiright?"

Bucky skips the chat. "Somebody recreated the super soldier serum. I need to find out who." Ah, Zemo is super interested. But, of course. He killed all the other Soldiers, he wouldn't be keen on others around, would he?

Zemo knows where to begin looking for the answer. Cut to Sam and Bucky walking around in a dark room full of some sort of vague equipment (ah, it's a garage), Sam regretting every life decision he's ever made that led him to this point "what are you talking about you want to break Zemo out of jail? Where the hell are we? Buck, have you lost your mind?" Stupidity, who knows, and yes.

"Zemo's going to mess with our minds. Especially yours. No offense." "Offense." lol idiots.

Bucky finds the lights. They argue some more about Zemo. "Super soldiers go against everything he believes in. He is crazy, but he still has a code." Sam's like, yeah, I saw his code, it was blow shit up and kill a lot of people. Sam cannot believe he is hearing this crap right now and he's got to be like "steve rogers, if you weren't 106 I would beat your ass for leaving me with this moron".

"Let me just walk you through a hypothetical. Can I walk you through a hypothetical?" Sam, feeling those cold, tingly chills, the slowly creeping horror of realization, "What did you do?" "I didn't do anything," Bucky lies like the terrible liar he is. Wow he's a bad liar.

Cut back to Zemo's prison cell. Zemo ticks another off the "creepy euro villain" checklist, when Bucky randomly asks what he's reading and Zemo says Machiavelli. But of course. He's hiding something in his book. A key card.

Meanwhile, in the garage Bucky is explaining things to Sam. "The weakest point of any system isn't the software, or the hardware, it's the meatware." lol elegantly put, Bucky. "The human element."

Anyway, to sum up, Bucky's already broken Zemo out of prison. Poor Sam, the look on his face as Bucky hypotheticals through all the steps of the breakout, I laughed so hard.

Sam: “i hate everything, especially this asshole”

"And where are we?" Sam asks, very fed up with Things. 

The door opens and here comes Zemo in his purloined guard's uniform.

"You're going back to prison!" "We need him, Sam." Zemo, politely, "If I may—" "NO!" "NO!"

Argue argue argue. Bucky makes a weird pitch about how Steve didn't sign the Sokovia Accords and neither did Sam and, they went all illegal and on the run, they did it for him and so he's asking Sam to do that again. I mean, Sam's still slightly cheesed about that, Bucky. But, it seems to work, and Sam agrees with A Great Deal Of Reluctance.

Zemo's just standing there all quiet and well-mannered as they go through this, like he's their little pet whackjob.

The garage is full of classic cars belonging to Zemo and they're full of weapons and other goodies. He says he spent years tracking down all the Hydra people who might know how to make the serum, because if it's out there, then somebody could create an army of people like the Avengers. He's taking clothes out of one of the cars and finds a purple ski mask, which he stealthily slips into a bag. Nobody cares about your weird purple mask, Zemo, I've thought that thing was dumb for 30 years.

"To do this, we'll have to scale a ladder of low-lifes." heh

Next they go to an airfield. In Germany. You guys, come on.

Anyway, Zemo owns a plane, he's rich, his family was royalty, he's a baron. Sam's like 'wtf?' Bucky just rolls with everything. Or he does until they're on the plane later and Zemo has somehow lifted Bucky's book of amends and decides to read through it. "Who is Nakajima?" And Bucky's got him by the throat.

Sam's all hey that's Steve's book. "I told him about Trouble Man, he wrote it in that book. Did you hear it? What did you think?" "I like 40s music, so…" "You didn't like it?!?!?!?!" "I liked it." Zemo chimes in, "It is a masterpiece, James. Complete, comprehensive. It captures the African-American experience." lol wtf

"Everybody loves Marvin Gaye," Sam is so offended. "I like Marvin Gaye," Bucky says, probably trying to remember 'who is Marvin Gaye?' "Steve *adored* Marivn Gaye," Sam insists. lol. I like Marvin Gaye, Sam.

Zemo starts going off about Steve, and how the danger with those heroes and super soldiers is they're put on a pedestal and we forget about their flaws. And while he's not wrong, he also clearly wants Sam to throw him out of that airplane.

"Do we want to live in a world with people like the Red Skull? No. That is why we're going to Madripoor." Ahh Madripoor, I haven't thought about that place in a long, long time. A wretched hive of scum and villainy, iirc. Ah, yes, Zemo and Bucky confirm.

Zemo says they can't go as themselves and Bucky's going to have to "become someone you claim is gone". Bucky looks Deeply Unhappy.

On to a GRC resettlement camp in Latvia. Karli is playing soccer with some young kids. Because of the good-natured idealism. She's summoned to a hospital bed, in a ward stuffed with beds in an old, fancy building that's seen better days. Somebody is dying and she's crying at their bedside. Her mom maybe?

Back to Madripoor. It's a glittering city of colorfully-lit skyscrapers. The trio are walking across a bridge to give us a picturesque view and exposit about what they'll be doing. Sam is wearing a very questionable suit with like a black and red floral pattern and yellow-green circles. Or something. I can't tell what's going on with that thing. He says he looks like a pimp. Well no, but it is a terrible suit. Zemo calls it fashion forward, but Zemo wears a great coat with a fur collar and a purple ski mask. Don't take fashion tips from Zemo.

He says Sam will play a "sophisticated, charming, African rake, named Conrad Mack. Aka the Smiling Tiger." Sam is still not thrilled, "even has a bad nickname." Though, yes, the original dude does dress that poorly and he looks like Sam, so suck it up, Sam.

Fortunately they don't have to walk all the way across the bridge (it is a long ass bridge), they're met by a car about halfway and Zemo says they have to super duper stay in character no matter what happens.

The car is surrounded by elaborately decorated motorcycles ridden by very armed people. Hell of a welcome wagon. They're escorted to a graffitied, crumbling underpass, presumably the entrance to Low Town. It's part Macao, part Kowloon, part Jakarta, crammed full of neon and people and ramshackle buildings piled together in a maze of narrow streets, rails, and weird building-to-building bridges. Good set design.

Everybody is "fashion forward" and very heavily armed. They pass a wall with the words "Power Broker Is Watching". That's the charming fellow Karli and her do-gooders stole from.

They enter a bar decorated with golden baboon skulls and koi fish. Zemo asks "are you ready to comply, Winter Soldier?" he's attracted attention from unsavory sorts. I mean, more unsavory than the already unsavory sorts who fill the bar. The bartender is surprised to see Zemo and the Smiling Tiger. Zemo asks for Selby.

Somebody at a nearby table pulls a hood over her head, and by somebody I mean Sharon Carter. NOT SUBTLE SHARON!

Bartender asks the Smiling Tiger if he wants the usual and Sam silently nods. The bartender seems suspicious, but he takes a pickled snake out of a jar, cuts something out of it, drops it in a glass and places it in front of Sam who's like 'what in the actual I am going to puke'. lol Sam bravely tosses it back and does not puke no matter how much he really wants to and he really wants to. Bucky's being the Winter Soldier and is not at all laughing in his head about this.

A power broker minion comes over and tells Zemo he's not welcome there. Zemo says if PB wants him to leave, he can talk to him himself or bring Selby. The minion looks at Bucky and asks if he got a new haircut. Bucky gives him pure murder face. So the Power Broker and his minions know the Winter Soldier, so they were Hydra? Or, I guess, they all ran in the same shady circles.

Anyway, PUNCHING AT LAST! Power Broker minions approach to remove Zemo and Zemo tells the Winter Soldier to attack. Bucky is not pleased, but I am, because now there's punching. It's just been the sort of week that needs punching to improve it. Bar brawl! It's a lopsided fight, Bucky's wiping the floor with these dudes and the suspicious bartender is moving away to make a call.

"It didn't take much for him to fall back into form," Zemo tells Sam. Shut your pie hole, Zemo.  Aw, now the guns come out and the fight's over. Zemo calls off the Winter Soldier and the bartender tells them Selby will see them.

Selby is lounging in her backroom, listening to 50s french pop, and hanging out with lizards and piles of cash. As you do. She'd like to know why Zemo is there and by the way wasn't he in prison? She makes a weird purring sound at Sam. lol. I like her. The actress looks familiar but I can't place her. Anyway.

Zemo says if she tells them what she knows about the super soldier serum, he'll give her the Winter Soldier and his control words. Then Zemo weirdly fondles Bucky's face and like rubs at the cleft in his chin. lol. fucking weirdo.

Selby is charmed. She says she's glad she didn't kill him straight away. Weirdos of a feather, I suppose. Anyway, she says the serum is in Madripoor and developed by Dr. Wilfred Nagel. He was working for the PB. She won't give up Nagel's location for free, though. …and Sam's phone rings. Pro tip, Sam: turn off your phone when you go into meetings with deeply shady crime bosses.

Everybody stops and stares at him and he just sort of lets it ring. It's his sister. Dude, just turn it off. Too late. Selby wants him to answer it on speaker. Okay, well, she'll kill you either way, so just refuse the call and get ready for punching and running. So, he answers it.

Sarah says she needs to talk to him about the situation and he wants her to say exactly what situation. So, she says the one with the boat, dummy, and are you high? So he's going to play this off as a Doing Crime phone call. And it kind of works until Sarah calls him Sam. Selby's like wtf kill them and then she gets shot in the chest by … I don't know who? somebody from the outside. Now this trio of geniuses is going to get blamed for it. Immediately a bounty for them goes out to like everybody in Low Town. lol. That went well, guys.

And the shooting starts, they run. Except not so great for Sam who we just discovered is wearing heels. "I can't run in these heels!"

Here come the bikers. And they get picked off by somebody in a nearby warehouse. Oh, is that Sharon? Yep. And she's salty .When asked what she's doing there, "I stole Steve's shield, remember? I also took the wings for your ass so you (sam) could save his ass (bucky) from his ass (zemo)." lol. She didn't have any backup so she's off the grid in Madripoor. Did nobody think to clear her after everybody was all heroic and then pardoned after the Un-Snappening? Come on, guys.

She's better than they deserve and despite being bitter, she says she's got a place in High Town they can hide.

Sharon runs a gallery selling stolen masterpieces and other hot craft goodies. The creators of this show bless us with a long shirtless Sam scene as he changes out of this Smiling Tiger duds and apologizes to Sharon. She says she'd be arrested if she went back to the States and Madripoor doesn't allow extradition. Besides, she muses, heroing is hypocritical bullshit. Right Sam, since you gave up the shield and all. And Sam's all "bwhu?"

Then she turns her bitter on Bucky and asks how the new Cap is and Bucky's like "i hate him the most" and she's all 'come on', she knows he buys into all that heroic bullshit, "before you were his (zemo) pet psychopath you were Mr America, Cap's best friend." Well, no before that he was the Winter Soldier long before Zemo.

"Wow, she's kind of awful now," Bucky tells Sam. lol. You really get a sense of how much Bucky lucked out with his goat farm. Thanks Wakanda!

Sam gets them back to the point and wants to know where Nagel is, though Sharon says they should stay out of it to be safe. Sam presses, he says he can help clear Sharon's name and she's like 'wow, bargaining with my life?' but he gives her a Cap-worth speech about trying. "They cleared the bionic staring machine and he's killed almost everybody he's met." "I heard that," Bucky says from ten feet away. "I don't trust charity." You just tried to guilt him about bargaining with your life, Sharon!

Anyway, they strike a deal.

Zemo's being suspiciously quiet.

Then they go to a rave. Madripoor is party central. Sharon's gallery is hosting a party for clients and whatnot. She'll see what she can find. For some reason she invites the boys to join her at the party because hiding from the bounty on them and probably also from the Power Broker means walking into parties packed full of the sort of people who buy expensive stolen goods in Madripoor, like say, the Power Broker or his wealthier minions.

Zemo's just happy to be out of prison. The shot of him dancing. lol.

Sharon finds a lead on Nagel and the next day this quartet of galaxy brains heads to the docks. Nothing bad ever happens when you go look for scientists at the docks. No sir. And he is apparently hanging out in a shipping container. Sharon's like hurry up you've got a bounty on your heads and I'm sick of you three already.

The container is empty, but Sharon insists it's the right one. Zemo goes in and finds the false back which leads to a set of stairs going up. "Comin' Home Baby" is playing in the distance. I know I always listen to Mel Torme when I'm tinkering on gene-altering serums in my secret shipping container lab.

They find Dr. Nagel, who is not keen on chatting but he's willing to maybe listen to offers. He's definitely the mad scientist type.

Sharon, keeping watch outside, spots trouble. Some bad guys heading towards the container. She attacks! Moar punchies! Or beating the shit out of people with a baton. It's eleventy zillion bounty hunters. How did they find them? Did that Very Wanted Trio maybe go to a very popular party the night before, or something?

Bucky attempts to persuade Nagel with his gun. Nagel says he was brought in to Hydra to work on the Winter Soldier program. Then he was recruited by the CIA. They had blood samples of a subject (Isaiah? the black super soldier from last ep), and he was able to recreate the serum off of that. "I was a god! I did what no other scientist since Erskine was able to do."

Zemo is pacing around like a very, very angry psycho about to shoot the mad scientist. Guys, maybe it wasn't a good idea to bring Zemo to the person who could create the super soldier serum, given that is the opposite of what he wants. Kill Nagel, no more super soldiers. This is gonna end bloody. Zemo seems to have found a gun hidden in the lab. Yep.

"How have we never heard about this?" Sam asks. Well Sam, it turns out Nagel was blipped. Thanks, Thanos! Anyway, when he came back the CIA project was abandoned but the Power Broker was happy to help fund him. He made 20 vials and Karli stole those. And then Karli being a super duper genius, called him a few days earlier and asked if he could help somebody dying of tuberculosis. Karli … don't call the bad guys and ask for help after you stole from them. That's like day one stuff, kiddo.

Meanwhile, Sharon is still fighting every bounty hunter in Madripoor. She's killed like twenty guys.

Sharon runs in "guys we're seriously out of time" and Zemo takes the distraction to shoot Nagel. Who didn't see that coming? Oh yeah, Sam and Bucky and Sharon. Nobody was using the one (1) brain cell today. Or Zemo was. That's what you get for loaning it to the lunatic.

And then somebody fires a freaking rocket at the shipping container lab. Man. But, can you collect a bounty if all that's left are unidentifiable, charred corpses? Nobody in Madripoor is using the brain cell today.

Now they're trapped in a burning lab that's full of probably very bad explosive chemicals and o2 tanks. And yep, it partially blows up. Zemo gets away. Or seems to have, anyway. It's a gun battle now and also arguing. lol. Sharon's like "FOR REAL YOU IDIOTS?"

Oh, here comes Zemo, stomping along the top of a shipping container, carrying his purple ski mask. He fires at a gas line, the explosion distracting the bounty hunters and giving the trio time to run. Zemo beats up some bounty hunters and then finds a convertible muscle car in a container and swings by to pick up the others. Sam is very grumpy "you're going back to jail". lol.

Sharon's like 'okay, buh-bye!', she's had enough. Aww, is she really only in one episode? Well, Sam does promise to try and get her that pardon, so …

Anyway, Bucky calls shotgun and refuses to move the seat up for Sam. Payback is sweet. Heh.

Oh, not done with Sharon yet. She meets a minion and says they've got a couple of big problems.

Lithuania. Karli and one of her pals are stalking a GRC depot. Karli's sad. Her buddy says she should take some time to mourn. But, no, she's got do-gooding to do. They chat for a bit about what they'd be doing if they weren't do-goodering. She'd be a teacher or some such. They were all in Madripoor, washed up there during the blip, put then put out when everybody returned. Hmm. Lots of expositioning. Blah blah, scary taking the serum. "But it was worth it, because this world is ours." And they're going to give it to the kids in the displacement camps. … alrighty then.

Anyway, she's convinced that now that Nagel is dead, the Power Broker will come to her begging for the rest of the serum. No, sweety, I really don't think a person like that begs. Yikes.

"So we've got the one fight ahead of us then? I'll take those odds," says her very dim buddy.

In the prison in Berlin, Captain Massive Tool is talking to the guards about how Sam and Bucky where there when Zemo escaped and the guard's all "you … you don't think they had something to do with him getting out…." World class security. I find it really grating that Captain Tool calls Sam and Bucky by their first names. It's just so weirdly familiar that it almost crosses into dismissive. Completely unearned familiarity.

Lemar says they can't just accuse Sam and Bucky without evidence, but Captain Tool seems to think they can just, you know, make it up or some shit. "If we get the job done, do you think they're going to sweat us on the how?" Fuck you, Captain Tool.

Back in Zemo's plane, Bucky's fastidiously cleaning his metal arm, like a big grumpy cat. And Sam is trying to get a lead on the person (Madani) Nagel told him Karli wanted to help. He's got Torres on it.

They get to talking about the shield and how many people died or got messed up because of it/the serum. Sam says he made a mistake giving it up and he should have destroyed it. Bucky says, "Look that shield represents a lot of things to a lot of people, including me. The world is upside down, we need a new Cap, and it ain't gonna be Walker [preach]. So before you destroy it, I'll take it from him myself." Kick his ass, Bucky!

Torres gets back to Sam just as Zemo brings them lunch. Such a good host. "They found Madani. Dead. She died in Riga, a city near the Baltic Sea." … was that last bit really necessary? Like Riga is such a mystery? Even if you don't know where it is, like, that's so weirdly clunky. Somehow I think if you don't know Riga, you probably don't have the Baltic in the map in your head, either.  'Have you ever been to London? A city on the River Thames.' 'I've always wanted to go to Los Angeles, a city near the Pacific Ocean.'

Bucky should have said "oh yeah, i love Riga. I killed a diplomat there back in '64. Great beer."

Zemo's got a place they can go and he's looking forward "to coming face to face with Karli." Not creepy at all, Zemo. Nope.

Meanwhile, the kids are raiding the GRC depot and chatting way too much and calling each other by name. Oh dear.

"Filthy Flag Smashers" grumps a soldier tied up on the floor. I can't take them at all seriously with a name like that. Karli says they had six months of supplies just sitting there. "Don't you understand, we're fighting for our lives." Are you? Why and in what way?

Okay, so this is my continuing issue here. They're trying to build up this un-Blipped world, which is great, but they're doing it through So Much Exposition and so much of it is vague. We're supposed to think the GRC are probably shady, but are they? I don't know. Could be. They're sitting on these supplies! Evil! Maybe they are, but why? Why stockpile all that? Is it being sold on a black market? Or diverted to other people? Who knows! I don't. You don't.

We're supposed to sympathize with the Flag Munchers, but they're so vague in their goals. They want the world back how it was during the Blip. Okay. How was it? I don't know. What was so great about it? What we saw in Endgame didn't look all that great. But, we saw it from a different point of view, to be sure. So, what was it like for the average person who survived? Hell if I know. Also the Munchers want to help the people in the displacement camps. Okay. So do those two goals go together? I don't know. Are all the displacement camps bad? We're meant to think so, but I don't know. Is it just some of them? Is it regional? Who, exactly, are the displaced? It seems to be a mix of those who were blipped and those who weren't. I guess. I don't know.

It's just all taken out of the Big Book Of Cliched Assumptions for Lazy Worldbuilding. Why actually do the hard work of details, when they can just fall back on tropes, make vague pronouncements about how 'bad' things are, and let us assume the answers. This might bother me less if we didn't have to spend so much time with Captain Tool and the Flag Munchers. I cannot tell you how much I currently don't care. I find this all very frustrating. I don't mean to spoil the fun. Let me look at Sam's face again:

That was better. But, I stopped too soon. We're still with the Munchers. 

They're leaving the building they just looted, and there’s a bit of business I don’t care about, involving Karli’s car and how she’s not taking it, she’s going to just leave it parked, completely unsuspiciously in front of the building. And, she’s going to ride with her pal Mr. Dimbulb. 

She tells him to put his seatbelt on and she's very insistent. And then her car blows up and the building catches fire and it’s very dramatic. 

Her buddy's like wtf there were people in there and Karli says, "This is the only language these people understand." ARGH. Who people? Why is bombing them the only language they understand? Like, in this show, the GRC have literally DONE NOTHING. Nothing we’ve seen and nothing we’ve heard. At least have people chat about dark and dire rumors or something. Hell, they haven’t even been accused of doing anything other than ‘caring more about the people who returned than the ones who never left’ which is literally their job. sighing all night long. Maybe they’re horrible and evil and the Worst Thing Ever. But I DON’T KNOW THAT, because nothing in the show has bothered to establish that. 

ANYWAY

Riga, a city on the Baltic Sea

The trio are walking down the street, Zemo expositing for us again. Sokovia was apparently swallowed by neighboring countries, erased from the map. "I don't suppose any of you bothered visiting the memorial? Of course not. Why would you?"

Bucky's looking not happy. Probably remembering '64. They get to Zemo's place and Bucky says he's going to go on a walk. Zemo and Sam go on ahead and Bucky watches until they're out of sight and he circles back and finds a beeping thingy on the ground. He notices something across the street. Ah another round beepy thing. Now he's collecting them. He steps into an alley and says, "You dropped something". Nobody immediately appears.

"I was wondering when you were going to show up." And he turns around and it's one of the Dora Milaje. She looks unhappy and she’d like to know where Zemo is. Yeah, the Wakandans are not just gonna let Zemo wander free. That's a sticky situation you got yourself in, White Wolf.

Credits.

Well, I really enjoyed the bits that didn't contain the Flag Munchers or Captain Tool. Do better with your world-building, people.