#my friend group has literally been vibing and living our lives

[fieryvoid-scout]

I need this 28 year old to turn off all their electronics and go touch— no maybe even eat— grass already

[disneyprincemuke]

mrs all american * fem!driver

who is that guy in the andretti racing garage?

pairings: bother figures x fem!driver, 4lyfers x fem!driver

notes: if u think u've read this before, u probably have but like,,,,,,,,,,,,, i rewrote the entire thing to fit the new vibe so hey lol

(series masterlist) | (📂 the sophomore year)

“there she is,” oscar mutters, pushing himself off the wall he’d been leaning on. “we’ve been looking for you all weekend. you’re barely around.”

the girl in her team gear, stops immediately with wide eyes and turns to her friends. “what? oh, hi.”

logan furrows his eyebrows, tilting his head. “where have you been? you’ve been so unreachable since you arrived in vegas. is everything okay?”

she tilts her head, looking curiously between her two best friends. “what do you mean? i’ve been here all weekend. maybe you guys just haven’t done enough to find me.”

she knows exactly what they’re talking about. the entire weekend, she’s been camping out in her driver’s room avoiding everyone else. for good reason: her boyfriend’s finally had the time to come out and watch a race.

not only that, she’s finally decided to just rip the bandaid off and introduce him to everyone with his consent, of course. she’d been hiding him from everyone, afraid that they might scare him off too quick with their antics and borderline insane behaviour.

logan throws his head back. “you’re being kinda weird. is somebody threatening you with something again?”

“you’re being weird,” she mutters, looking towards the andretti racing home. “i’ve just been really busy this weekend. lots of stuff for me to do and go over with sebastian.”

oscar hums, tapping a finger on his lip. “but i’ve seen liam more than you.”

“it’s just sebastian and i. racing strategies and whatnot and telling me what else i need to fix with my driving,” she shrugs. it should really be concerning that lying to them has become a common occurrence lately and it’s slowly becoming easier. but it should also be concerning that they hadn’t noticed up until this weekend the increased secrecy from her side.

though, it shouldn’t be all that shocking that they’re starting to know less and less about one another’s lives. logan has moved out, after all.

“you’re sure you’re alright?” oscar tilts his head, furrowing his eyebrows in concern. “are we still going out tonight?”

“yeah, of course!” she nods a little too eagerly that she doesn’t notice logan and oscar exchange a look. “i was just busy leading up to the race. i swear i’m fine, guys.”

oscar hums. “alright. we’ll see you later for the parade.”

she takes a step back at the group of older drivers gathered outside her racing home. “what are you guys doing here?”

“p wouldn’t stop saying something about seeing a guy she’s seen on the tv in your garage earlier when she passed it,” max mutters without turning his head to look at her, just continues to crane his neck to try and make out the faces through the windows looking into the hospitality.

she tilts her head and furrows her eyebrows. “what?”

“yeah, she told me too,” lando says, mirroring max’s actions. he tilts his head before turning around. he stands a little straighter and points at her. “we asked liam and he didn’t know who the andretti guest is. you don’t know anything about that, do you?”

she chews on the inside of her cheek. “i don’t recall having a big name guest in our side of the paddocks today.”

“really?” max turns, furrowing his eyebrows. “at all? don’t you usually know stuff?”

she shrugs and starts to walk towards the stairs leading to the main doors. “not this weekend, no. i’ve been pretty busy with my own stuff.”

lando hums and rests his hands on his hips, following her towards the door. “really? you’re not lying to us? this is important to p — you love her. just tell us who it is.”

she holds her hands in the air and laughs, turning around right before she walks in. “i’ve literally got no idea who they decided to bring in. you might have better luck with seb.”

max shakes his head, lips pursed in frustration. “we already tried asking him earlier. he doesn’t seem to know who the guest is either… how is it possible that none of you know?”

“i haven’t really paid much attention, really,” she lies with another shrug before turning on her heel. “i’ll see you guys later. save me a spot with you guys on the wee truck, okay?”

“open the door!”

she flinches from her spot on the beanbag, jumping off as she looks at the man previously cozied up with her. “that’s my teammate,” she whispers at him. “what do i do?”

matt throws his hands in the air. “why are you asking me that? like you said — it’s your teammate.”

“i have to open the door. what am i going to do?”

“well, you invited me so i could meet your friends. what’s the harm in meeting liam before the race?”

she contemplates for a second, looking up at the ceiling momentarily. “you don’t know these twats like i do, if i tell them about you now, i’ll never hear the end of it.”

he hums, scrunching his nose. “so what do you wanna do now? he’s at the door.”

“open the door, mate!” liam’s voice comes from the other side, the door rattling slightly as he knocks again. “i know you’re inside.”

“give me a fucking minute!” she screams, hurling a packet of maltesers next to her on the ground towards the door. “be patient!” she looks back at matt. “i need you to hide behind the door for now. i promise you’ll get to meet my insane teammate and friends after the race. just not now.”

he laughs, letting her pull him up from the beanbag, dragging him behind the door would wind up after she opens it. “okay, well be careful not to give too much away.”

she opens the door and fixes her hair, sighing exasperatedly. “what do you want?”

“seb said he’s been texting you to come down. they want to have one last team meeting before the driver’s parade,” liam rambles. “and what took you so long to answer the door?”

she blinks blankly at him, trying to take her brain for a believable lie. “i was finding my clothes.”

“clothes… what would… what?”

she hums, nodding. “i was naked. sorry.”

liam throws his head back with a groan. “okay, i’m sorry i bothered asking.” he turns around and takes a step towards the stairs, “seb wants you downstairs as soon as possible. i’ll see you in a bit.”

she closes the door when liam takes a step on the stairs, turning to her side and sighing heavily. she hunches over and shakes her head. “i literally hate all of them.”

“don’t be like that,” he laughs, pinching her cheek gently. “i’ll see you later, okay? before your race starts?”

she grins. “okay. blythe should be here any minute with ylona and lily then you guys can go explore the circuit again while i’m busy.” he nods, leaning down with puckered lips. she gets on her tiptoes, pressing her lips against his before opening the door again. “see ya.”

“are you hiding someone from me?” the girl, who’s just walked into the pitlane to head to the grid for the driver’s parade takes a step back with a clueless blink. “max keeps pestering me about the guest for tonight. something about p recognising the guy?”

she shrugs, eyebrows furrowed. “why do you just assume i always know more than you?”

liam shrugs as well, frowning. “i don’t know. everyone’s just always asking about our guest today,” liam says with a frown.

realistically, she feels bad lying straight through her teeth to everyone. but she doesn’t need anyone messing with her when the truth happens to come out before the race starts. it’s just not something she thinks she needs.

besides, everybody will find out after the race. she will just explain herself then.

“i’ve got no idea what’s going on with our garage today,” she takes a sip from her pepsi, blinking at liam innocently. “guess we’ll find out later?”

“find what out?” oscar tilts his head as they come to a stop right by him and lando, waiting for the truck to start their lap around the track.

“why max and lando keep lingering outside our racing home today,” liam frowns. “i’m not the centre of attention and it’s simply absurd.”

lando sighs, shaking his head. “i know. i was at your side of the paddocks more than i’ve been at my own.”

she shrugs with a small grin. “someone kinda famous, i guess. according to p, at least.”

“it’s not jacob elordi again, is it?” carlos pokes his head between lando’s and hers, furrowing his eyebrows. he turns to her, met with an unamused stare and head tilt. he shrugs. “just curious. who knows if you’re seeing him again?”

she looks around their huddle, suddenly greeted by curious stares and raised eyebrows. she throws her arms in the air and shakes her head. “i’m not seeing jacob again! i haven’t seen him since the miami race last year! please let it go!”

alex narrows his eyes down with a small smirk. “you sound like you know something about andretti’s special guest.”

“you liar!” liam screams.

“i don’t!” she turns to liam with her arms in the air. she turns to alex and scowls. “why are you stirring drama? i don’t know anything about who andretti’s decided to give their stupid pass to this weekend, okay?”

alex hums, pressing his lips together. “that’s not what logan told me.”

“why would logan know anything about andretti’s guest this weekend? i’ve barely seen him.”

he shrugs, “i really thought that would break you.”

“nice try,” oscar sighs, shaking his head. “you really don’t know anything?”

she shakes her head. “i really don’t. now can we please talk about something else?”

liam had been walking out of his driver’s room, on his way down for the race start when he heard two voices coming from the room next to him. normally, it would have been okay, considering he knew blythe would be around tonight.

but it’s a man’s voice, which makes it all the more intriguing.

“don’t forget to watch the purple car — i’m in the andretti, okay? not the red bull, not the ferrari or the bright papaya that’s the mclaren,” he hears her say. “you’re here to watch me.”

liam furrows his eyebrows, stepping towards the door with light feet to minimise the sounds to reduce suspicion. he presses his ear against the door.

“i don’t even know what a ferrari is.”

he hears her laugh, followed by footsteps approaching the door. “i’ll see you later, malt. love you.”

the door clicks, prompting liam to hurl himself towards the stairs leading downstairs, stumbling and sliding down a couple of steps. liam pulls himself up with the railing, trying to ignore the way he can hear the confusion as the door closes.

“what are you doing?”

liam hops up to his feet, one of his foot sliding off at the edge of the steps. he coughs to cover it up and shakes his head. “i’m just super excited to be racing in vegas.”

she tilts her head and furrows her eyebrows. “are you sure? is something wrong?”

he shakes his head. “nope. nothing.”

perhaps she will break the news to him after the race? he doesn’t think he’s ever heard her say that phrase to anyone, much less know anyone called ‘malt’. what even is that name? did somebody actually name their kid malt?

“you don’t have anything to ask me?” she bites down on her lip, trying to keep the laugh in.

truthfully, she had heard the door rattle a couple of times and assumed that liam was being nosey outside her driver’s room. she’s more surprised that her teammate is not probing her for a more defined answer other than a shrug.

“i guess,” liam shrugs dejectedly.

he just wants her to tell him instead of having to ask her outright.

“alright, mate,” she laughs, furrowing her eyebrows. “by the way, you’re coming for ice cream tonight, right? i’ve got someone i want you to meet.”

that’s another race she finishes on the podium, on the bottom step behind checo and max. it’s absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she’s got a special guest in her garage watching, the car was just good.

she knows that because liam’s finished directly behind her. she would have given him the podium if sebastian hadn’t insisted that there’s no driver swap necessary and that it would only be riskier to do so.

she climbs out of the car, eyes crinkled towards the team gathered behind the barriers for her. she tears all of her headgear off and immediately runs forward to where her team is gathered.

“amazing!” sebastian screams, arms wide open as she starts to approach them. “good job, kid!”

she screeches, hopping over to where they are with her fists in the air. “i did it! i literally love vegas! year after year, all vegas does is give me is bangers!”

she jumps into sebastian’s arms, cheering along with her team of mechanics with their arms wrapped around her as well. “yay! another podium for me!”

she pulls away and pushes her hair away from her face and sighs. she looks around the crowd. “where’s blythe and matt? did you not bring them over?”

sebastian grins with a shrug. “they’re in the back of the crowd — blythe said she wasn’t sure if you wanted to be seen with him right now so they’re lingering somewhere back there.”

she sighs and grabs sebastian’s shoulders, nodding. “could you get them here to the front?” from the corner of her eye, she sees liam approaching her. “i’ll get back to you.”

“hey, congrats!” liam cheers, throwing himself around her and holds her tightly against him. “i know you had somebody in your room earlier and i know damn well it wasn’t blythe.”

“i know. you rattled the door with all your moving,” she whispers her answer before bubbling into a laugh. she drops her head slightly as a blush slowly creeps up her cheeks. “i’m seeing somebody.”

“i also know that,” liam grins, a hand still on the small of her back. “do i get to meet him?”

“obviously. do you know how difficult it’s been to keep him out of everyone’s sight all day?” she snorts, rolling her eyes. “i promise you’ll get to meet him.”

“hey, rocky!” she whirls back towards the crowd and shrieks at the sight of her sister, then matt standing behind her. “congratulations on the podium, mate!”

“blythe! thank you!” she hops over once more, arms held out and immediately engulfed into a hug by her younger sister. “thank you so much for coming. i know you have a tournament in a couple of days.”

blythe shrugs, grinning cheekily at her. “well, you did pay for my flight… so anything for you.”

the young girl quickly takes whatever she can of a step back and gestures for matt to take a step forward. “hey, congrats! if i didn’t know any better, i’d have said you made it on the podium to make sure everyone knew i had such an amazing girlfriend.”

she rolls her eyes, hitting him in the chest softly. “shut up,” she snorts with an eye roll before she takes a step forward to pull him in for a hug. “thank you for coming and staying all weekend to watch my race.”

“obviously, how could i not take up the chance on your paddock passes?” he whispers in her ear, pulling away. he pinches her cheeks and pulls very lightly, leaning down to mush their lips together. “thanks again, by the way.”

she giggles, cheeks flushing as she tries to ignore the flashes rapidly going off around them. “how can i not?”

“oh.” liam walks up to them and leans on the railing, looking between them. “how rude — you’re not going to introduce your teammate at all to the man you’re kissing?”

she turns around. “i have an interview to do. i’ll introduce you guys later,” she scoffs, smiling apologetically at matt before shoving liam away. she looks back over her shoulder. “i’ll be with you later again i promise.”

she doesn’t notice the dutchman awaiting his interview, eyes wide and jaw dropped at what he had just witnessed happen towards the andretti side of the area. what a revelation.

“what do we have here?” she flinches as she opens the door, taken aback by the taller man — men — who stand in the porch of the racing home with arms over their chests. matt huffs when she walks right into his body, stumbling slightly and hands coming up to grab her shoulder firmly. “i saw you kissing a man after the race.”

she lifts an eyebrow. “okay? indeed i was.”

max tilts his head with a small grin, pushing her aside. the girl stumbles over her feet, matt nervously trying to steady her by reaching out to grab her arm. max holds his hand out. “i’m max. i can fight.”

“max!” she shrieks, pushing max’s arm away before it can be grabbed cordially. “what is wrong with you? that’s not how you introduce yourself!”

but as she’s preoccupied with max, to her horror, she’s turned back around and the other 3 have already surrounded the poor boy with furrowed eyebrows and questions spilling past their lips.

who are you, where do you live, what are your intentions with rocky, how long have you known her, who even are you? and this is exactly why she hesitated even bringing him to the race to watch her.

“hey, what are you doing? stop doing that!” she cries, running back around to try and shoo off alex, george and lando who have well invaded her boyfriend’s personal space. before she can take 3 steps away, max grabs her shoulder and yanks her back toward him to hold her in place. “you guys are embarrassing me! you’re worse than my siblings!”

“oh, you’ve met her siblings!” alex cheers for a moment before wiping the smile from his face. “so? what are they gonna do to protect you? they’re so much younger.”

“hey! those are my sisters and brother you’re talking about!”

“ah, you get what i mean,” alex waves her off, snorting softly. he returns his attention to the boy with a small amused grin. “so? you plan on answering our questions, mate? we’ll be here all night if you don’t.”

the brunette grins, green eyes piercing into their own. “i’m matt cornett. i’m an actor,” he points shyly at her, held hostage by max, “she’s my girlfriend.”

“girlfriend?” lando screams incredulously, throwing his head back in disbelief. he turns to the girl and points at matt. “you found yourself a boyfriend? did you use our advice?”

she stares at them, blinking with a toothy and fearful grin. “why… would i use your shit advice?”

“why wouldn’t you?” alex furrows his eyebrows with a small scowl on his face. “you’re so bad at dating — how did you–”

“don’t you look a little familiar?” george starts softly, pointing at matt with squinted eyes. “have we met?”

“last year in vegas at the club when you dragged me out and i was the designated driver,” she mumbles, rolling her eyes. “we met out in the balcony while i tried to escape the horrors of the drunk people downstairs before logan came and pulled me out to go home.”

alex turns to her stiffly with a finger pointed at her. “we weren’t talking to you.”

she raises her eyebrows. “okay, sorry i tried speaking to you. i thought we were friends.”

“we’re getting to know him. we already know enough about you,” lando adds on, waving his hand in the air to dismiss her. “how long have you guys been dating?”

“5… almost 6 months?” matt blinks, smiling slightly to mask the fear he’s slightly feeling.

“ah,” alex nods. “where’d you go take her on a date? better be a nice place — that’s the princess of the grid you’re with. we protect her. i don’t care what her parents said to you.”

“it’s true. i almost beat somebody up in some alley last year for her,” max boasts with a proud smile and his chest puffed out. “even almost sued the crap out him. i would’ve ruined that man’s life if she asked me to.”

max feels the girl patting his shoulder. “not a flex, max… stop talking.”

“we went out to this really nice place in miami,” matt starts explaining softly, choosing his words carefully. “then we went out for ice cream afterwards.”

lando hums, pressing his lips together. he squints and takes a step forward closer to matt. “what’s her ice cream order?”

“rocky road ice cream with extra marshmallows.”

george shrugs. “if he knows that already, seems like we shouldn’t be here anymore,” george turns. “see you around, mate.”

a hand forcefully turns george back to face matt. “we’re not done yet, george. stay here.”

“oh, i didn’t know you were all already here!” oscar laughs, heads turning towards the bottom of the stairs leading up the andretti racing home. “heard you were kissing a boy after the race, mate. had to come and find out what that was all about.”

she sighs, throwing her head back. “yes, there’s even photographic evidence circulating the f1 gossip pages if you look deep enough,” she answers in a deep tone to mimic oscar, “it doesn’t take a genius.”

she gestures towards matt. “my boyfriend. his name is matt.”

oscar grins. “oh, hey. what’s up, mate?”

matt opens his mouth to greet oscar and introduce himself, only to find himself cut off by max speaking out.

“have you made her cry?” max asks with wide eyes. “because one tear is every punch i get to throw without you running off to the media crying about it.”

“max–“

“oh, hey matt!” lily greets sweetly, finding her spot next to oscar on the porch, tangling herself into oscar’s arms. “did you manage to grab dinner with mick and blythe earlier? sorry i had to run.”

silence hangs in the air as lily finishes her sentence, heads turning to her with suspense. she looks around and blinks. “what?”

“you knew about matt?” oscar mutters, staring down at her blankly. “you never told me?”

lily shrugs with a polite smile. “wasn’t my relationship to hardlaunch.”

oscar shrugs, “i guess.”

only then does liam arrive with logan and ylona in tow. logan tilts his head in curiousity at the crowd that’s formed, and at the fact that his girlfriend’s just slipped out of his arms to run up the steps.

“rocky! congrats on the podium tonight!” ylona squeaks, throwing her arms around the younger girl. then she turns around with a wide smile. “sorry i couldn’t join you and blythe for dinner. lily and i had to find a bar to book a table with tonight for after the race.”

“you knew rocky’s dating matt too?” oscar almost shouts, absolutely bewildering at the vital information that seemed to be kept from them.

“rocky’s dating–“ logan finally looks past the crowd and finds the man surrounded by lando, george and alex. “didn’t we meet before? you look familiar.”

the brunette nods. “a club here in vegas this time last year.”

“wait a second,” liam puts a finger over his lip, “didn’t i meet you in new york? i took a picture of you guys, didn’t i? with rocky’s polaroid.”

matt nods again, eyes dropping to avoid the stares. “yes. i have that picture in my wallet still.”

“wait,” logan shakes his head. “you’ve met more than once in clubs?”

“well, you guys kept pulling me away rudely so we didn’t like… exchange socials until we ran into each other again in miami after my race win,” she explains softly.

logan then realises. “ylona, you knew about rocky’s boyfriend and you didn’t tell me?”

ylona shrugs, giving the same answer as lily. “not my relationship to yap about.”

max huffs. “so? what now? we just have to accept the fact you’ve got a boyfriend?”

“yes?” she cries with her arms in the air. “you guys are being so weird right now!”

— bonus

“foul,” logan mutters, shaking his head disapprovingly. “i can’t believe you didn’t tell me she has a boyfriend. when it’s rocky and a potential boyfriend, you tell us.”

lily shakes her head, poking her head out to look over at ylona. “you don’t have to. they’re just protective.”

ylona nods, pressing her lips together. “well, we met matt, you see. he’s a decent guy — didn’t seem like you guys had to run any more background checks on him than we already did.”

“nice,” oscar giggles, high fiving lily.

he looks ahead at the group walking down the strip to get ice cream first before heading to the club, her arms wrapped around matt’s as they walked and chatted with george.

“well, she does look happy,” oscar mutters. “i was afraid she was gonna end up and old maid with 20 cats in her home.”

logan scoffs. “she’s gonna end up with 20 cats regardless.”

taglist: @wcnorris @treehouse-mouse @laura-naruto-fan1998 @mindless-rock @vellicora @leilanixx @ironmaiden1313 @angsthology @cherry-piee @christianpulisic10 @elliegrey2803 @33-81 @darleneslane @nikfigueiredo @happy-nico @namgification @localwhoore @notawc @sadg3 @kazuha-pista-badam @mellowarcadefun @megatrilss1885 @peqch-pie @woozarts @meadhbhcavanagh @2bormaybenot @a-disturbing-self-reflection @inejismywife @love4lando @louvrepool

[starcurtain]

What do you think Aventurine would be like as a boss?

Aventurine's first character story tells us that people both outside the IPC and internal to the Strategic Investment Department are explicitly racist toward him, so I would say first that I suspect Aventurine's team is much, much smaller than other Stonehearts like Topaz. For example, we constantly see Topaz's dumb "support squad" following her around in most of the events she shows up in, while we've never been introduced to a single "Aventurine support squad" member.

My suspicion is that, between the rampant racism and the undoubtedly common rumors about Aventurine's dangerous behavior, very few people are even willing to be put on his team in the first place. I suspect he's much more likely to be paired up with one or two "strategic partners" (like Ratio) and sent to handle things that way, rather than actually having a large group of underlings he directly supervises.

But just logistically speaking I'm sure he does have a few underlings, and I think... He's probably a very difficult person to work for, for a couple reasons:

He will almost certainly beat assholes to the punch. If a majority of the people who have been assigned to work with him don't want to be there, you can bet he's not going to wait around for new people to prove they are racist garbage. I imagine that, for the most part, he's off-putting and offensive to new people from the get-go. You ask which desk is yours and he just goes "Oh, feel free to set your things anywhere!" then turns around like: "Wowwww. Jim, this rookie is trying to steal the desk you've had for ten years! How inconsiderate our new friend is proving to be~!" New people on his team probably have the worst few weeks of their lives. (Because... If people are going to hate him on principle alone, he might as well give them a reason, right?) However, this has the effect of weeding out most of the people who are incapable of dealing with Aventurine's antics, so I imagine that the few who persevere through the hazing are probably genuinely decent folks. Those that make it past the initial "Let's see how much you hate Sigonians and disrespect me personally" vibe check probably end up on Aventurine's good side, and I think he eventually eases off his newbies after a while. (Not before they've proven their exceedingly high tolerance for shenanigans and even higher ceiling for shock factor, though. If a new employee makes it past the first month of working for Aventurine, literally nothing else will ever phase them. An elephant-sized Warp Trotter could warp them all six galaxies over and they'd just be like "Anyone got a working cell? I need to tell my babysitter I won't be back by 9.")

I think he's just never there. Absentee boss in the extreme. It's not that he ever slacks or doesn't do the work--it's just that he's constantly going off and doing the missions all on his own. It doesn't matter how many times the higher-ups assign him to do a team task, tell him he has to take the full squad... He just scampers off and does the deal entirely on his own, comes back covered in blood, and is like "Hey guys, I took care of the problem; enjoy some comp time on me!" I don't think he drags his average-level underlings into his dangerous gambles; I think he just does all the work with their clients by himself or with a high-caliber partner. You would think this would make him a great boss to work for, but I implore to put yourself in such an employee's shoes: You go into the office every morning only to see your to-do list is empty. Your boss isn't there to give you any new direction. After twiddling your thumbs for four hours, you find out the reason he isn't in the office this morning is that he's recovering from betting he could take an entire pack of Borisin in a fist fight. He's not in the hospital because of the fight (which he won). He's in the hospital because he was then promptly shot in the back by the guy he was betting with. Why is your life like this? Why must you be subjected to the soap opera of your boss's own self-destructive spiral?

Even when he's around, he's probably weirdly awkward. Don't get me wrong, I bet when he's in a good mood he throws all kinds of extravagant parties in the office, and his employees would never lack for bonuses and perks. But I think he has never really bothered to learn--or perhaps simply does not care--about normal managerial behaviors and boundaries. Like, you slip up and tell him your mother-in-law is in the hospital. He comes back five minutes later to tell you he's just bought six bouquets (sent from your address), commissioned a personally embossed card for her with your monogram, and contracted the services of the best-reviewed individualized medical team in Pier Point under your name. He's patting himself on the back for being an incredibly thoughtful boss. You don't know how to tell him that you haven't spoken to your mother-in-law in years, not since her last attempt to poison you. Every six months he buys the whole team new cars. You have no idea what to do with all these cars. It's too many cars. Put some cars back. He calls everyone his "friend," but even after working for him for years, you still have absolutely no idea about his likes, dislikes, or hobbies outside of the IPC. You could not name his favorite food if someone put a gun to your head. Does he exist outside of the workplace? You literally can't imagine him anywhere but on a mission or at a poker table. He's constantly bringing an "I am the party!" vibe to the room, but everyone else is a bored 8-5 worker who doesn't have a drop of enthusiasm left in their veins. It's like when a singer asks the audience to cheer along with a song, but nobody in the audience makes a peep. Absolutely no one in the IPC cubicles can match his particular freak. Aventurine's a smooth-talker and a street-smart cookie for sure, but something about the way his smile looks like it's made out of plastic when anyone tries to engage him in chitchat at the water cooler gives you the vague impression that he's probably never had an actual friend in his life. If "uncanny valley" was a vibe a workplace could have, Aventurine's office would have it.

Long story longer, I think Aventurine has very few people willing to tolerate him as a boss, whether because they are racist or simply because his quirks are just too quirky. However, I like to imagine the few who have hung in there are ride or die. You know they have an "Aventurine Protection Squad" group chat. They probably all wear peacock-teal and gold accessories in solidarity. They have definitely disappeared people for talking shit on their boss before. Aventurine has no idea how much they actually like him.

[mae-i-scribble]

My post on How I Attended and All Guys Mixer picked up a few more notes than I was expecting recently and it reminded me that I've been wanting to talk about how appreciative I am about how the series handles sexuality. I'll only be talking about the manga here bc I haven't seen the live action drama nor do I plan to. But I just think it's really neat that with our 3 male protags we get to see 3 very unique reactions to 1) learning that crossdressing is a thing and 2) how they in turn feel attraction wise.

I'll start off with Asagi as I feel his is the most straightforward in that he just takes everything in stride. Literally nothing phases him. Thanks to that he's the most nonchalant of the group, just chatting up and trying to make friends per usual. He's confused somewhat, but doesn't pay it any mind and just tries to get to know everyone as he would any other new friend. Personally, I can really see an aro/ace argument for Asagi due to the way he's just, completely unaffected and uninterested in the romantic ongoings around him. He compliments the girls and such but even when the manga is going pretty hard pushing its other pairings Asagi and Fuji truly just seem like good friends. I'm not delusional, this is a romance manga that from the get-go clearly has these pairings in mind to all get together romantically, but until it happens I can gaslight myself into believing my aroace truth (is coping so bad).

Going from most chill about everything to 2nd most chill we have Tokiwa. Tokiwa is an interesting case in that he's polite to such a degree that he does his best to mask his initial confusion and shock (to the extent that yknow, a comedy manga will allow). Though it doesn't really work because he is very overwhelmed by the situation at hand. However, I don't think this is attributed to the girls' crossdressing alone in the same way that Hagi can't get over his initial shock of the concept. Tokiwa's chief concern isn't the "weirdness" of it all but the fact that he came here expecting a meet cute with a cute girl and instead is getting a meet cute with someone equally as charming but with none of the reserved attitude we see Suo have while she's fem-presenting. My boy is not worried about gender norms he is worried for his sanity due to the attractive person flirting with him.

Honestly, this panel here implies that he finds masc-presenting Suo even more attractive. The fact that he even tries to reassure himself that because Suo is a woman this situation is less flustering is very interesting. Not that it does anything. Pouring one out for Tokiwa for real. As the manga goes on, Tokiwa gives off the vibe of someone who is comfortable with his sexuality enough that the gender presentation of the person he likes is irrelevant, both are attractive to him in different ways. Again, while Suo's crossdressing is a point of interest in the sense that it's not something he understands or gets intuitively, he doesn't have nearly the same level of crisis as Hagi does. His attraction to Suo is never questioned- rather it seems to be a question of whether or not he thinks Suo is genuine in her flirting.

And our last boy is Hagi, poor beloved Hagi who is having the time of his life trying to figure out that hey, sometimes people don't dress or present stereotypically. It's a rough life for you Hagi. However, his inner conflict is very gripping. I find his reaction and subsequent coming to terms with the idea of crossdressing a very realistic take on the subject much more akin to your average person being introduced to everything for the first time. It never feels mean spirited even if Hagi can be offensive in this thoughts and comments at first- it's born from a place of genuine confusion, both towards himself and towards the girls. Hagi falling in love with Kohaku, while a little to rife with misunderstandings for my taste, I think is a wonderful narrative of how even being straight doesn't mean that there is one way to feel attraction. While Kohaku throws around the idea of him being bi due to him being attracted to Kohaku while she's masc-presenting, Suo best sums it up when she says that it's not about the words or the looks, its about who it's coming from. And given that we haven't seen Hagi struggle with this from anyone else, it's a safe bet to say he likes Kohaku as masc-presenting, not necessarily masc-presenting people or men in general. Attraction as a fluid concept is something most straight romance stories, let alone a comedy based one, seldom bother to explore along the gender spectrum. Hagi's struggle to understand himself and what his attraction to Kohaku means to him personally is such an interesting take that it elevates the entire storyline out of miscommunication hell almost (just almost).

Idk idk this feels like a very silly rant to have but I do in fact love this manga more than a reasonable amount and this is definitely one of the top reasons for it. I would love for it to get a bit more attention but I shall settle for rereading it for the 20th time I suppose

[yungmulaababyyy]

The hold on

Warning(s)‼️: SMUT, hair pulling, cock riding, mommy kink, pet names(baby…etc.), daddy kink, slight aggressive sex, ass smacking, nipple playing and sucking, nutting on face, masterbating‼️

intro:

“I’ll show you what I know

You’ll give me what I need

Not saying I’m not a pro

But you could learn from me

We go another round

Before we fall asleep

You got me on a cloud nine, baby

Feels almost like a dream

Something ‘bout your body”

song: Hold On by The Internet 🫦

•Soobin’s pov:•

I sat in the back of my classroom quietly as I finished my work and turning it in . I walked back to my seat and sighed and leaned my head back until I hear a loud laughter that sounds very familiar. I look up and see y/n with a group of her friends talking about something, probably something important or not as important to their conversation. God y/n is so beautiful, everything about her is so perfect, she smells like rich vanilla every time I walk past her in the halls, her sense of clothing is really amazing and honestly inspiring to other girls out there who dresses like her. Her smile is super contagious ,when she smiles it’s like heaven her pearly whites sets the guys to even go insane over her. Her beautiful brown skinned looks so soft, shiny and moisturized by the bath and body works lotion she uses “A thousand wishes”. She’s just like a goddess that everyone worships everything about her and i definitely see why they do worship her.

She’s the biggest popular cheerleader at our school, literally everyone is in love with her. But she wouldn’t even take the time of the day to date a nerdy guy who watches anime constantly . She would rather date someone who exactly popular just like her and a very attractive male who probably plays football or whatever they play. It’s too bad I can’t get to her, but she’s always says hi to me when she sees me or probably hug me, and also very helpful and loving to the other students at our school , everyone loves her so much

End of soobins pov

•Y/ns pov:•

“Right” I said talking with my friends until I look in the back and seen the fine nerdy guy Soobin with his glasses on, God he’s such a slut. I just wonder…. Has he ever been with a woman or been touched by a woman?

Because he doesn’t look like it or gives off that vibe. He’s super bitchless so that’s all I care about, I don’t go for the popular guys or whores, I like mines very bitchless, nerdy, loving and private about their lives, kinda like mysterious type. I decided on my own to be a little bold and write a note saying “Meet me at my place for a surprise;)” and walked to the back giving it to Soobin. He lifts his head up staring at me with his boba eyes and his glasses making him look like a chipmunk.

He didn’t say anything about why I gave him the note he just opens the note and seeing his facial expressions change to normal to surprised in seconds. He looks into my eyes and gives me a smile showing off his pearly whites and his dimples. God he makes me weak in the knees. I love nerds, they’re surprisingly loving and the sweetest guys on earth, Not to mention they are the biggest freaks of all. “What kinda of surprise is it?” He says not breaking eye contact. “You’ll see when you get to my place” i said biting my lip, and putting my hand on his rubbing my thumb on the back of his hand . “So see you after school!”i cheesed and let go of his hand and walked away back to my friends.

As I went back to talking to my friends i decided to look back and see him giving me a seductive look knowing he’s probably thinking what I’m thinking. I bit my lip and winked at him until I get caught off guard. “Y/N!” My friend Angela says making me jump and look towards her. “Who the hell you were looking at?” She says looking around in the back. “Stop your making it obvious” i said balling up my lips and looking around making sure he wasn’t looking in our direction. “Y/N, who were you looking at?” Angela says crossing her arms giving me the death stare. “That nerdy guy in the back Soobin” I sighed watching my other friend Eisha’s facial expression change to disgust.

“Eugh, when do you plan on talking to him Y/N?” Eisha says sighing shaking her head. “Actually I just did not too long ago” I winked at Eisha which made her and Angela gasp at the same time. “YOU’RE JOKING?” Her and Angela says with their Jaws dropped still not fully believing this information I just told them. “Hell yea, I just gave him a note saying “Meet me at my place for a surprise;)” and you know what that means” I said smirking making the girls glance. “ Ouuu Y/N is freakyyyy” Eisha said slightly pushing my shoulder, “Would he even handle all dat back there?” Angela says. “I highly doubt he can’t handle all that ass back there y/n, he’s too skinny for that shit” Eisha says making me laugh at her comment. “Well just because he’s skinny doesn’t mean he don’t know how to handle all that ass back there, there’s plenty of skinny guys who handle thick girls like y/n. So he’ll definitely be fine” Angela said.

At y/ns place after school

“Oh fuck yes” I moaned out as I laid on top of Soobin and started wildly riding him as he grabs and sucks on my hard nipples. “There you go, keep riding daddy’s big dick mommy” he aggressively smacks my ass and grips it. I winced in pain feeling a strong sting to my ass, Soobin’s long arms wrapped around my waist holding it so tightly to that i couldn’t even move. He pulls out and shoves his dick inside me roughly causing my head to go back moaning as loud as I can. “Mhmm shittt right thereee” I said rolling my eyes at the back of my head due to the pleasure he was giving me, he loosing in grip and still has a hold onto my waist stroking in and out of me. I feel his eyes stared at my medium size boobs bounced and clapped each other, i definitely think soobin is a boob guy, he HAS to be a boob guy.

He kept stroking himself inside of me as his pace increases more and more to that I was ready to cum on his dick. “Daddy I wanna cum” I pout and moaned when he pulled my hair and whispered in my ear. “Don’t cum until I tell you mommy you understand?” Soobin’s voice deepen and rasped, his voice set me off and sent chills to my spine and throughout my body. “I can’t-“ as I tried to warn him then seconds later I ended up cumming all over his dick. I moaned loudly as I collapse on top of him out of breath and tired but suddenly he wasn’t finished with me yet and still wanted to keep going as much as possible.

He flips me over to now I’m laying my chest flat on the bed, he comes from behind gripping my hair and holding my hands behind my back. For the hand he used to grab my hair he used to grab his dick and teasing me with my entrance which made me mad until he slips his full dick inside of me. I moaned and gripped the sheets in front of me as he grabbed my ankles stroking himself into me harshly. “Don’t stop please” I whimpered and begged for him to keep going. His strokes are very slow and hard, i couldn’t believe such a nerdy innocent looking guy can have me bent over naked in my own bed begging for more of his thick lengthy dick. “Gosh you’re so perfect, begging for more of my cock ?” He says gripping my ankles harder as his strokes get sloppier and harder. I couldn’t keep my arch anymore so I just loosing it and laid flat until Soobin’s big hands grip my neck lifting my upper body up meeting his face and started tonguing me down kissing me.

He slips his tongue in my mouth swabbing our saliva together, I softly moaned as we sloppily kissed causing our saliva to drip down on our chin and faces. Soobin lets go and aggressively pushed my body back on to the bed and flipped me over to where I’m staring at him. I smiled and bit my lip as i spread my legs open rubbing my clit, I started moaning loudly looking into Soobin’s dark boba eyes watching me playing with my self, he was enjoying himself watching the show I put on in front of him and decides to jerk off in front of me making me smile. “Mhm daddyyy, you make me feel so good” I closed my eyes spreading my legs wider as i slipped in 2 fingers.

“I need you inside me baby” I moaned as both of my fingers are inside me, I started to grip and squeezing my left boob leaning my head back and my speed went faster and faster seeing the look in his eyes, he was ready for me to stop but I just couldn’t stop. He grabs my legs and pulls me closer to his stomach, he grabs my hand and removed my fingers from myself and he grabs his dick and slaps it back and forth on my clit and me just watching it just makes me feels so good. Until it didn’t take him long to slip his tip in slowly watching my mouth opens getting wider and wider and my eyes rolled to the back of my head. “You like that?” He chuckled as he kept teasing me, until he fully puts his dick inside of me.

“Oh fuckkkk, it’s so good” I moaned gripping his arm as he puts it on my stomach feeling himself in me. “You’re so sexy, just looking at me fucking your nice body” he makes eye contact with me while fucking me roughly. Soobin licks his thumb and starts rubbing my clit harshly, I bit my lip and moaned as he speed went faster to at the point I was gonna cum. “Soobin im gonna cum” i squealed out digging my nails in his skin making him wince in pain. “Ah shit, me too” he says biting his lip continuously rubbing my clit going faster and faster until we both cummed at the same time. I moaned as he grips my neck again and forces me to look at him as he nutted inside of me, he still strokes himself into me harder hearing our skin clapping against each other and our moans is in sync, I wrapped my arm around his neck staring at his sexy red face drenched in sweat and his hair is wet.

He gets up from off me and pulls out seeing his cum dripping out my pussy, he put his thumb on my pussy swiping his cum off and shoving his thumb in my mouth tasting his sweet/ salty cum. I sucked on his thumb cleaning his cum off and let go. “Good girl” he says slapping his tip on my face. I giggled as I sat up and got on my knees jerking him off before I shoved his lengthy veiny dick in my mouth, I started sucking his dick like there was no tomorrow, I look into his face seeing his face scrunched up and balled his fist up, whimpering and moaning my name.

“Y/nnn fuckkkkk” soobin moans as I slurped, sucked, spit and gargled all over the base of his fat dick that’s in my mouth. “Mommy please, please don’t stop pleaseeeee” he whimpers and beg for more, I hollowed my cheeks going slower and slower once again staring in his soul as it’s being taken away. “Oh- mgh- m-mommy” he moves my hair from out my face looking down on me sucking his dick slowly and slowly. I look up at his face once again seeing his face scrunched up moaning and putting his grip into my hair , in my pov it looks like he’s in terrible pain but I just kept sucking and sucking It didn’t take him that long enough to start shooting his cum down my throat, he forces my head further and further until his dick was fully stuffed in my mouth, i hear him moan a few times until he lets go of my head and i removed his dick from my mouth letting all the spit yarn out on his dick , he grips on my hair forcing my head to look up in his eyes and started nutting all over my face.

“Oh my god- mgh- fuckkkk” he says softly as more of his cum shoots on my face and his breath hitches each time. My eyes closed because of course I don’t want his kids swimming in my eyes plus it gotta burns. I finally opened my eyes seeing his cum leaking from his tip, I licked and sucked his tip for a little while and slapped his tip on my tongue a few times. I giggled and gotten up from my knees facing Soobin as he tall figured body hovered over me. He slides his big large veiny hands down on my waist and back rubbing it up and down and kisses me once again. He lets go from the kiss smiling at me as his dimples popped out more. I smiled at him before grabbing his hand leading us into my bathroom turning the shower on as we both got in and took a shower with each other then fell asleep in my bed.

[itstokkii]

A question about your two homelands: South Korea and Uzbekistan

How do you imagine their relationship? Do they know each other? What's others from central asian family relationship with Yong Soo?

teehee(ugly giggling noise)

their relationship is pretty good! recently uzb ordered a railroad system from korea, which is the first time a country purchased a railroad system from korea !! she's truly a trailblazer... mostly, given the economic status of uzb and korea, uzb benefits most from korea rather than the other way around.

the first step in uzbek-korean relations was from the late 90s to the 2000s. during this time, k-dramas first aired in uzbekistan, and the first uzbeks moved to korea mainly in the form of university students studying tech and science(and of which my dad was one of the first to do so lol). so the community was small, but tight.

some of these students would go back to uzbekistan and talk about how developed and nice it was, fueling more interest in korea. some would bring their families/spouses to korea(my dad brought my mom to korea lol), and some would even begin to export uzbek goods to korea(a family friend of ours did this with uzbek melons!! I miss them they were so delish..).

nowadays, the community is gigantic, and uzbeks are the 5th most biggest foreigner group in korea as of 2023. more korean restaurants and products are being introduced in uzbekistan(halal 신라��...what a dream...), though mainly in tashkent.

speaking of tashkent, there's a seoul park since tashkent and seoul are sister cities!! it was made in 2014. however, i don't live in tashkent nor do I have immediate family that does, so i've literally never been around tashkent except for the airport...

another big factor in uzbek-korean relations are the ethnic Koreans(고려사람) that live in uzbekistan. after china and america, uzbekistan has the 3rd largest ethnic korean population at approximately 174000. this was because koreans that immigrated to russia from the late 19th century to early 20th century were forcefully deported to central asia by stalin, accusing them of being japanese spies. since uzbekistan's landlocked with a slightly different climate and crops, they tried their best to mimic korean foods such as kimchi and japchae. uzbeks took note of this and began to eat it as well, as salads called morkovcha and funchoza. morkovcha's actually a popular topping on hotdogs in uzbekistan, which is kinda funny lol

I can see yongsoo taking her around korea to see all sorts of things. they rent hanbok and toured around gyeongbokgung, have a picnic at the han river, and when she feels homesick he takes her to an uzbek restaurant. the first time this happened she probably cried.

they also go cafe hopping, and it's one of her favorite things to do in seoul because of the diverse cafe scene in hongdae and seongsu.

he's one of the people she trusts with taking photos of her the most. he knows what kinds of poses fit the ambiance and vibe, and always angles the camera right. she proudly posts those photos on social media.

watching kdramas is a must!! she probably swoons for a lot of the male love interests lol, and fangirled a bit too hard at gong yoo when she watched goblin. she's glad there's less...intimate scenes compared to a certain other person's dramas...

due to frequent exchange and the sheer number of uzbeks in korea, uzbekistan knows more than enough korean to get around.

yongsoo always takes her to clothing stores and tries finding her pieces that would match her style. she trusts him immensely with this.

bro also gives her love advice lol. what can I say, he's a 2000 year old man trapped in a 20 year old's body. he's got both experience and charm! whether she takes his advice or disregards it is up to her...

he also has other advice regarding an outlook on life, and staying optimistic. he reminds her never to give up on her country and people, since even his war-torn country rose with the power of its people working hard in order to become the success it was today.

other casian countries' relationships speed round!!

kazakhstan: kazakhstan has CU stores, a korean convenience store chain. my kazakh friend showed me how the kazakh chains even have vanilla flavored milk, which is something we don't have here. however as far as im aware, the CU stores are mostly in metropolitan areas. kazakhstan also has an ethnic korean population! there's also more korean companies investing in kazakhstan since they're more developed.

Kyrgyzstan: I couldn't find much, but Kyrgyzstan does have a sizable ethnic korean population also

Tajikistan and turkmenistan: nothing really notable...T^T

in short, korea's known uzbekistan for longer and equally interacts with uzbekistan and kazakhstan!

[clatoera]

Always Remember We're Burned For Better Chapter 20: We Will Never Go Back to That Bloodshed

Well everyone...we made it. It has taken nearly nine months but here we are. We are at the end of ARWBFB (save for the Epilogue). This has been one of my biggest undertakings and I am so so so proud of it. You guys have followed me through two board exams, applications, and so so so many different speciality rotations during this journey. You have been incredibly patient but also incredibly supportive. I NEVER could have finished it without you guys. I wanted to get this up sooner or at least on the 13th. I failed at both of those, but I hope you will understand when you see that this chapter is the longest by a significant amount. I am so proud of this fic, and I hope you all decide that it was worth giving your time to sharing with me.

The chapter title comes from The Great War. A fun fact would be that this line actually loops back to "we will never go back to that bloodshed, crimson clover" with Crimson Clover being the title of chapter one. It's come full circle (save for the epilogue).

This chapter is designed like Chapter 4 was. Each segment is divided by a lyric that encapsulates the vibes. It is not as happy, but it is the start of happily ever after.

AO3

Masterpost

As always..this is for everyone who has helped me and loved me and supported this story. I cannot even tag everyone but I will try. A LARGE portion of this goes to @ohhowwehavefallen who has talked about MOST things that happen in this chapter with me in depth and has enabled me (VSC immortalized forever with this one, so is Cato buying the academy). @kentwells who actually helped me make major decisions regarding the sequel, which affected the way Marvel and Glimmer ended here. Thank you for putting up with me. @dukeysquid and @mackcoleslaw for the constant constant support. @clarascrabarmy who talks me off the ledge and is my go to night reader (and night validator that im crazy). @mollywog who has tolerated this fic for 9 months. @crookedlyniceperson who comes in with the memes EVERY single time. @cyansadnessI dont even get to talk to you much any more but you were an OG reader and I am giving you kisses for your love. There are so many more who I am afraid I may have missed (and I know I have missed) but i'm emotional and hormonal and crying as I type this.

This is, and always has been, for you guys who have given me your support and love. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I never would have finished without the love and support of every single person who has read this.

Thank you.

How evergreen, our group of friends

The kitchen, despite the literal war that had raged on outside in District One, was quite literally untouched. Untouched, as in, no one had ever used it even prior to the games or the war that should have resolved the house itself to rubble. 

They had quickly discovered that despite varying levels of damage to the districts, the Victors Villages were left nearly untouched. Call it symbolism, call it fate, call it making a point, but this was not a fact any of the surviving victors were going to debate or question. 

For now they were all just going to be thankful to even have a place to live, especially one that wasn’t an underground bunker in a district that resented them. 

It’s Clove, who is opening and shutting every single cabinet in the bright white kitchen. The golden handles and marble countertops are pristine– perfect and completely new. Every drawer is completely stocked with spices and the same sorts of things her own home had come with, but it is evident that these cabinets had remained untouched from their initial stocking. There was no dusting of cinnamon around the pores of the bottle, no slight film of salt from pouring over a steaming pot. They were still perfectly alphabetized, perfectly aligned in the spice drawer, as if the kitchen itself was taken right out of a capitol home decor magazine. 

Funnily enough, though the kitchen was clearly new, it was so…Glimmer. Or at least the Glimmer she had been forced to become.  

Gorgeous white marble countertops, shimmering golden metal for every door handle and knob on every drawer. The utensils were a beautiful gold, and even the appliances were designed to blend right in with the shining and glamorous surroundings. 

In one drawer, she found incredibly sharp knives with mother of pearl handles, in another were soft baby pink pans. It was very much designed for the fifteen year old teenage girl who had won the house as part of her victor’s spoils.

Somehow, even without the Capitol’s influence, Clove still believes Glimmer would have turned out a golden, pink-loving girl. Or at least, it’s comforting to imagine it that way. 

Clove curls her fingers around the shimmering handle of one of the paring knives, bringing it to eye level to inspect it. The blade is alarmingly sharp for one designed to dice vegetables or carve into fruits, further supporting Clove’s suspicion that it had never been used prior to well, right now. She weighs it in her hand, feeling the way it settles in her palm. Her other hand comes to run over the couple of inches of metal, evaluating the quality. It was top of the line in terms of cooking, of course, nothing but the best for any victor, but it may even serve well in terms of slicing through-

She drops the knife, flinching only a little at the realization of how the metal colliding with the marble will dull the beautiful little blade. It startles her, not the sound of the metal on rock, no that any District Two girl could sleep through like a lullaby, but by the harsh realization of her own thoughts. She would likely never slice through anything but food again, there would be no more blood spitting on her from pulsing arteries, no more tendons severed. 

Clove would probably never kill anyone else ever again. The thought is both disconcerting and comforting, leaving Clove alarmed and settled.

“Are you okay?” A soft, sleepy voice asks from around the entrance to the kitchen. When Clove looks up she sees Glimmer, rubbing at her eyes with her long cream colored sleeves. She shuffles into the kitchen in fluffy white slippers, a sweater that reaches halfway down her legs, and exceptionally messy loose braids that tell Clove that yeah she probably did just wake up.

“Good morning, Princess.” Clove scoffs, gently grabbing the dropped knife and twisting it nimbly between her fingers. “It’s four in the afternoon, Glimmer. Did you have a busy night?” 

“I was with Cash and Gloss all night, we’re trying to figure out what to do about our parents.” Glimmer sits herself at the island continuing to rub at her eye with the heel of her hand, exhaustion written all across her pretty face. “I didn’t come back until this morning.” 

Clove flinches at her own insensitivity– while she was well used to being, well, alone. An orphan. On her own. Whatever, it was..new for the others. Cato’s family was still in the wind, but Glimmer and her siblings, as well as Marvel, were new to the world of being parentless. “God, Glimmer, I’m sorry–”

At least Glimmer had Cashmere and Gloss, the same could not be said for Marvel, who was the only surviving member of his entire family. Clove could easily relate to that, because even if anyone survived, they were dead to her long ago. 

Glimmer just nods her head, acknowledging but not verbally accepting the apology her friend offers. 

Nothing had been necessarily right between the four of them since the vote. Cato and Clove, they were perfectly fine, of course. Marvel however had lost any progress he had made with Glimmer, and Cato nor Clove had yet to fully return to her good graces. It wasn’t even like any of them could blame her for being mad. She had been right. 

“Thanks for letting us stay with you.” She decides, instead filling the space between them with gentle words of appreciation. “Like..literally in your house with you.”

“You don’t have to thank me, you know that.. It’s nice not to be alone.” Glimmer sighs, resting her chin on her hand and looking across the island to Clove, who is still twisting a knife in her hand. “I don’t know if i’m quite ready to be alone yet.”

They weren’t necessarily far from anyone. Marvel spent the days over here with them, Brutus was in one of the empty houses, Cash and Gloss each in their own and then Enobaria was– “Is Enobaria staying across the street in the empty one or down the road–”

Glimmer cocks an eyebrow, the littlest smirk making an appearance on her face. “She’s staying with my sister.”

“Oh!” Clove looks nearly taken aback as she opens another drawer, absently sorting through the perfect, unused cutting boards and kitchen aids to distract herself from the awkward tension between her and her host. “I didn’t know they were even friends.”

“Girl..” Glimmer giggles, leaning in closer on the island, nearly pressing her upper body into the marble. “You know Enobaria and Cashmere are..” She makes a gesture with her middle and pointer finger that Clove can’t interpret, and the confused look on her freckled face must convey that to the blonde girl.  “Right?”

“I don’t know what that means.” 

“Do I need to spell it out for you, Clove? They’re fucking. They’re a thing.”

“What! No, I mean just because they’re staying together doesn’t mean–” The heat in Clove’s cheeks at the realization leaves her flustered, and flustered is not a look Clove wears well. 

“Well that's what everyone thinks about the four of us.” Glimmer teases, before bringing her hand out infront of her to inspect the remnants of her nails. “Seriously. They’ve been a thing for like…god Cash won sixty-four? So… ten…ish years? Probably? I dunno. But it’s not a secret. I’m shocked you couldn’t tell.”

“Well I didn’t see them together much, okay? And noone thinks that the four of us are all fucking, Glimmer. That’s crazy Capitol type shit.” Clove defends, desperately looking through the drawers for a change of topic. Maybe she could understand why Enobaria got so irritated when ever she and Cato got caught–

Yep. Okay. Makes sense!

“Sure they don’t Clove, you don’t see the looks people give us?”

Clove digs through the drawers, finding the still boxed mixer and the perfect white plates, nothing seeming even a little out of place. She is flustered and the heat in her neck and face won’t even allow her to respond to such comments. 

“For fucks sake, Glimmer, have you used anything in this kitchen.”

“Drawer closest to the refrigerator has two little plates and two forks. We used to …uh…we would eat a lot of cake.” Glimmer finds herself grabbing at the skin around her nail with her teeth, tugging at the cuticles until they ripped off. She couldn’t resist the urge to constantly be picking at and degrading something about her body, and right now her nails were all she had access to.  “Other than that, not really.”

“How did you survive, Glimmer? Seriously?” Clove rests a hand on the back of her hip, strumming along the top of her hip while also trying to massage out some of the pain of her lower back that never seemed to go away. 

“Well, everything I ate was precooked and preweighed, I had to keep a certain look you know?” Glimmer shrugs, kicking her feet just a little at the height of the chair, twisting just ever so slightly to keep herself comfortable. ��I wasn’t really allowed to go beyond that. Cooking was never important.”

“You’re gonna have to learn to make something Glimmer, especially if you ever have kids–” Clove teases, but the biting response of Glimmer wipes the smile right off of her face. 

“I told you in the Capitol I'm not doing that. I’m never doing that. I don’t want to.” Glimmer snaps before she pushes herself out of the chair so she can make a quick escape if the conversation goes any further south. 

“You used to, I’m sorry, Glimmer. That's who I knew you as. The girl who wanted to settle into her life and be someone’s mother. And for what it’s worth, Glim Glam, I think you’d have been good at it.” Clove puts a hand up in defense, before she awkwardly goes back to going through the remaining cabinets, stopping prior to the refrigerator and pantry.

 She pauses, and turns to face her friend. She gives a heavy sigh, bracing herself on the counter behind her, when she begins.

 “I’m sorry. I am. About the vote. You were right, and as soon as you pulled me into that room– I knew you were right. About his sister and about our friends’ kids and everything. I just wanted to feel like some wrong was made right, Glimmer. It wasn’t going to be me back in the games, and I wanted them to feel what it was like. But then you mentioned Cora, and god knows if she’s alive, but if she is she couldn’t ever go to the games. Or Finnick’s kids, or yours or– I don’t know. All of a sudden it wasn’t just like..nameless kid tributes. It was people we knew. It was kids we knew. It was little girls who looked like you and little red heads in four and! It was kids we love or will love and– you were right. And I’m sorry.”

There is a stunned silence for a few seconds that feels like years to Clove, as Glimmer looks at her with the look of a doe caught in the lights of a car. 

“....thank you.” Glimmer whispers in response, but something palpable has finally shifted between them. Whatever permafrost had threatened to take hold on the boundaries of their friendship started to melt away in that moment. Maybe not a heat wave, but a start. “I…thank you, Clove.”

Clove gives Glimmer another once over as they stand staring at each other. The months of this war had taken a toll on Clove of course, evidenced by the aches in her body and the scars along her skin. Her scars would fade, as her bruises had, and even the pain isn’t visible. On the outside Clove still looked almost exactly like she always had. 

On Glimmer though, the changes were blatant. The golden glow of her skin was long gone, replaced by pale, nearly gray undertones. That long platinum hair was longer than ever, but now revealed multiple inches of a honey blonde natural color that had been hidden since before she even won the games. Even the actual structure of her face and body had changed. Any capitol enhancement had long since grown out or metabolized away, leaving Glimmer with deep collar bones and sinking skin on her cheeks. 

She looked exhausted but she also looked starved. She looked sick. 

“Glimmer…you look hungry.” Clove gives her a look that must be riddled with pity, for the blonde looks away and at her hands instead. “Will you please let me make you something? I know there probably isn’t much in here but I can send the boys out…” B

Before Glimmer can argue or decline, Clove swings the door open to what she expected to be a barren refrigerator and is taken back by the fully stocked fridge that awaits her. 

Well. Full. And Stocked. Maybe not with actual kitchen staples or ingredients for meals, but definitely full. 

“What in the fuck–”

“Marvel does that sometimes. And Cato’s been talking nonstop about your cooking for literal months. They went yesterday, I think. I..don’t think either of them knew what they were doing but they’ve got the spirit. They mean well.,” Glimmer explains, not bothering to put up a fight with Clove and deny her this opportunity. Even if she didn’t eat it– Cato and Marvel sure fucking would.  This was their new Hunger Games.

“Good intentions…that's why there’s seventeen tomatoes?” Clove raises an eyebrow, the ghost of a smile gracing her face as she surveys the fridge. Sure it was a little..odd.. Seventeen tomatoes, three bags of flour, at least fifty eggs, a dozen heads of garlic… odd but good intentioned nonetheless. “I’m going to guess they wanted pasta?”

“That sounds right. I think I heard Cato saying something about that, but they lost me when I heard them trying to remember if onions and garlic are the same thing.” Glimmer shrugs, but finds herself going back to sit at the island, no longer on the verge of running out of the kitchen at any moment. 

Clove starts grabbing armfuls of the tomatoes to transfer them to the countertop, feeling the soft flesh of one under her fingertips. She probably wouldn’t even need the chef’s knife, but damn if she wasn’t going to take the opportunity to use it. “Do you have a big- you know what, nevermind.”  

She decides against asking for a stock pot, knowing fully well Glimmer would have no idea what she was talking about. Instead, she rummages through the cabinets until she does in fact find a blush pink soup pot practically bigger than Clove herself.  She immediately sets herself to gently slicing the skin off of the tomatoes, delighting in the way the acidic juice dripped down over her fingers.

“You should give him a chance, Glimmer, he’s a good guy.” Clove suggests, tossing each individual skinned tomato into the giant pink pot one at a time. 

“I’m not the one not interested, Clove, you know that.” Glimmer reminds her bitterly, reaching forward to attempt to grab a tomato, dropping it when the acid in the juice burns the raw skin around her nails. “He doesn’t want me.”

“Now that isn’t true and you know it. You two seemed fine and then the vote happened and you shut him down again.” Clove points out, turning to the cabinet behind her to grab her selection of the endless array of unused spices. “Which, I get it, you were hurt–”

“He can’t just make my trauma a personal vendetta, Clove. He can’t advocate for slaughtering babies in an arena under the name of defending me and the things that happened to me.” Glimmer hops off the chair once again, this time letting herself scope out the refrigerator and whatever the hell the boys had come up with to fill it with. 

“It happened to him, too, Glimmer. Maybe not as much as it did to you. But it happened to him, too.” Clove collects salt and sugar and various other jars of spices she currently can’t name but knows for some reason she needs to add them. “Glim. Sometimes we care more about avenging the people we love, rather than actually doing what's right. The things that are done to people you love..sometimes that's just worse.” 

“You don’t know what it’s like, Clove. To be seen as the girl who fucks everyone. Whether I wanted to or not. And trust me, I didn’t want to. And no matter how hard I try, for the rest of my life, that is how everyone is going to see me. Do you know what the best part of all this is, Clove? That I never have to be seen in public ever again.” She filters through the fruit– half a dozen containers of strawberries, a single mango, an entire box of blueberries– before letting herself grab a single blueberry for a snack. 

“We don’t see you that way, you know? Not me, not Cato, and god Glimmer you know Marvel doesn’t either.”  Clove assures, using the palm of her hand to measure out the various herbs and spices she’s tossing in. There’s no recipe– she’s just doing what feels right. Such is the theme for all aspects of their lives right now.  “And you never have to do that again. Hell, never have sex again at all for all I care, obviously I do but–”

“Yeah, Clove, I know. We share a wall. The wall your bed is on.” 

“Oh! Right! Well.. anyway!” Clove fakes a grimace and mouths ‘sorry’ before she places a lid on her creation. “Come on. Let's go find the boys, then I'll show you how to make the pasta.”

“I think they’re laying in the yard.” Glimmer waves off, before grabbing another handful of berries to pop into her mouth.

“They’re…laying in the yard?” Clove raises a dark eyebrow, confusion mapped across her face. “Are they dogs?”

“Something about missing grass and fresh air in Thirteen, I don’t know, I could hear them through the window.” Glimmer shakes her head, but stands in the doorway of the refrigerator. “Do you need anything out of here?”

“They’re fucking weird.” Clove clears off a workspace to knead and roll out the pasta, recognizing that this is probably the first time these counters have been used for anything ever. “uh yeah I need eggs and flour… Honestly, I usually make Cato come do this part because I like to watch his hands knead the dough but…let them…become one with nature or whatever they’re out there doing.”

“Why do you need flowers in noodles? I didn’t think you could eat those?” Glimmer cocks her head, holding out the cardboard carton of a dozen eggs to her, but pausing with a perplexed look on her face as she searches the refrigerator for a bouquet of some sort. “I can go check the garden–”

“What? No Glimmer, Flour not flowers.” Clove wipes her hands on the side of her shirt– Cato’s shirt, actually–, and comes next to her friend to point at the various bags on the bottom shelf. “It’s like..it’s white powder, I can’t explain it. It makes bread. Noodles. Cookies… pizza. It makes all the good stuff you probably don’t eat. But we are going to change that.” 

There are a few moments of  silence, as Clove measures things. It’s nearly peaceful, with the only sounds coming from the dough being flopping and kneaded into the marble. 

Silent, that is, until Glimmer finally breaks. 

“Thank you for staying with me.” Glimmer manages to get out, when tears Clove didn’t even know were coming just start pouring out of her friend. “I-i’m going to be alone for the rest of my life, I don’t want to be alone yet.”

Clove pauses her hand folding, brushing her flour covered hands on her shirt before she rests her elbows on the counter, leaning in to truly hear her friend. “Glimmer, you aren’t going to be alone forever.”

“But I am! Yeah, Cash and Gloss are here but..they aren’t here. My parents are gone. You and Cato are going to go home, I don’t want to be alone yet.” Glimmer sobs, furiously wiping at her eyes with her sleeves, Mascara from god knows when smearing along them. “Noone wants a girl that everyone has had, at least not for more than a night, Clove! I’m alone and when i’m alone I just..I swear it’s like someone’s going to come in and they’re going to touch me and they’re going to hurt me and–”

“You’re scared.” Clove realizes, and her heart completely and utterly shatters for the girl. She sees her not as the twenty something girl in front of her, but instead a scared fifteen year old victor she never got to grow out of being. “It’s okay to be scared, but no one's going to hurt you anymore.” She nearly reaches for her hand, she nearly reaches to do anything to comfort her, but something tells her that sudden touch is the furthest thing from what Glimmer needs right now. 

“Someone is always ready to hurt me, Clove. It’s all anyone wants out of me. Noone wants me but they all want me. I just think about all the things they’ve done to me, Clove. How many times they’ve shot me up with something or gave me a handful of pills and just told me to swallow them. Who knows what they’ve done to me…” Glimmer cries, hot tears tracking down her face and onto the fabric of her sleeves. They speckle her sweater, soaking into the cream colored fabric and turning it dark. The levee has broken within Glimmer, and the rushing waves of grief cannot be stopped. “When I won..my sister and brother used to sleep down here. So when I wake up screaming they could come up to me. And then in the Capitol I was NEVER alone and as soon as I was…Cash would come in. She’d hold me, tell me how sorry she was that she let me become a victor, that she didn’t stop me from trying to go to the games. And then, god, once I had Marvel, he practically moved in and he slept me and I actually felt safe. I could sleep. Even back when we were just friends…he’d let me sleep in his room in the Capitol, he was never touchy or pushy or anything. He just let me sleep and sometimes he’d hold me and it was the best sleep I had since I won.”  Glimmer wipes at the tears  again, ignoring how messy she had to look right now. It was her own kitchen and really what did she have left to lose? Glimmer rambles on,  “And you two are here and so I try to sleep and it isnt working as well as it used to and in thirteen I was so afraid every time I heard someone was in the hall that they were going to come in and —“

“When was the last time you slept, Glimmer? Actually slept?” Clove eases, sliding her a dish towel to use to clear the tears from her eyes. “You have to be exhausted.”

“Probably the games, funny enough. Weird that I felt safe enough there but- it is what it is. I tried in Thirteen! And here! it’s just…I can still feel their hands on my skin a-and feel them breathing on my neck and hear their voices and the sound of their feet coming to get me. If I fall asleep they’re there taunting me and grabbing me and-and-and!“ Glimmer  continues to recount her nightmares and real life horrors, her breath catching in her throat and coming out in heaving, panicked, desperate gasps. “I just don’t see what the point of all this was. I don’t have anyone and I’m terrified in my own house and my parents are gone and what did I survive it all for if I’m going to be alone?” 

“You aren’t going to be alone. You aren’t, and you can stay with someone or something but, God Glimmer. Out of all of us, all of the things we have gone through, you Glimmer deserve a happy ending. You deserve to feel safe and loved and god, Glimmer, you deserve to be happy.” Clove finally grabs at her arm, gently squeezing her forearm. “You are safe, Glimmer. And no one gets to hurt you ever again. I promise, Glimmer. You are going to be happy.”

Glimmer…does not learn how to make pasta that day. 

Ten minutes of egg and flour stuck to her fingers is enough to send her back to the verge of tears and back to a safe distance away where she instead watches only. 

Once the dough is chilling and the sauce is stewing, they retreat to the living area, sprawled out on the baby pink couches. 

They sit in comfortable silence while the sauce cooks, Glimmer curled up on the foot of the couch, Clove outstretched on the other end with a book of District One history spread out in her lap. 

It’s peaceful. Comfortable. Safe. 

When Clove notices the Glimmer has fallen asleep, she grabs the fur  throw blanket from the back of the couch and tosses it over her friend. Never in her life had she planned to care for some random victor girl from District One, with enough trauma and abuse in her short life for all of them combined, but here she was. War, she supposed, changed the way you see the world. 

She doesn’t even need to call the boys in for dinner like a mother calling for her kids to come in at sundown, because like the bloodhounds men tend to be, they all but run through the glass back door like the children they never got to be once the smell of dinner reaches the outdoors. 

“Clove? Clove, are you cooking? Do I smell food?” Marvel slips in the door first, literally just edging Cato out to get in before him. “Holy mother of god, that's food. I can SMELL the spice, there's salt in it isn’t there. You’re a fucking saint.”

“You’re a moron.” Cato rolls his eyes, but pushes Marvel out of the way just so he can beat him to the island. “…there is salt and stuff right?”

“You’re also a moron.” It’s Clove’s turn to roll her eyes instead, as she fishes a single pasta noodle out of the water to try it. “If i remember correctly you did talk about my cooking every day for weeks…”

“Months.” Glimmer chimes in as she makes her appearance. It’s only been a couple of hours since she fell asleep on the couch but even the brief nap has her looking noticeably better and more rested. “Every day for months.”

Clove catches Glimmer (but not Cato) off guard with how fast she moves when she reaches out to grab Marvel’s wrist as he goes to dip a spoon into the sauce. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Clove, I'm serious,this is the best moment I've had in months, let me have this. I need something good in my life.” Marvel half pleads, and the tired tone in his voice paired with the exhaustion behind his eyes is all that it takes before Clove is releasing his wrist and turning away. 

“Do NOT go in twice, I will cut off your fingers.” She threatens and has to nearly slap Cato’s fingers away from the pasta noodles where they are cooling. “You two are like fucking children.”

“Oh my god.” Comes from Marvel, but it sounds somewhere between a cry and a gasp. “Clove this is the best thing i’ve had-maybe ever. Maybe that's the war trauma but-” Ignoring her threats he risks it for another dip, and then steps immediately a few steps out of her reach. “Can you stay here? Seriously, can we keep you? Cato you can stay too, if that helps.” 

Marvel slides to the other side of the island, safely out of reach of all three of them as he debates just dipping a coffee cup and drinking the sauce. “For fucks sake, Cato, kiss her. Or Glimmer, you do it. I don’t care. One of you..just..appreciate her.”

“I’ll still kill you.” Cato warns, but he is slightly distracted by the handfuls of fresh pasta he is dropping into his mouth. “Clove is very appreciated, thank you very themuch.”

“.....are you crying?” Glimmer leans onto the counter, propping her chin in her hand as she outright smirks at her once boyfriend. There's the spark of light behind her eyes that Snow had snuffed out long ago starting to glow just a little again. 

“No!” Marvel defends himself indignantly, but they all hear the sniffle and the stifled“......maybe a little.”

I can go anywhere I want, anywhere I want just not home

Two months after their initial arrival in One, at the end of the second great war, after months of Clove feeding them, many tears from Glimmer at their goodbye, and promises of continued communication under the new mechanisms and options– phones communications, along with travel between districts, were allowed once again– Clove, Cato, Brutus, and Enobaria were on their train home. 

Maybe it was irony, or maybe it was fate, but they take the incredibly short trip home on the same train they had come to the Capitol on in their prior games. Neither had ever noticed how the high speed trains went from One to Two in under half an hour, but then again, why would they have paid attention when they were young invincible victors with the entire world at their fingertips?

Still, even a twenty seven minute train ride feels like absolute eternity when you do not know what waits for you on the other end. 

She is sitting as she always has on these trips– curled up with her back against his chest, settled between his legs, head resting on his shoulder. Her fingers snake up to where his arm is resting on the back of the couch, and she laces her fingers in with his. 

Clove sighs as her eyes flutter shut, choosing not to watch the passage of destroyed buildings, burned farms, and mass civilian graves.  There was a time in her life where no amount of bloodshed or the loss of life made her bat an eye— it was what they were trained for— but now…something about it made her stomach turn. 

“It doesn’t feel like we’re going home.” Cato mumbles into the crown of her head, sliding his other hand firmly around her waist and holding her tighter to him. “It doesn’t feel like we even have one.”

“I don’t think we do.” Clove twists in his arms just a little so that she can see his face and languidly brings her free hand up to graze along his jawline. “I mean, we have a house, but I don’t think anyone will want to see us. Exiled to Victor’s Village ..” Her nails scratch along the planes of his skin gently, as she cranes her neck back to really look at him. 

She has spent over half of her life looking at him, learning with him, and ultimately the last six loving him. Looking at him now, though, it’s almost like seeing him through new eyes. 

Scars that the capitol would never take from him along his arms from retraining, golden blonde hair that had grown out enough it reached nearly to his eyelashes, the brightest sky blue eyes that harbored exhaustion far beyond that of a twenty one year old man. 

And yet. It almost felt new to look at this man right now, in the same position on the same train they had been in time and time again. 

It was new to see him in a world without The Hunger Games. 

In a world where they would not wake up day to day to train the next class of tribute children, a world where they would not mentor victor and victor to parade home with pride to their district. A world where they would not raise their own children to volunteer for the games, where they would sacrifice them with a smile on their faces for the glory of being the parents of their own victor child, or pretend it did not shatter them to lose that same glorified baby to the games because they wouldn’t want to raise anything less than ideal little victors. 

There was a version of them, somewhere, that dedicates the rest of their lives to the Hunger Games. 

This is not that version of them. Not anymore. 

Maybe it is because she knows what the life of a victor truly holds now. She learned in the confessions of Finnick, in the strangled screams of Glimmer in the middle of the night. She learned in the stories of Johanna, in the depravity of Haymitch. She learned in the desperation of Katniss, the destruction of Peeta. She learned of it in the loss of her mother. 

She learns of a different life of a Victor, now. In the disapproving, but secretly adoring, looks from Enobaria when Cato carries her across a room. In the appreciative murmurs of Brutus, when he has pancakes with chocolate chips before him. In the updates on Annie’s growing family, in Marvel’s silly, stupid, but nonetheless endearing jokes. 

Above all else she learns of it in the love of Cato, who saw her at the lowest shell of herself, and loved her even still. 

Cato raises an eyebrow at her, shaking her just a little. “You’re thinking of something.” It’s his turn to bring a hand to her face, unwinding from her waist so he can tilt her chin up to meet his eyes more properly. “The corners of your lips twitch when you’re thinking too hard.”

Clove smiles gently, allowing the corners of her mouth to come to a soft grin. “I was just thinking about the last time we were on this particular train. On our way to the Quell. I didn’t think we’d be on our way back like this.”

“I also thought we were only leaving that arena in pine boxes. I didn’t think I’d be coming home. I never thought we’d come home together alive. ”  He nods, looking past her rather than at her as he recollects the feelings and emotions of that day, leaving their district for what they expected to be the last time. Their days were numbered, or so they had every reason to believe. 

For the first time, maybe in the entirety of their short lives, that was no longer the case. 

Clove stretches both her arms out to wrap them behind his neck, relaxing fully and truly into his arms. “Is it crazy to say it feels like we won?”

The station is barren and silent when the train stops. There is no great crowd to welcome home the newest victor this time, no officials to celebrate them. 

And yet, when the four of them are back on the train platform,  surrounded by the rubble of what was once the greatest district in the country, there has never been a sweeter homecoming. 

My house of stone, your ivy grows, and now i’m covered in you

The walk home is harrowing. Two months of cleanup had barely touched the majority of the evidence of the violence, especially along the bases of the mountain, where the various villages had to stack their dead. Slowly but surely they had been transported back to their towns to properly be buried under the traditions of each of the different villages.

That, of course, was just for the bodies that had even been recovered. 

Nearly half of District Two’s population was unaccounted for, and reconstruction efforts had only barely begun to move the piles of rocks that represent the rubble of what was once towering buildings and neighborhoods full of homes. 

The true carnage of the war, the gravity of the loss in this district alone was yet to be understood and tallied. Cato cannot say a word on the walk home, as every time he thinks about the bodies of his parents and sister rotting away under the ash of two, his throat feels like it is going to close on him. Clove by extension says nothing either, only threading her arm around his, holding that same arm with her other hand. There are no words to negate the pain of loss, to ease the ache of the unknown. 

The gate to Victor’s Village is somehow perfectly intact, and from what they can see beyond, so are the pristine lines of ornate houses. A layer of ash covers the ground like fallen snow, and the air feels unseasonably cold up here. It is as if the ghosts of the victors, the families, all of the dead haunt these gates, encasing them in a blanket of melancholy as a reminder that they are the survivors yet again. 

The chill especially wraps around Clove, sending an ache deep to her joints, a reminder that while she is a survivor, she was a victim, too. They have survived but they do not come home unscathed, they do not come home the victors they left as. 

There are lights on in the two houses across the street from their own, and the reminder of life of their mentors is one of the only calming thoughts they can cling to.The rest of the houses sit empty, stale air circulating through them with no victors left to call them home. There is no evidence that there was once life in these houses, no shoes on the porch, no watering cans in the yards. Just like that what was once the fullest victors village has become a ghost town. 

The decision to come back had not been an easy one. District One was in a far better condition, and frankly, none of them were quite ready for life on their own after so much time relying on each other for company and sanity during the war. They didn’t even really have motivation to come back– what did they have waiting behind for them. Eventually the announcement came – much to the dismay of many many many citizens– that the surviving Victors would continue to receive monthly stipends (albeit not near as much as pre-war days) as reparation for the torture and violence inflicted on them at the hands of the prior government  ever since their victory. It made it easier to know that upon their return they weren’t going to have to assimilate into societal roles (and for Glimmer, the real relief came that she would never have to work in retail in one). 

Ultimately, the decision to come back was their own. This place, despite the horrors, the violence, the brutality…it was their home. Maybe it was those things that made it home. 

They stand in the charred grass at the very edge of their yard, Clove with her head resting against his body, Cato running his hand over her arm in an attempt to warm her body to ward off the ghosts of pain that the cold brings on. He rests his head on top of hers as they look at the grandiosity of the home they left behind, still frozen in time, as a relic of the time they were eighteen and in love, feeling invincible. 

“Hey…babe?” Cato wrinkles his brows together, lifting his head from atop hers. “Do you have a key?”

Well of course they didn’t have a key– it wasn’t like they had considered leaving one under the doormat on their way to their certain deaths. 

“Fuck.” Clove laughs against his arm, burying her face in the dark wool of his coat. Her laugh is contagious to him, and he’s shaking his head with a laugh not too long after her. Out of all the obstacles that should have kept them from ever crossing the threshold of their home again, they had not thought to anticipate a key being one. 

She flashes him a playful smirk, raising her eyebrows teasingly. “Are we going to break into our own house?”

Sure, Cato could probably just go through the front door. Of course with the current state of Two, that door would not be replaced because a couple of kids broke into their own house. 

“We left the bedroom window unlocked.” Cato reminds her, catching her off guard as he grabs her by the waist and throws her over his shoulder. “I mean.. I hope we left the window unlocked.”

Clove nearly shrieks as she ends up in the air, his hands giving taunting pinches on the very top of her thighs as he fully carries her to the back yard. The grass is overgrown in some places, burnt in others, Clove notices as she stares at the ground from her place on his shoulder.

Cato surprises Clove again when he flips her from his shoulder to his arms, one hand under her knees and the other under her shoulders as he cradles her against him. “Okay. You’re going in.”  

It’s not even surprising how easily he lifts her to a standing position on his hands, how he can push her towards the bedroom window with such ease. All that to say, Clove's short arms and legs do not make it any easier, with her fingertips barely able to reach the window screen to pry it off. When she does she sends it flying down behind her, and only from the groan she hears from Cato can she tell it hit him. It is using all the dexterity of her little fingers that she is able to slide the window up and open.

“Got it!” Clove calls down to him, and lightly twists her ankle in his palm. “You gotta throw me a little.”

“I can’t throw you through the window–” Cato scoffs, shaking his head adamantly. “No way in hell.”

“Cato I can’t reach, You need to just give me a little boost-”

“A little boost i’m already holding you above my head–” 

“Cato! A little toss!” Clove insists, jolting her foot with a little annoyance. “I’m serious, we need to get in–”

“Fine! But if you bust your face open don’t blame me.” Cato grumbles, and grabs her by the bottom of her shoes. “Okay, ready?”

Clove nods, already bracing her hands on either side of the window. When he gives her the little bit of a toss (more than a little, considering the strength he doesn’t even realize he exerts sometimes), Clove is able to flip in through the window. 

All Cato can hear is a slight scream from his wife as she tumbles into the house.

“Clove…babe…you alright?” Cato calls up, an edge of panic infiltrating his cool tone.  “Baby…”

Clove appears in the window, resting her elbows on the window ledge as she smiles down at him with a coy smirk. “You look like you’re here to beg me to sneak out.”

“If I remember correctly it was me who had the house first..” Cato responds to her smirk with his own, running a hand over the side of his hair. “Will you let me in? I didn’t throw you through the window just so I could still break down the door.”

“Patience, patience, Cato.” Clove teases, but the smile on her face could keep Cato going for the rest of his life. “I’m coming, meet you out front.”

Cato beats her to the front door. Patience has never been his strength, and frankly, it’s fucking cold and she is taking a weirdly long amount of time before she comes down. “Clove open the door, I'm not playing around.” 

When the door does swing open to Clove, somehow already changed into one of his shirts and one of his shirts only, she greets him with a dark smirk, looking up at him from thick lashes. “Welcome home.”

The thin layer of dust that covers every surface in their house is a problem for another time.

Later…after.. Clove sits between his legs in the bath, the water as hot as they can possibly get it, soothing every ache in the crooks of her spine. His fingers trace imaginary shapes over the back of her hand, her head against his chest and shoulder. Hot water had been one of the biggest losses in Thirteen. Clove had imagined this particular moment for months. So much so that it was the first- well…second– thing they did once they were back in their home. 

Their names were still carved into the bedpost, their laundry still in pre-sorted piles on the bathroom floor.  Clove’s skin yearns for the softness of the clean sheets they had left behind (though maybe they were not so clean with the dust and ash layer on every surface). In the morning, Clove will treat herself to tea with the rest of the honey in the cabinet above the sink and to the left. 

“You know, I think Enobaria had the spare key.” Cato realizes with his lips on Clove’s neck, and he deserves the light smack to the side of his head once he says it.

“I do not want to think about Enobaria right now, thank you very much.” Clove mumbles, tilting her neck so he can have more more more as she feels his other hand wrapping around her waist and sliding lower. 

“We made it home, sweetheart.” Cato kisses into the skin of her neck, pulling her somehow even closer. “We’re home.”

“We are home.” Clove repeats, but the emphasis she places changes the meaning of the statement. Yes, they are home. But they are home. 

He is hers and she is his. 

They are home. 

And If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were still around. 

Home is not as idyllic as they may have remembered, but it was home. 

The thunderstorms that once lulled her to sleep, jolted her awake with a racing heart. The sound of rain no longer rain, but too identical to the distant sound of bombs in their homeland.  When she ends up sitting on the porch in the middle of the night, forcing herself to face it, she is always joined by a heavy blanket being draped around her shoulders, and Cato sitting wordlessly beside her. What they don’t know is that in a district not too far away, another girl screams herself awake from nightmares of the past, and is joined by the innocent affection of a man who slides into bed next to her only to sleep, who holds her only with the intention to comfort her while expecting nothing in return. 

The cold hurts more than she imagined it would. It is not just the recollection of nearly freezing to death that frightens her anymore, it is the pain in her body. Their home is somehow always chilly, her wrists and shoulders and back always aching fiercely. Cato knows her, he has her entire life, and is always adamant to add another blanket to the bed or turn up the heat even when it leaves him himself sweating. 

Brutus and Enobaria still let themselves in multiple days a week for breakfast.

A few weeks into their return, a knock on their front door long before breakfast startles them both. He’s sitting at the kitchen island admiring the concentration on her face as she carves into something she will undoubtedly transform into something fantastic in an hour or so. 

“Who comes to see us?” Clove raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t look away from her task before her. “Enobaria and Brutus have never knocked, and you know Glimmer and Marvel couldn’t be awake this early..”

“They’ll leave.” Cato shrugs, reaching out a hand to nab some of the intricately carved strawberries Clove had already finished with. “Ignore it.”

The knocking only increases in frequency and volume, and Cato rolls his eyes as he pushes himself away. “I’ll get rid of them.”

Clove can’t wipe away the smirk that rises as she watches him walk away, all shirtless with sweatpants slung so low on his hips that it wouldn’t take much effort from her when he comes back to–

She hears the door swing open but does not hear him scare anyone off with a threat, nor does she hear anything at all. “Babe?” Clove calls out behind him, wiping off the blade of her knife with a towel before she lays it down on her cutting board. “Cato?” She calls again, quickly covering the distance from the kitchen to the front door. Cato isn’t even in the doorway, and Clove doesn’t know why that makes her heart race.

Once she makes it to the door, to see what is waiting on the porch, her heart fully stops. 

Wrapped around Cato’s torso are the long baby limbs of his baby sister, little arms clinging around his neck, long blonde curls covering where her face is absolutely buried in his neck. He’s got both arms around the girl, one hand holding her head to his shoulder.  Immediately to his left, with her hand on his arm, is his mother. War was unkind to her, as the woman Clove once looked up to and yearned to emulate in some ways looked more fragile than ever. 

“Hi Clove, Honey.”  Cato’s mother greets her with an exhausted, bone tired smile. There is a lack of light in those blue eyes, a sorrow Clove hopes never to imagine. 

Clove furrows her eyebrows, tilting her head just a little and it is enough of a question for the older woman to perceive it.  

His mother takes in a sharp breath and shakes her head very quickly in the negative and it is all Clove needs to see to know that this is it, this is all that remains of Cato’s family. A mother and a sister.  

“I missed you, so so much kiddo.” Cato whispers to the girl, gently running his hand over the back of her head over and over again. 

Clove steps forward and gently places a hand on the taller woman’s arm, ever so slightly squeezing. “I’m so sorry.” 

The blonde woman presses her lip together and nods, taking her arm off of her son and instead wrapping them around Clove in a hug. “I’m glad to see you again. I don’t think he would have survived it without you.” 

“I wouldn’t have either.” Clove admits, allowing herself to squeeze a little tighter to the woman, analyzing her change in body structure. 

“He’s been gone a long time.” His mother informs them both, patting Clove’s cheek gently before she goes back to wrap her son and little daughter in her arms. 

“Where have you been?” Cato gets out, his voice nearly cracking as he looks down on his mother. “Where did you go?”

“We’ve just been on the move, huh baby?” His mom brushes Cora’s little arm, pulling her attention from where she is hiding in her brother’s arms. “We have just moved constantly, no one could catch us if they didn’t know where we were.”

“Is home…” Cato starts, unable to force the rest of the words out into the world. 

“Gone. long gone.” His mother explains, as Cora raises her head and latches eyes with Clove. 

“You can stay in my house.” Clove immediately offers out, waving slightly at Cora. “Hi, sunshine.”

Immediately Cora lifts her little blonde head and practically wriggles out of Cato’s arms, nearly running into her once she has her little feet on the ground. With his arms free Cato wraps his arms fully around his mother in a hug, and Clove can see the way he melts into his mother;s arms like a little boy

Clove initially wants to kneel to Cora’s level, to become eye to eye with her. However, this six year old child is nearly to her shoulder’s already, and Clove is taken back by how tall this little girl has become. “You’ve gotten so big!”

“I’m as tall as you!” She cheers, and this bright angel of a child wraps her arms around her sister in law. “I missed you, Clove.”

“We missed you too, Cora Jade.” Clove promises, leaning down just a little to kiss the top of her head. “I think you’re going to stay in the house next to us for a little while!” She can no longer scoop her up, with how tall and gangly she has become in the last year. Clove tries anyway, scooping Cato’s sister to sit on her hip despite the fact they are nearly the same size. Cora immediately relaxes against her, and somehow, some way, Clove feels like something deep inside her relaxes with relief, too. 

And though I can’t recall your face, I’ve still got love for you 

For kids who had been trained to kill, who have taken lives, they were more surrounded by death than ever before. They hadn’t expected the influx of funeral services and war memorials they would be expected to attend. 

His father had of course been the most painful, with the heart broken sobs of his baby sister, asking when she’d see her daddy again. It was devastating for Cato, too, who had to learn how to be an adult man in a world without games without his father to guide him. The loss had hit him harder than he dared to admit. 

At the end of what felt like the tenth funeral service they felt obligated to attend, this one of an old classmate and her younger sister, while Cato played nice with another ex-classmate Clove found herself wandering to a part of the cemetery that she had never allowed herself to cross into. 

It was sacred ground, really, treated with utmost respect. Perfect lines of simple limestone grave markers stretched in perfect lines of 25, save for the last row. No tribute came home to be buried from seventy five. The victors, they were in a separate area even still, with lavish, over the top headstones. But here, in a well maintained corner of the District Two cemetery, rest every single tribute who did not make it to victor status. 

The boy from her games did not even have solid grass on top of his grave plot yet, and the ceaseless bombing did nothing to aid in that process. The girl from Cato’s games is a little further grown over, with a thin but respectable layer of fresh grass that grows in all directions. She can remember some of the others, mildly. The boy who lost against Glimmer, the girl who Johanna took out. 

It is not her own peers, though, that interests Clove. 

She weaves through years and years of games, of either single or double headstones from every single Hunger Games, from 75 to 62, and finally to the one she had avoided the entirety of her life. 

Six feet below her feet was the remaining body of Sevina Kentwell, being the closest Clove has been to her mother in nearly eighteen years. 

It is a simple marker, like all of the others. With the name of the tribute, the date of their birth, and what place they came in their games.  Somehow, seeing first runner up, though she had known it the entirety of her life, manages to rip her heart from her chest, coating the white limestone with the spray of hot, wet blood. 

Or at least it’s how it feels. 

There is no mention of the life Sevina had prior to the games. No mention of the daughter she left behind, how she was a mother who loved deeply and to the last day of her life, how she was the daughter of a cruel woman who only became that way after the loss of her child. 

Clove does not know when exactly she ends up on her knees, kneeling before the stone that is no taller than her in this position. 

It is when she notices the little symbol on every stone– some knives, some stars, some hearts– that she realizes there is some small personalization that makes these tributes people. Children. 

Clove’s right hand reaches out, shaking just enough that she notices, as she traces her pointer finger over the etching of her mother’s name. It is then, as she reaches the I, that she realizes the dot over the initial is a clover. 

The weight of a war, of physical torture, of two Hunger Games, the destruction of her home, and a loveless, empty childhood hits her. If she were not already on her knees she would have fallen to them, as it feels like she is the one who just had the breath slammed out of her against that cornucopia. 

The death of her grandmother meant next to nothing. She had openly spoken out against Clove after her appearance in Two, proudly sharing the narrative that she was a traitor and that her daughter died because of this mistake of a child. Yes, she raised Clove and turned her into a victor with her cold demeanor and cruelty, and for that Clove had no choice but to be thankful, but still, she did not feel a great loss at the news of her death by rebels in Two. 

She thought nothing of the news that her father and his entire new family also died in the roles of loyalists. He had been dead to her long before the war. 

The entirety of her family would die with Clove. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in sixty years, but there would be no one left to remember any of them after her inevitable death. 

Maybe that was the gift she could give to the ghost of her mother– the erasure of the people who treated them so cruelly. 

That of course meant the erasure of Sevina Kentwell and Clove herself, as well. 

While Clove had spent the entirety of her life to become a victor, to carve her place in history, right now the idea of slipping into anonymity and living a mundane enough life to not be remembered didn’t sound like the worst ending in the world. 

Sevina Kentwell died nearly eighteen years ago, but somehow it hits Clove like it is the first time all over again. This feeling– the elephant on her chest, the choking, gagging sobs that she could not control, the tears that felt like burning salt on her cheeks– may as well have been from the little girl whose mother never came back for her. 

She felt an overwhelming need to speak out loud– to the air, to the universe, to whatever could hear her– that she couldn’t really explain. It felt silly, to just speak into thin air, and yet she doesn’t have it in there to stop herself. 

Clove wipes her tears on the back of her sleeves, rocking back to sit on her heels. She pushes her hair behind her ears, before she crosses her arm over her chest, tucking her hands along her hips on opposite sides of her body. 

“I’ve always kind of wondered what was so wrong with me as a baby, if I was so unlovable of a little girl that it was just..so easy to leave me. Grandma always told me thats the case…that I’ve been fucked up since I was born and that it was easy to leave a crazy little girl. That the risk of dying was better than having to spend eighteen years with me. I believed it, too.” Clove leans her head back, squeezing evergreen eyes closed and taking a deep, shaky breath to the sky, desperate for cool morning air to fill her lungs and quench the burning that ravages the back of her throat.  “I can’t remember what you look like. I’ve seen pictures but I can’t remember. I don’t remember the sound of your voice, or what it was like to be held by my mother.”

“I want to be angry and I want to blame you for everything that is just so fucked up about me, but I don’t know. I probably wouldn’t have been sent to training if you were a victor, huh?” Clove sniffles heavily, the skin of her face burning from the continued assault of tears that just cannot cease to flow. “And then I wouldn’t be a Victor..And then I never would have met Cato.” 

She isn’t quite sure she can believe it, though it is rational. If she had not needed to win the games herself, she never would have been sent to training to become a victor, and by extension would have never crossed paths with Cato. 

There is another part of herself though, the far less rational part, the part that let her fall for her training partner, that believes in any universe, in any version of reality, some way somehow, they would always find each other (though that she would never say out loud). 

“I married him, you know. I’ve never said it out loud.. I’ve never told anyone about it.” Clove whispers to the universe, words barely falling past her lips. “But I did. I guess I wasn’t so terrible and unlovable after all, or maybe I was, and he’s a little terrible and fucked up too. We’re made for each other in that way. He’s…the love of my life.”  She finds that her right hand is twisting at her left ring finger, the empty digit lacking any physical or public reminder of such love. It didn’t matter. They knew. “Enobaria took really really good care of me, too.  Like she had promised you. I don’t know if I would have survived without her. Both literally as a baby, but also in the games.” 

She exhales shakily. Her breathing is weighty and consuming, as she feels her throat tightening with the burning feeling of exhaustion. “I wish I had a mom these days, not that you’d know what a world without the games is like anyway…but it would be nice. To have a mom for the rest of my life….Whatever it looks like.”

Clove rests her body weight on her hands in front of her, steadying herself as she catches her breath and regains her composure. She raises her left hand again, branching herself on her mother’s headstone so she can push herself to a standing position. She brushes off the grass on her knees, smoothing down the skirt of her formal black dress. Digging the heels of her hand to stop the tears, she is unconcerned with the fact her makeup is certainly smeared around her eyes. Clove takes a shaking, stabilizing breath, gently reaching down to pat the top of the rock. 

“I miss my mom. I miss you, and I don’t even know you but I know that I love you.” Clove brushes her deep hair behind her shoulders, standing up straight like the victor she will forever be. She is all that is left of, and all that there will ever be, of the woman who eternally rests deep under her feet. “I owe you, quite literally, for my life. In all senses of it. So uh..thank you. For ruining your life to give me mine.” 

Clove takes one final shaky breath, craning her neck to the sky to stop the flow of tears. She wipes at her cheeks quickly, before shoving her hands in the pocket of her coat. Clove weaves back through the tribute corner, and before she even reaches the little gate she sees Cato leaning against one of the metal posts, one ankle crossed over the other, hands in the pockets of his own coat.

As soon as she’s within reach his arm is around her shoulders, using his hand to smooth down the hair at the top of her head before he kisses the crown of her hair gently and swiftly. Of course he can see the tracks of tears, the pink tint under the field of freckles, but he doesn’t comment on it. This was a private moment for her. 

“Ready to go home?” He pulls her in closer to his side, body heat warming her against the cool, rainy air. 

“I think we have one more stop to make.”

Everything you lose is a step you take

The only thing left of the academy which they met, trained, and ultimately, became themselves is a set of chipped marble stairs. The grand archway is reduced to piles of rubble, the long stretch of the building that was once home rests in various piles of rocks and decay. 

Their classmates were mostly dead, either after being forced into roles as peacekeeper soldiers or victims of various bombings. There were no more dorms that they had once snuck around, no more rooms full of knives or spears or dummies to use as target practice. There were no more closets to sneak off too or bad showers with cold water and low water pressure. 

All that was left of their childhood were the very steps they sat on now. 

Cato sits beside Clove, hand in hand. 

“I thought we’d spend the rest of our lives in this building.” Clove admits, brushing the hand that is not interlaced with his over the remnants of the grand staircase. “I imagined we’d be the most successful mentors, well, ever.” 

“Spend our lives in the building? I thought we’d own it. Rename it to the Kentwell-Hadley Training Academy, then we could claim every District Two victor forever. It would be like our legacy.” Cato teases, but the longing edge in his voice tells Clove that no, that is not entirely a joke.  He clears his throat, shifting so his chin was sitting on top of the crown of her head instead. “Do you ever think about the day we met?”

“Yeah, you broke my collarbone.” Clove smirks, craning her neck so she can look him in the eyes. They would never be back in the place they met, in the place she realized she loved this arrogant, temperamental boy. This, right here, was as close as it would get. “I thought we were going to hate each other forever…that we’d go out killing each other in the most violent, showy way we could. 

“And you stabbed me!” Cato indignantly nudges her with his shoulder, but brings his other hand up to cradle her face in his. I never thought, in a million years, we’d be lucky enough to be right here, Clove.”

“Alive?” Clove teases, but takes the opportunity to lean in and press her forehead to his. “On the rubble of the academy?” As much as she teases, she knows what he means. He means hand in hand, far from the enemies they were the day they met. He means the love they share.

“Together. I never thought we’d get to be together.” Cato admits, leaning in somehow closer still, so that their noses also could touch. “All this shit Clove, and the only constant in my entire life, from the time we were actual children, has been you. It has always been you.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not getting rid of me any time soon.” She promises, wrapping her arm around his neck so that she can pull her upper body flush to his as she finally finally finally connects her lips with his. Clove melts in his arms as he fully wraps his arms around her and holds her as close as he humanly can to him. When she pulls back, resting her nose against his once again, she laughs. “What do we do now with the rest of our lives?”

“I could say each other–” Cato taunts, but laughs as he gives the slightest shrug before she can refute him. “I don’t really know. We’ll figure it out, like we always do.”

“Together?” Clove teases, leaning back so she can fully lock eyes, green with blue, as a coy little smile creeps onto her face. “I love you. More than I loved the games.”

“Aren’t I special.” Cato soaks her in. Wet dark curls framing her face, freckles like constellations across her nose.  If he got to see this for the rest of his life.. He’d die happy. Hopefully not for many many many years, but happy nonetheless.“I love you too. More than anything.”

“You just have to one up me..” Clove rolls her eyes playfully, but she does not actually move from her place in his arms. “You know, if you want to actually get married again, you do have to ask again.”

“Are you going to say yes?” He pinches her hip playfully, causing her to squirm in his arms which he uses as the opportunity to grab her even tighter. 

“Depends on the day.” She warns, but grabs his face in both her hands immediately after. She can see it all in his eyes. The nine year olds they once were, the twenty one year olds they are now. Their entire past lies crumbled beneath them, but with her arms around his shoulders and his around her hips the entirety of their future rests in their arms. 

All the uncertainty of this new world, it didn’t matter. The future, whatever it would be, would be okay.  Whatever their future held, would be just fine, so long as it held them. 

Cato and Clove.

“Always and forever, Cato. It’s you and me, always and forever.”

I had the time of my life with you. 

[a-cloud-for-dreams]

Ok so I've mentioned this a bunch of times on my blog by now but I've been trying to speedrun all of the Choices books and I'm so glad I am because there are some underrated gems out there! I'm almost done with TC&TF Book 1 and that book had a ton of love interests so I was inspired to make a top ten list to organize my thoughts. This post will be under development as I play more books or change my mind lol

Top Ten Books/Series

Bloodbound Series - This book is literally one of the best series PB has ever put out. To be fair, it should be under Blades and TC&TF, I would argue that these three books deserve top place. But it would be harder to combine my Bloodbound explanation with the other two fantasy books so here you go. Contrary to most, I did like the first book, wasn't my favorite, but it was a good intro to the series. I like that the world slowly grew as we learned more about vampires and it felt complete and like it had something to say. Thank @gaiuskamilah for my further obsession with the series lol

Blades of Light and Shadow Book 1/The Crown and the Flame Book 1 - I couldn't choose but they're both AMAZING BOOKS ugh I can't say enough good things about them. The choices actually matter and the plot was so good. Every chapter had a purpose and the conclusion felt so satisfying. The scoring system and skills for both books was super cool, we need more books like them <33

Crimes of Passion Series - Definitely a Top Tier MC!!! I liked the mystery (Book 2's reveal wasn't great but the chaotic Thorne siblings make up for it) and Trystan is the best single LI we've had in a while, their dynamic with Rose was *chef's kiss*

Perfect Match Series - I LOVED this series and our friend group/love interests so much. They all felt like unique people with their own experiences and the plot was so amazingly intense. The finale of Book 1 was UNMATCHED we won't ever live to experience something that iconic ever again smh. It took a while for the plot to kick in, which is why it's lower on the list

The Elementalists - I'm a sucker for elemental magic systems/magic schools, and I love our friend group/family so much. Atlas is the coolest twin, and the whole sun/moon dynamic was fun! Being a powerful Sun-Att boosted my ego astronomically. I wish we got another book to see our mom more though

It Lives in the Woods - I like that the premise was relatively simple, along with the game mechanics. Your actions had real consequences and it was more immersive. The flash-forward in the last chapter was super sweet too and I like that the anthology was interconnected. This series also gave us an amazing friend group and set of LIs so I'm thankful <3

Open Heart Book 1 - Simply iconic, grounded in reality, and actually put together imao. It was one of the peaks of our fandom. This book is super nostalgic for me because I'm interested in the medical field, and it's the whole reason I'm posting Choices content here in the first place

Ride or Die - I adore this book. It felt complete on its own EVEN IF IT DESERVED A SEQUEL *side-eyeing PB* and it's a great coming-of-age story with a realistic teen MC. The ending was bittersweet and you felt changed by the experience playing the book

Nightbound - I liked the vibes and the idea more than the execution if that makes sense? I love the idea of Lamrian and how the MC is half-fae and super powerful, but the book didn't have enough time to showcase the supernatural world compared to Bloodbound, which focused on vampire lore. I can probably make a whole separate post on this but yea

The Royal Romance/The Royal Heir - I think, again, I like the vibes of the series more than the flawed execution, but because it went on for so long I kinda of got attached to the characters (mind you I didn't play or finish any of the books) but it's super fluffy and sweet and iconic for Choices history so here <3 a lot of the books like ROE, TRM, and TC&TF are interconnected so it's part of the foundation for the PB Choices Multiverse :) to be fair, it looks like they did a somewhat decent job writing the conflicts for each book?

I have a feeling when I finish Endless Summer, this list is gonna change...

EDIT: I totally forgot about The Heist: Monaco, but it was amazing! TRR/TH should be bumped down to honorable mention, I'll change it at some point-

Honorable Mentions

A Courtesan of Rome - The book took awhile for me to get through but my MC is legendary and carried the book so it's up here lol. I also liked that it felt like a historically accurate book?

Platinum - Cool commentary on the darker sides of fame and the music >>>

Veil of Secrets - The plot was interesting, one of my fave mystery books they've written! Also the characters >>>

Mother of the Year - Wholesome and felt finished, def one of the best single books. Also the antagonists were properly despicable so...good writing

Wake the Dead - It wasn't perfect, but I love zombie apocalypse stories and the idea of rebuilding our camp was so cool so idc how flawed it is <3

Foreign Affairs - The ending was rushed and the premise should have been rewritten but more on that on a later date. It was still fun for me to play

Desire and Decorum - I finished book 1 and I really liked it! it's basically the Choices version of Bridgerton, not historically accurate but super entertaining. The vibes and the LIs were amazing

Kindred - Pacing issues but still entertaining, I love the witch lore that they had in the book and the focus on building both platonic and romantic relationships so I'm not complaining

Top Ten Love Interests In No Particular Order

Trystan Thorne

Bryce Lahela

Kamilah Sayeed

Damien Nazario

Kaine Bell

Raleigh Carrera

Aerin Valleros

Jax Matsuo

Colt Kaneko

F!Hayden Young

Honorable Mentions (Again, No Particular Order)

Drake Walker (listen LISTEN I don't like that he sidelined other LIs, and I absolutely HATE how his character was a total contradiction, it was executed poorly, but I like the idea of his route if that makes sense. Some of the banter was cute and I love the whole grumpy x sunshine trope. I'm pretty sure he took a bullet for me lol)

Raydan Lykel (Solely because I haven't finished the series yet)

Mal Volari (He would have been in Top Ten but I had to bump him down because his Book 2 Route isn't working)

Tyril Starfury

Nia Ellarious

Prince Hamid

Tatum Mendoza

All of the Nightbound Love Interests are amazing I just couldn't fit them on the list

Gaius Augustine

Alana Kusuma

Rainier (Kindred)

Thomas Mendez

Flynn O'Malley

Olivia Nevrakis (she had so much potential omg)

Robin Flores and Sofia Russo (in my world, they're LIs just shush)

[writermai05]

Arsonist's Lullabye

Chapter 7: Witness Me, Like Fire

Summary: Zuko and Azula reunite?

Pairing: Zuko x fem! reader (Live Action or Animated) 

A/N: A late/early chapter to make up for lack of chapter this week. I’m actually hoping to get another chapter out on Friday so let’s keep these good vibes going LOL.

Word Count: 800

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Avatar: The Last Airbender, I am merely a nerd who hyperfixates a lot. Lots of divergence from the canon story lol. 

Warnings !: Mentions of Zuko’s scarring, Azula has a mental breakdown (team get Azula therapy.)

Zuko was going to burn down the shop if people kept coming in. 

He was so close to being done, and yet his shift at the Jasmine Dragon was never ending. A mere 15 minutes before Friday night closing, a whole group of college students from the university, probably a club Zuko had guessed, and they had about 20 people all together. It had taken Zuko alone nearly 30 minutes to get everybody their drinks and he was absolutely drained. 

As he ducked below the counter to put some pastries in the refrigerator, he heard the door chime once again. Letting out a silent sigh, he called out to the customer, “Sorry! We’re actually closed right now.” The person who walked in gave an eerily familiar chuckle. 

“Even for family Zuzu? How disappointing..” 

A chill shot down his spine. He straightened his spine, standing up from beneath the counter, facing his sister. 

“Azula…How-” 

She cut him off before he could even get another word in.

“A Southern Water Tribe girl, about..hm..” She laid her right hand flat in front of her chin, “This tall. Nice, talkative, kind of strange.” 

At the mention of you, Zuko felt lightning shoot through his veins, himself becoming a storm brewing in the middle of the shop. 

“Y/n…” 

“Bingo! Right on the nose. She mentioned that the two of you were classmates, so I figured you and our dear uncle still lived at this little tea shop. It’s…quaint.” She said snidely, literally turning her nose up at the shop that Zuko and Iroh had put years of work into.

“How did you know about the shop?” 

“You think our father doesn’t know where you are? After all these years, you thought you were finally free?” Azula chuckled bitterly. “Ridiculous, really. You should know better than that.”

“What about Mai and Ty Lee? Did you know they were in Ba Sing Se? Have you been keeping tabs on them too?” Zuko knew that it was a deep cut, but at this point he didn’t even care. Azula’s facade cracked at the mention of her two former best friends. 

“They don’t matter. Nobody does.”

“Then why are you here? If you’re so much better than this, then why even come?” Zuko yelled, becoming frustrated. 

This alarmed Iroh, who was blissfully unaware of the situation that was escalating a mere five feet away outside of the kitchen. He came into the front of the cafe where the two siblings were arguing. 

“Azula? It’s been so long...” Iroh kept his eyes trained on the woman, a phantom image of the little girl he once knew, years before. Azula and Zuko’s heads snapped to their uncle.

“Hello Uncle. I can see you're still yourself.” Zuko rolled his eyes at his sister’s reply, letting out a scoff. 

“Knock it off. Why are you here Azula?”  

Azula shrugged, feigning innocence. “No reason. Don’t you think it’s nice to leave the Fire Nation every once in a while?”

Zuko, moved his hands over his face, rubbing frustratedly. “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been back to the Fire Nation since, I don’t know, our father burned half of my face! I don’t understand Azula! You leave for, spirits knows what, and you come here, why? Just to antagonize me? What do you want?” He violently ripped his hands away from his face, fire coming from his hands out of a shear vexation. 

“Zuko!” Iroh scolded. 

“I don’t see what you have to complain about. You left! Just like our mother!” Azula began to laugh hysterically, much to the shock of both Zuko and Iroh. 

“You know what? Coming here was a mistake. I should’ve known that he was right.” Her breathing began to pick up, as she continued to laugh, bitterly, and clearly distressed. 

“Azula!” Zuko called out, as she made her way to the exit. 

Then she screamed, a guttural, and painful noise. Her arms stretched in front of her body, unleashing a torrent of flames towards the two. Iroh acted quicker than Zuko, dispelling the flames as they approached them. The older man stood in shock, as Zuko attempted to follow his sister out the door. 

Walking out of the shop into the cool night air, the dark sky clouded everything like a shawl, and with it Azula was nowhere to be seen. 

As he paced back to the shop, he made eye contact with his Uncle, shaking his head. They could not wrap their heads around what had just happened. Iroh put an arm around Zuko’s shoulders, locking the door behind them. He knew that Zuko didn’t mean for this to happen. They would probably talk about it all tomorrow morning. 

But just like that, Azula had disappeared into the night, 

and all Zuko could do was witness it. 

[localplaguenurse]

I am just nosy, forgive me. Can you describe each one of your mutuals?

Buckle up people and prepare to get complimented >:3c

First and foremost, they’re all absolute sweethearts to me.

There are my irl friends, such as @wretchedshade, @granolabird, @siriuscitrus and @scales-of-stardust or beta as I usually refer to them. I share the same braincell with these people.

Wretchedshade has been my best friend since we were ten, we’ve been there for each other for 11 years. I initially got her into anime, and then she got me into jojo, and every once in a while we cry about Doukyuusei again. She’s a great artist and is really good at writing sad shit, which is why I write sad shit; to have the glory of finally making her cry. She kicked cancer’s teeth in a few months ago so it’s about goddamn time something good come her way and I WILL fight someone on that.

Granolabird is the dm for my dnd campaign, and like I said, absolute sweetheart, chaotic adhd haver (actually like most of my friend group is like this lmao we’re all queer and neurodivergent). Either way, we used to share thoughts on each other’s original stories, and we still do sometimes but it’s mostly just sending each other tiktoks/reels like “this you” or “this your oc.”

Siriuscitrus is usually pretty hyper, but also tries to be v considerate of everyone’s feelings. If you said that the McDonald’s employee put pickles on your burger when you said no, they’d probably be the one to tell them. They’re also scarily good at vibechecking people and told me I give “future he/they vibes” and like a week later I said “fuck you’re right oh my god.”

You’ve probably seen me and beta’s interactions on here or in the ao3 comments. We enjoy our like playful rivalry/enemyship. I like to torment tease her and she usually gets me back pretty good, it’s all in good fun. It’s also really funny to me whenever we meet up, I tell myself “you are friends with them for reasons other than fic so do not make it about fic” and then we’ll spend literally hours talking about and brainstorming fic ideas. It just Happens.

I’m also gonna add @memory-mortis into here because while we’ve not met irl I’ve introduced him to my friend group. Yet another sweetheart, love her art style a lot, and she was one of the first comments I got on ginkgo trees to motivate me to keep going. I was kinda worried about bringing him into my friendgroup because like if I’m not overthinking I am not thinking At All. I was super relieved and happy that she like IMMEDIATELY fit in with everyone so :D

For some of my other close but only on tumblr/ao3/outside my general friendgroup mutuals! (There are too many so I’m sorry if you’re not here it’s mostly people I interact with more regularly ;-;)

@crimson-ashes who I have occasionally with absolute love called my “askbox gremlin” because they live in my inbox. I need to stress this is affectionate because genuinely, I love opening tumblr and seeing I’ve got asks from them. They gotta stop posting Astarion though because I’m feeling So Tempted to play BG but I know my laptop would kill itself (joking).

@crystalflygeo and I know I’ve called everyone sweethearts but genuinely, she’s probably one of the sweetest people I’ve had the pleasure of talking to. She’s really wholesome (unlike her writing which is never gonna be a complaint in my book, good soup) and super supportive of other people.

@madamemachikonew who’s super polite and really kind. She’s also really creative/smart when it comes to referencing real world art and philosophy in her writing and integrating it into her own worldbuilding. I would have never thought to have done that, and it makes her writing very unique!

We don’t interact as much but @probably-doesnt-exist, @ethve, @euniveve and @ainescribe are such talented artists and super sweet, have literally made me screech and cackle with utter joy whenever they draw the characters from ginkgo trees. I rotate through which art becomes my phone’s lock/home screens.

This is long af but fuck it, I wanna brighten people’s days and I told myself to say “I love you” to my friends and family more, so consider this one big “I love you!” to y’all. It’s a pleasure talking to y’all!

[bright-and-burning]

Instead of getting into a fight with the group chat you should tell us the lore behind why the vibes in that chat are so off. This is like at least the second time i’ve seen you post about it

it is suuuuuch a long story and for reasons that would take a while to explain satisfactorily i can’t kick this girl out of the group chat ok.

edit: this got medium long (at least on mobile) im . sorry akdhskdh its below a cut now

but basically she has no sense of boundaries and when you tell her a boundary she’ll be like ok so you hate me.. but ill follow it i suppose… and then break it two weeks later with glee. she’s aggressively contrary for the fun of it she has a superiority complex in a loooot of areas but especially morally she refuses to let anyone back out of an argument. she demands responses and guilt trips everyone if you don’t respond to her bait like “omg you guys are actually just ableist and hate neurodivergents” (half the group chat is neurodivergent lmfao). she would literally start hours long arguments abt taylor swift (this was SUCH a sticking point for her. and STILL is like it somehow got brought up AGAIN tonight) that boiled down to “if you enjoy any of her music you just haven’t thought about it long enough and unpacked your internalized misogyny. as soon as you do that you’ll see that i’m right.” would make people CRY and when anyone would be like we should stop this is just upsetting people she’d be like what do you mean you’re getting upset :( this is just a discussion :( this is so interesting to me :( why won’t you overexplain and justify your taste in music on demand for me :( like every single argument she just positions herself as the only moral option and if you disagree w her you just haven’t thought for yourself hard enough? one time she literally was like “eve i know you can have deeper thoughts than that” bc i refused to engage her trying to start the like fifth 3hr long tswift fight and i left the group chat for three months despite this being the era where i was unemployed depressed and living at home several hours away from anyone i was friends with. like i was literally like maintaining an easy connection with all of my friends is not worth being in the same digital space as her rn.

tonight she said that “it feels like you [collectively] don’t experience life” or like contemplate deep things like mortality or sentimentality and that our supposed lack of passion makes her depressed because… nobody responded to her messages abt her favorite band (that none of us listen to) within 2hrs. on a work night. which was viscerally upsetting in general (don’t particularly like having someone tell me they don’t think i have an inner life just bc i don’t engage on demand for them) but also in specific given how the last two weeks have been for me (having someone tell me i haven’t contemplated mortality and how tragic it is that we have limited time on this planet when im in the middle of a health scare that had me looking at my life insurance policy briefly last week)

[rosie-the-posie]

🩷🎀 My DR List 🎀🩷

below is a pretty very long list of all the drs i’ve made scripts for

lmk if any of you want some more detail of any of them, dw i have EXTENSIVE detail on everything babes

don’t judge pls 😖😖 this is a safe space…hopefully 🩷

Fame DRs :

Phantasmagoria DR: my main fame dr where i’m the lead singer in a band called Phantasmagoria w my friends. We’re like, really famous. Like more famous than Taylor Swift famous. And I go on to become a really famous writer/director as well. This is the dr i think about all the time, i fucking rule guys. NO BAD SONGS. NO CONTROVERSIES. ONLY GOOD VIBES AND GREAT MUSIC. ofc i’m an EGOT and pretty much revitalize the film industry single handedly. 😋😘

Heartstopper Cast DR: i’m a part of the cast of Heartstopper (an OC named Vivienne Green - Harry’s sister - who’s besties with the group, helps Elle when she transfers school, and is Pansexual and eventually gets in a polycule). I’m honestly so cool in this one. I have my SHIT together at 19, like, it’s crazy. I’m dating Kit Connor cuz why not, and I eventually become one of the best actors of my generation no biggie 🤷🏻‍♀️

Harry DR 1: yes, I have more than one dr where i’m dating harry styles, who can blame me. I’m a songwriter that met Harry in his 1D days and became one of the band’s main songwriters. We became best friends after that and stayed close. We both become extremely famous in our respective areas in the music industry and are the power couple

Harry DR 2: this one came to me in a literal dream. I’m Harry’s secret fiance that literally no one knows about. My job is solving and rating puzzles (don’t ask me why idk either). I get pretty famous on tik tok for being one of those satisfying accs that people followed during the pandemic yk? Anyways, there’s this whole thing where I’m invited onto the Late Late Show to talk abt my job (Ellen style) and everyone loves me. Harry is just there ig

Harry DR 3 (LAST ONE): OK SO DONT JUDGE ME W THIS ONE. LET ME LIVE. so, basically, I’m Harry’s secret wife and - stay with me here - we have 6 children together. I really only wanted to go here bc I noticed how many tattoos he had of peoples names and i thought, hey, what if those were his kids’ names that he has tattooed on him and no one knows? like, why not? so this is a purely self-indulgent dr where I’m just living the domestic life with Harry Styles and our brood of children. this may or may not have been influenced by a fanfiction series i read

Hozier DR: in this one, I’m Mr. Andrew Hozier-Byrne’s girlfriend who lives with him in the Irish countryside. I’m a seamstress who has my own clothing brand. Think dresses to run through a field of flowers in, or to slowly decompose in a lake littered with petals yk? I end up making the dresses for the Folklore stretch of the Era’s tour. not to brag or anything hehe

MGG DR: I’m dating the one, the only, Matthew Gray Gubler. I just thought it would be really funny and interesting to go to a reality where him and I are pretty much polar opposites. I’m an ex-ballerina who still practices, so I have that grace and elegance around me. I love to dress in dark neutrals all year round. For my job, I’m a famous published horror author. I have an rbf and a WRY sense of humor. Literally black cat aesthetic to the max. And then there’s Matthew who’s a ball of sunshine compressed into colorful grandpa clothes. honestly i love this one

Tom Holland DR: okay so this one is from my Spider-Man phase. But i actually love it so much. I play Felicia Hardy in the Spider-Man films, who is as much of a love interest as MJ in this reality. Tom and I actually grew up together since I would always vacation at my aunt’s house in the UK who was also neighbors to the Hollands. We’ve always ‘hated’ each other growing up (when really we were closer to each other than anyone else) and so when we started working together on the Spider-Man movies, all those underlying feelings started coming to the surface

The Joes DR: Okay, so. In this one, I play Chrissy Cunningham in Stranger Things. Her character is actually a lot different than in this reality where she’s actually secretly dating Eddie Munson behind Jason’s back. She doesn’t die, her friend Angie does, so Eddie and Chrissy join the party to save the world n stuff. Basically, Joe Quinn (his name is Thomas in this reality) and I got really close on set and are rly flirty hehe. And, to make it even better, we ALSO have a thing with Joe Keery as well (hence the name change to make my life easier). So we’re all a budding throuple and we kinda try to sneak that dynamic into the show hehe. note: certain actors aren’t poopy people in this reality and don’t support genocide 🙄) 

Hogwarts DRs:

Draco DR: this was my first ever dr! draco tok got me into shifting. I’m a gryffindor who’s friends w the golden trio. I transferred into Hogwarts in 4th year and pretty much just am there for the ride as the canon happens. I’m in a secret relationship w Draco (shocking ik) and he’s actually not a bad person. i obvi scripted out the supremist in him guys, dw. i actually have so much detail about all the ways we meet up behind everyone’s back and stuff. you never forget your first guys 🩷

Tom Riddle DR: AGAIN. BEAR WITH ME. ITS NOT BAD. basically Hogwarts is more of an elite rich kid college for wizards than a high school type place. BLOOD SUPREMACY DOESNT EXIST. But there is a whole powerful family hierarchy. kind of like a mob family thing??Instead of Slytherins being the ones most likely to be death eaters, they’re the ones most likely to be from those more powerful families. The Riddles are one of the most powerful families (and rich bc sorry but i’m not dating a poor orphan guys). I’m a Gryffindor who transfers in and becomes besties with the Slytherin group (Theo, Enzo, Mattheo -i’m a mattheo truther, never matthew- Blaise, Pansy, and Draco). Anyways, I fall for Tommy bc of his whole dark and broody best friend’s older brother thing he has going on.

MCU DRs:

Peter Parker DR 1: i’m obsessed w the idea of being genius buddies w Peter Parker and eventually taking over SI, so this is that. We’ve been best friends and neighbors since we were little, and got bit by spiders at the same time. I’m Silk, and we fight crime tgt. We’re both geniuses and go to Midtown together. When we meet Tony Stark, him and Pepper pretty much take us under their wings and we become their heirs to SI. We revolutionize the tech industry before we even graduate high school, we’re that smart. example: we build a water filter that we use to completely clean the Hudson River. we create inter-dimensional communication to talk w the other spidey gang after we get sucked into a rift and meet miles. on like a random tuesday too. I absolutely love this one, i put SO MUCH DETAIL into this script it’s actually insane.

Peter Parker DR 2: My first Peter dr that i made, but kind of abandoned. Him and I have an enemies to loves relationship bc after talking w Ned, he thinks the way to attract me is to act as if he doesn’t care about me 🙄. these dumbasses. anyways, i’m Tony’s adoptive daughter who he rescued from these evil scientists who gave me powers n stuff. it was a pretty cool concept when i first thought of this reality. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Stucky DR: Takes place in the 1940s at first, bc I’m best friends and eventually dating Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes. The three of us are a force to be reckoned with guys. I’m super fucking smart, Steve is super fucking stubborn, and Bucky is super fucking protective. So, chaos basically. I’m really interested in science and am offered a spot to work on the super soldier serum by Howard Stark. Canon events become canon, I create SHIELD with my besties Howie and Peggy, Howie tells me he’d been working on cryogenics but needs a volunteer to test it, so I agree. I wake up in 2017, after the Civil War was actually dealt with civilly and am reunited with my loves in the present time. One of my favorites that I ever scripted out. 🩷

Misc. DRs:

Peaky Blinders DR: I was a nurse during the war that took care of Tommy and his brothers, and him and I became really close and fell in love. We reconnected a couple of years after the war ended, and I basically become his right hand when it comes to all the Peaky business. He trusts me more than anyone else because we’re both ass over tits in LOVE with each other. Like, yall don’t understand how in love we are. Also, you know that scene of Elle Woods pulling up to Harvard in a full pink outfit? Literally me every single day. Me in my lil pink blazer and skirt sets and the brightest fucking smile on my face making everyone confused why tf someone is as happy as i am in birmingham of all places. Everyone thinks i’m ditzy and just Tommy’s arm candy when rly im the smartest person in the room at all times. i just love to manipulate people into thinking im harmless and then learning all their secrets 🩷🩷🎀

Haikyu DR: i’m the manager of Karasuno that takes over for Kiyoko. I’m the granddaughter of Nekoma’s coach, so i know all about the game and play just as good as the players. Just because those 4 minutes of him had me licking the screen, i’m Kiyoomi Sakusa’s girlfriend. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH ITS CRAZY. we have a whole friend group with Ushijima, Tendo, Iizuna, Komori, and Atsumu. Imagine the chaos that group brings everywhere. It’s such a fun dr, i should really revisit it more often.

Lloyd Hansen DR: i watched the gray man and this man with his white pants and pornstache burrowed his way into my heart. pretty much im his ditzy lil girlfriend who he adores and just skips around the place in pink and he spoils endlessly. 🩷

Mafia DR: didn’t really flesh this one out, but the gist is that i meet this guy in college and he turns out to be a part of the mob. 🤷🏻‍♀️ and so yeah.

Whore DR: yes, I have a whore dr. hehe. don’t judge me but like, a reality where slut shaming doesn’t exist and you can live out your horniest fantasies w/o any judgement whatsoever. bc that’s completely normal. 😋😋

Sunny DR: this is a better cr one, where i’m pretty much just really fucking smart and in a FANTASTIC AND LOVING relationship with this guy named Peter. He sadly doesn’t exist in this reality 😞😞. But he’s literally the sweetest ever and he’s blond, so I call him Sunny. Like, my sunshine boy ☀️. Literally everything i want in like, a mundane life is in this reality. also, for no other reason than i think it’s so funny, peter happens to be the son of one of my teachers in school. Why? i have no fucking clue 😭😭. like, i go to his house to meet his dad and he’s my fucking history teacher. it’s mortifying but absolutely fucking hilarious.

Criminal Minds DR: i join the BAU after Emily’s whole arc where she dips, and everyone but Hotch and Spencer are a bit prickly with me. I’m best friends and eventually get into a friends with benefits relationship with him (which is so out of character it’s crazy, but let me live). We obvi get our shit together and just start dating and become a power couple hehe

Deity DR: literally thought of this 2 days ago 😭. most of the details are on my prev posts, so you can check those out

Narnia DR: last but not least, I’m a human who was transported to Narnia a few years after the Pevensies saved Narnia from the White Witch. However, I’m instead sent to a nearby country where they take me in and basically make me their crowned princess. After a couple of years, I meet and fall in love w Edmund Pevensie. All Hail Queen Rosemary the Radiant. 🩷

THIS SHIT IS SO LONG TF. I DIDNT REALIZE HOW MANY SCRIPTS I MADE 😭😭😭😭

anyways, if you read all of this i love you 🩷

thanks to @luvieshifts for giving me the motivation to write all of this out

OKAY IM GOING TO SLEEP NOW GN POOKIE BEARS

you are the universe and more, babes 🎀

[angelosearch]

Six years ago, I went to the most magical concert of my life.

Cher has always been one of my favorite artists, and why wouldn't she be? A power ballad diva with a disco/techno vibe? One of the most iconic voices of all time? Outfits always on point? Plus she's as funny as all get out too.

My best friend and I were going to see her, even though we were broke young adults. We were in the nose-bleediest of the nose bleeds, but we were excited anyway. Before the show, we went thrifting to build perfectly Cher-ical concert outfits. Me in a purple crushed velvet croptop, chiffon skirt with silver detailing, and fishnets, and he in an artsy shirt with Cher's face on it he just happened to find, and every shiny piece of jewelry he could muster.

As we walked arms-linked into the venue and took several escalators to our section, we noticed a man strangely following us. It was unnerving. We just figured he happened to be seated near us. When we finally arrived, the group of older women sitting behind us clucked some hellos and then continued their conversation about how bad the seats are.

We hadn't settled into a seats fully when the man from before walked into the row in front of us and turned to say something.

"You look like big Cher fans."

"Y-yes?" My friend replied nervously. Oh course we were, we were at her concert, weren't we?

"How would you like to see her front row?"

We traded stunned expressions.

"I'm her tour manager," the man said. He took two tickets from out of his pocket. "We have two empty seats up there and it would be great if you could fill them."

Now this felt like some Princess Diaries bullshit. I don't think we believed him, but we followed him down to where the seats were... inches from the stage.

"Have fun," he said nonchalantly as he passed off the tickets. As if he didn't just literally hand us the night of our lives.

Needless to say, the concert was incredible. Cher is a very theatrical and high-energy performer with great crowd work and cool sets. We were on our feet, singing and dancing the entire night. I remember saying to my friend, "I want to look like that when I am 70." To which he responded, "I want to look like that now."

So the moral of the story is, if you love an artist, always go all-out on your concert outfit. You never know who will notice/appreciate your enthusiasm.

[therosevest]

bitch post time!!!!!! many revelations ok last night's vibes were HEINOUS but it provided so much for me and lydia to talk about and now i am gonna share with you yippee storytime

k so we plan to go to this valentines day showcase thing that the college radio is putting on last night. mind you at my place of work where i pretended that i had a family emergency and had to go home cause i didnt feel like going into work yesterday morning lol idiot... i was so paranoid my boss was there in disguise or some shit it was stupid. sorry um. yeah so ok i was largely like this could be a chance for friend groups to come together and maybe ill be able to talk to sams roommate and also like i do want to see more live music and it's free! so. anyway ok wait let me tell u abt the first part of the day

so me and lydia drive over some wine bottles to sam for him to use as props in a film. and sam and the roommate are sitting on their porch and we chat a little bit acc sam said as i walked up 'you always look so suspicious' and i was like 'ok u guys were literally just staring at me' cause they WERE and roommate was actually really nicely like 'oh no you're okay' and generally was just kind of inserting into our convo which well i had fun with naturally. um anyway and then who comes running up but teko! our buddy teko. and sams like have yall met and im like Of course and teko gives me a hug and i cant lie it was actually so sweet. i am also extremely touch starved but it was a nice hug. anyway. then i had to help roommate pick shoes alongside teko's fit and then i was like um Ok Bye. when i got back in the car lydia was like so i saw a neon sweatshirt... and i was like yeah <3 that's my man <3 sorry ok vibes get worse as the night comes

me and lydia end up getting to sam's late to 'pregame' this show and ig it was supposed be like. it was encouraged to dress formally. and i was wearing a dress that was too small and my chappell red tights and docs. kind of a serve but me and lydia were serving much more valentines day than formal. anyway. roommate does swing around to be like hi! and THEN i see my girl chloe i looooove her shes so fuckin funny and weird and we made this weird little short together in class last semester and i was kinda intimidated by her so i was so happy shocked when she was like I was so excited to see u :D WEEE shes so cool guys and has the funniest fuckin laugh and well honestly the high points of the night were us and lydia fucking around and dancing and being weird and offputting wallflowers cause again this thing SUCKED. ok

we did also smoke beforehand and i accidentally took this huge hit and then thought id be fine w a little more but brother was i feeling funny. did not eat enough and didnt take water it was atrocious. so. we get there and let me tell you if I WAS WORKING i'd have been able to fix the fact that it was soooooooooo fucking loud in there like bad bad bad audio distortion etc i wanted to kick this dude off the mixer but like what ever... it hurt so bad. and the lights were mostly on until chloe and sam duped this guy into dimming some of them but even still it was giving middle school dance. without the fun cheesy music. some of my instagram gay people are there. um but sorry there was simply no way i was going near that dance floor like the bands lowkey highkey sucked (i mean it was just a bunch of white college dudes and they did not slay. shocker. sam kept being like 'they're so good' and we were like um haha... straight face emoji)

we acc disappeared for a while to another floor for the br and just chilled for like half an hour (and security came to find us lmfaooo but ended up just leaving) and i was feeling odd and out of body and too aware of how i looked and it was just not great i was like we're the only bitches serving cunt here... um. anywho. so like later theres a slow dance and roommate is dancing with this other girl i only know from instagram till this point and i suppose if i was really feeling myself i could have tried to make a move but i was not. once again. vile vibes in this place. like i dont mean to be a pussy i typically would be much more charming and fun if i wanted to flirt and kinda felt the vibe from them but i was not really enjoying myself LMAO

then some more of the friend group shows up at the end and sam's like 'drama is actively going down' and im like Wuhhhh the fuck and i feel like a few of them r looking at me and i was just like get me OUT of here but for some fuck ass reason was still like nooooo we should go over and have pizza w sam and them. forgive me for thinking they had like frozen pizza or smth and i could get some free food out of this no we had to sit there and wait for dominos or whatever

AND THE MOST ANNOOOOOOOOOOOYING AWFUL TERRIBLE GROSS MEN YOUVE EVER MET SAT THERE AND JOINED THE BRIEF SMOKE CIRCLE AND THEN WERE JUST THERE AND LIKE YOU COULD JUST FEEL THEM TAKING UP SPACE AND US 'GIRLS' WERE MADE TO FEEL SO SMALL ON THE FUCKING COUCH I WAS SOOOOOOOO TIRED. had to get a sweater cause i felt so uncomfortable. girl i really was only there in case i could have a saving grace moment with roommate im so serious. well and for chloe but otherwise me and lydia shoulda been outta there

literally chloe was so excited to show our little video to people and sam cut us off from getting there to show us the fucking fidget spinner game he has on his tv. girl get out! oh my fucking god. finally lydias like Cool anyway so - like sams misogyny jumped out in previously unprecedented ways. it was bad. these boys were truly making me want to kill myself im sorry like it was so bad i have curated my experience so as to be away from that for so long it was really jarring. and what you need to understand about sam is that he's almost died twice and kind of has a funny little gender vibe going on and so for a while now yeah we've gotten along through silly odd things we relate through but holy shit....... that was so offputting i cant even wrap my brain around it

also sam very much walked me into like yaoi-fying him and his best friend and then was like haha noooo why r u calling us gay ur so weird bitch just fuck him already im tired and also dont care.. hes so attention seeking and not used to um not being the center of attention. sorry! oopsies anyway so

so then im like ew like i kinda need to reassess um. the people im around. and again cant stress enough how gross and judged and just kinda old i felt surrounded by these ppl even tho theyre all like within a year of age? and like roommate still seems maybe cool but since we didnt actually talk and they were off w the other roommate/other ppl i cant help but associate them w the odd vibes but like. honestly idk i might just try to uh slide into their dms rlly casually. bc. well idk how the friend group is fracturing and it wouldnt surprise me if they were annoyed with sam esp living with him but obv i dont really know. but again let me stress this friend group has been friends since their freshman year like what r yall doing yeah u do need to break up....

so i figure since they're hot (and kinda tiny i cant tell if they're shorter than me or just right around my height) (but also they kind of scared me by giving Instagram face while posing for a pic last night i cant do any more people giving off dorian gray rn. but i was also under the influence so um that didnt help) i could just yeah be brave see how it goes and worst case scenario it's not a vibe yk. and best case scenario i get to hang w them and teko. teko so gives francis. anyway

OH also sam and the friends insisted on listening to this ai generated… thing like idk guys i think i was in hell fr

also had several men yell out of their cars at me and staring at me as we walked to the bus stop :/ so men really do ruin everything btw

um. so. that was the night! thx for reading if u did. i am excited to be around other fun silly cool queer people god bless fuck these people

[shostakobitchh]

For “anonymously message me (3) things you want to know about me.”:

1. How long have you been a music teacher, and what sparked your interest in both music and writing?

2. Is there a specific piece of music or book quote that deeply touches your soul? If so, what about them resonates with you?

3. What are some of your favorite books and movies, and what about them captivates you the most?

This fall will be my 6th year of teaching orchestra! I started violin when I was 9 and I remember it being the first thing I was really good at, so there was enjoyment there. Once I was in high school, I had a fantastic team of music teachers who clearly loved what they did and I remember wanting to do the same - inspire others the way I was inspired. Writing came later; I had read Harry Potter for the first time in high school, and I had a really close friend (who was coincidentally named Lily) and we just talked about Harry Potter and Snape ALL THE TIME. It got to the point where my friend group got mad at me bc I was spending more time with Lily to talk about Harry Potter than like, enjoy our final year of high school LOL. So we started writing fanfic. She's moved on and stuff but it never really faded for me. It really just boiled down to finding nothing that scratched the itch I had (Female Harry with Feral Bio Dad Snape).

2. Oh man, this one is HARD. I think of every piece of music that has touched me, the most profound has to be the finale of Symphony No. 2 by Mahler. If you don't know this symphony, it is a fucking masterpiece. It's known as the Resurrection Symphony and Mahler composed it with the idea of following a narrative that spans through death, starting with a funeral march and ending in a resurrection.

“Why have you lived? Why have you suffered? Is it all some huge, awful joke? We have to answer these questions somehow if we are to go on living – indeed, even if we are only to go on dying!”

This article does a great job of explaining what's happening here. I don't know how to put into words how absolutely moving this piece is; I played it a year ago in a cathedral and I cried the last 2 minutes. The end, where everyone comes blazing together in an assurance that there is meaning beyond the grief, is probably one of the most comforting things I have ever had the privilege to listen to and be a part of.

3. I don't read as much as I used to and that's a big regret of mine. I did read ACOTAR last year and genuinely enjoyed it! It was very different for me but I loved the characters and the world-building! I'm currently starting Throne of Glass because apparently that's even better than ACOTAR and more my vibe - princess assassin? Yes please!

I love Stefan King; all his stuff slaps. Horror is my absolute favorite genre of all.

My favorite movie, in a weird turn of events, is Avengers Endgame. I just like action and good writing (before Disney bought it and ruined Marvel, thanks Disney). Thor Ragnarok is a close second. I don't really have a favorite for movies because I watch literally everything. Right now I'm hooked on House of the Dragon.

[arrow-dodger]

Having friends is hard. Having friends as an adult is hard, specifically.

I miss the time in my late teens and early 20s when nobody had any responsibilities at home, so we could just hang out whenever. Go crash at each other's houses. Go grab chips and salsa after work whenever. Now my work friends (the people I spend the most time with by far) are all married people with obligations and shit to do. My male friend has a wife I've barely hung out with who I know doesn't like our friendship. That's always been a thing for me, but at least in the past they were just random passing girlfriends and not entire spouses. Some of my other friends hang out still, but at like, bars? I hate bars.

My older friend group is another story. Since I don't live close enough to hang out with everyone much, I only get invited to big events where everyone and their dog is there, so my frame of reference for everything is pretty limited. But the thing about the "friend group" as a living being is that people get added to it or removed from it as time goes on, and it's always really weird for me because I usually don't know any of the new people at all. That kinda happened this past year where some people were ousted and different people were added that I really don't vibe with as much? So I honestly just feel very weird, precarious, and out of place in general.

And I was already kind of feeling like I wasn't vibing with certain people as much just after months of seeing them say things that seemed really ignorant and dumb, or just things I don't personally agree with at all, but then some drama happened (while I was elsewhere, so I came back to this like the guy in the pizza fire gif) that sowed discord amongst the ranks and REALLY changed my opinion about some people for the worse. It was ultimately related to political beliefs and just... the ability to have adult discussions? And some people really showed themselves as people who spout certain beliefs but don't actually believe those things or support these causes in their daily lives, which is something I can't stand. It takes zero brain cells to repost an instagram infographic about a political issue and is another thing entirely to really learn about things, challenge yourself, and have informed beliefs. Some people just have no curiosity about the world around them and I can't understand that.

And some of it was just regular old ignorance or being uninformed, but I'm like... almost 30, so I don't want to have to constantly explain shit to people that I feel like they should already know in order for us to be on the same page about literal core values. That's not what I want out of my close relationships. Some of my friends do that on the regular for their close friends and don't seem to mind, but I don't like it. My work friends and my best friends and I are always having deep discussions, so it's hard to treat people with kid gloves or talk to them like they're five about shit, especially while [hahahahaha I just backspaced something really mean hahahahaaaaaahaha whatever, the point is I feel like some people think they're incapable of or exempt from learning new things and I disagree]

It may seem shitty to even be posting about this but I've been ruminating on it for like, three months, and haven't hung out with anyone since like April. Plus people in that group can handle their interpersonal issues however they want. PLUS, I'm slightly tipsy, so jot that down.

Anywayyy. It's also just weird to hang out with a large group of people where several of them seem to dislike each other. So I keep my distance for now. And my work friends are having a Friendsgiving and I don't think I'm gonna go because fuck holidays. I absolutely can't make myself do it when nothing about them feels true to me. But I also need to take every opportunity I can for human engagement because I never regret it.