#thus the one ear piecing is born. the alternative joke was that it was just clip on. am i going to question the clothing? nah

[cent-scratchnsniff]

[mmmmalo]

Some Words on Openbound

This is a step towards a more comprehensive account of A6I3 (Openbound). The basic idea: Meenah’s interactive adventures can be read as a dream-sequence from Roxy’s point of view expressing the following motifs:

The threat posed by (Lord) English functions as a metastasized metaphor for problems posed by language itself.

To escape from the clutches of language is to achieve perfect communication, represented by a return to a pre-lingual, child-like state (“pre-lingual” at once referring to image, sensation, and silence)

The recurring motif of 'merging with child’ is also used to a. to express the desire for pregnancy b. to express the desire to become one’s True Self, conceptualized as an inner, child-self that is “born” within oneself like an embryo c. to express pedophilia

First: Meenah is Roxy’s doppelganger. When we are introduced to Roxy’s fenestrated planes, we are promptly informed that if someone were caught half in/out one of the windows when the power cuts off, the poor soul would be sliced in two (4510). By Chekhov’s gun, this introduction ought to result in someone getting gorily bisected by the window, but it never happens. Instead we get this:

Gcat warps the panel away, trapping Roxy in the void, and we are shown a bisected horse puppet (left). The half-horse reiterates the looming threat of Chekhov’s guillotine. Roxy’s body is intact, but the scenery suggests she ought to be split. The suggestion is followed by the initial appearance of Meenah (right), implying that Meenah herself is a piece of Roxy, snipped away and running rampant. Thus, a doppelganger.

So, taking Meenah to be a esoteric mirror of Roxy, it follows that her adventures in the dreams bubbles are a narrative frame for /Roxy’s/ dreams. This is the basic assumption of everything that follows.

1: Language is the enemy.

Time is an impermeable barrier. It ticks on irreversibly, edging its victims unto entropic dissolution. The Lord of Time and the destruction he brings embody the inevitability of death. Aradia cracks a joke about this at the beginning of Openbound: within the ageless confine of the dreambubbles, “time is a figure of speech”, she says. Though ostensibly asserting the endless flexibility of time, an alternate interpretation would indicate that Lord English, time, and language itself are apprehended on similar terms. The most useful one presently: language, like time, is regarded as a barrier.

Throughout Homestuck, characters struggle with abstractions, beginning with the frustrating data mechanics of the sylladex and culminating in various tightrope-walks along unorthodox configurations of space and time. Language numbers among the headaches: Caliborn characterizes the text he reads as “walls”, further declaring them to be “impenetrable” and “migraine-inducing”. On one level, this aligns with Caliborn’s statement that the kids talk/think too much and he’d like them to just GET THE FuCK ON WITH IT ALREADY: speech is an obstacle towards both the completion of the kids’ objectives and Caliborn’s attainment of what he wants. On another level, this aligns with the later discussion of Caliborn’s learning disability: in all likelihood, he has difficulty reading. Another example of this disdain for language is Jade, who, in her rapturous treatise on the wonders of anthro, answers the call of the wild by renouncing words.

No need to answer. Words slough from the busy mind like a useless dead membrane as a more visceral sapience takes over. Something simpler is in charge now, a force untouched by the concerns and burdens of the upright, that farcical yoke the bipedal tow. It now drives you through the midnight brush, your paws whisking through creepers, unearthing with each bold stomp bright odors demanding investigation.

Just prior to Openbound, the sentiments expressed above (that language is unnecessary, an obstacle to unmediated communication and pure sensation) are restated in mythic terms: REALITY ITSELF is being DESTROYED by (LORD) ENGLISH! Language the inhibitor of direct experience becomes language the rot of the universe, language the malevolent destroyer of the capacity for any experience at all.

Meenah witnesses English’s destruction of reality and rushes off to recruit soldiers to fight him. There is harmony between the imminent threat of English and the gameplay: the primary obstacles to Meenah’s objectives are words. Literal walls of text stand between you and the end of the level, as you must navigate exhausting conversations to satisfy the game’s win conditions. Within the conversation themselves, the motif persists by showcasing various ways that speech can obscure meaning.

Kankri couches his points in overly ornate terminology and uses social justice as a tool for settling personal disputes. Latula laments how her commitment to her RAD speech affectations and persona can make her harder to understand. Cronus trips over his own accent, Mituna tumbles through various word spasms. Meulin’s deafness is thematically succeeded by Rufioh’s inability to communicate his unhappiness to the Horuss, who has sweat in his ears. The two characters who you cannot understand at all, the silent Kurloz and the pseudo-Japanese speaking Damara, are revealed to be direct servants of Lord English! Failure to communicate – inability to bridge the barrier of language – is the enemy.

The counter to the hyperbolic threat of language-as-mediation and is a fantasy of perfect communication. In Jade’s scenario, attainment of this ideal is presented visually as Jade acquiring the superficial markers of a wolf (“Wouldn't these ears suit you? Would not this proud long snout assist you in the hunt?”), whereupon she acquires the rich experience that she associates with the idea of animal, unmediated by language. Just as Jade merges with the image of a wolf, there is an image in Openbound that Meenah seeks, the attainment of which embodies the goal of some idealized communication, without words.

The image is that of childhood.

2: Kankri and Porrim form a spectrum of identity

In Homestuck, desire is generally structured as the restoration of a lost unity. Consider Cherub reproduction, itself inspired by a Platonic model of love: in seeking a soulmate, one is actually seeking a fascimile of their lost half, that with which they were originally united. The force that fractures this unity -- the boundary that prohibits access to the desired object -- is the law.

I elaborate on the various corollaries of this motif elsewhere (x)(x), but for present purposes, let it suffice to say that time itself functions as a law of sorts, insofar as time rips you away from childhood and bars the possibility of a return.

That’s a little abstract, so here’s an example: due to the the status of trolls as manifestations, we know that the characters Meenah visits in the afterlife are expressions of her (and thus Roxy’s) psyche. This relationship is difficult to map on a troll-by-troll basis. But things begin to click when you view each cluster of interactions with Beforan trolls as a mental constellation, their interplay showcasing pervasive internal dialogues and dynamics.

In the first cluster, Latula appears between Porrim and Kankri because SHE IS THE LAW, dividing Jesus from Mary, Child from Mother (which, as I will show, seems to be the trajectory Roxy imagines for herself). This is the reason that Latula successfully interrupts Kankri and Karkat’s “conversation”: they are clones, more or less, and the law is that which divides the child from itself.

I don’t claim Kankri represents a child just because he’s a brat who gets ruthlessly mothered by Porrim: it’s also implicit in his politics. Humans are not stratified by blood color, so the hemospectrum is not directly analogous to any real life example of power, privilege, or what have you. Neither is it perfectly generic. In a given context, the hemospectrum is often analogized to some particular notion of hierarchy. Eridan’s drive for blood purity marks him as a analogous to a racial supremacist; the depiction of Zebruh’s attitude towards low bloods is well interpreted as being rooted in a particularly exploitative brand of misogyny (x); and Kankri’s polemics pivot upon the particular role that AGE DIFFERENCE plays in structural oppression of Alternia, a metaphor for what is popularly termed “adultism”, injustices stemming from the power adults hold over children.

Kankri emphasizes that the lifespan discrepancy between warm and cool hemochroma means the upper classes are allotted far more time (unto eons) to consolidate power and define cultural norms; their immense lifespans constitute a structural basis for the oppression of lowbloods, whose relative youth means less time to organize. This doubles as a description of a political limitation of children, relative to adults. Kankri describes the lowest grouping of blood colors as Burgundy, Ochre, Umber, and Yellow -- BUOY for short, which not coincidentally is Meenah’s nautical permutation of BOY. All of which is to say that Kankri rankling at Porrim’s doting is mutually analogous with his politics, in the context of Beforus, where coddling is the de facto relation between castes. His being a brat raging against an overbearing mother is an analogy.

And funny enough, that’s something he and Porrim have in common, in a way. Porrim balks at the /role/ of motherhood expected of her, among other injustices upon women in Beforan society. And Porrim likewise objects to the role of RAD GIRL that Latula 'pro+jects’, encouraging her to just ‘be yo+urself’... the idea being, in the same sense that Latula’s GAME GIRL persona masks her ‘real’ personality, femininity itself is construed as a shell encasing the ‘true’ child-self within. Or rather, the feminine persona is portrayed as being pregnant with the child-self, which is the true self. So Kankri’s raging against Porrim is a metaphor for a spirit balking at the gendered expectations that encase them.

If I can speak with any confidence on this psychological reading of Kankri and Porrim’s opposition, it because the invocation of pregnancy to communicate as sense of inner/outer self is repeated throughout the dream, through the language used to describe characters who are otherkin. Take Cronus for example: he is named after a god famous for devouring his children. And his lusus (an expression of his desire) is a seahorse, notable for their child-bearing males. The net effect is the impression of a baby in Cronus’s belly -- but instead of literal pregnancy, we see Cronus describe himself as ‘a human “born” in the body of a troll’, essentially invoking the image of pregnancy to communicate his status as humankin.

Here you might begin to see how this is Roxy’s dream -- the mental conflict between Porrim (womanhood) and Kankri (childhood, which while ostensibly gender neutral can be rendered masculine by opposition to womanhood) creates a spectrum of identity available to Roxy, as made explicit by their gender exploration in the epilogues. This seems to be the joke at play whenever Latula reiterates the “GIRLS RULE, BOYS DROOL” line from her theme song: taken literally, it is a succinct summary of the Kankri/Porrim conflict, wherein the feminine persona is construed as dominating the (at times masculine by contrast) child-self. 

Kankri’s description of a “warm-identifying physically-cooler caste” is Roxy: she identifies with her child-self.

And as I mentioned before, just as Latula stands between Porrim and Kankri, time is the law separating someone feeling trapped by femininity from a childhood where such concerns were nonexistent. Time is thus the enemy, which is one of the thematic reasons the Lord of Time warrants such resentment. A certain longing for childhood also characterizes the glimpses of John that punctuates Openbound: he laments the inability to recapture the feeling of watching Con Air with his Dad when he was younger (throwing his big tantrum at the exact moment that Cyrus threatens the bunny, which really ought to go back in the box, the perfectly generic object). Roxy later voices a similar sentiment in Wizardy Herbert via Beatrix, who would “trade all the badges in the world to go back to when things were simpler.” Elsewhere in the story Roxy emphasizes a growing tension between a figure with ~100 merit badges (symbolizing complexity) with another character, Russet (an apple, the emblem of atomic simplicity, as per drunk!Rose). Kanaya might describe this as a tension between Space and Time (1093), but here it chiefly serves to further underline the Child and Adult distinction.

3: The corollary of “perfect communication” is silence.

If Time divides the child from itself, it can be hypothesized that Lord English can embody this divide in his other symbolic functions, such as his embodiment of language. If true, it follows that the union of the child-self represents perfect, unmediated communication. Our first example of such a union then are the enmeshed Vantases (who are basically clones) -- but instead of some transcendent transmission of thought, we see an endless one-sided lecture. Spoonful after heaping spoonful of heaving diarhetoric fed directly into Karkat’s gaping earhole.

And on a psychological level, perhaps that’s an apt description of what it means to “just be yourself” without interruption, no commentary or insecure protests interjecting their way into your stream of consciousness. Ordering yourself around without a second thought. And I’ve been in the zone in that way, where I’m so immersed in a task that the task becomes me. But on an interpersonal level, it’s clear that “perfect” speech is entirely unequal.

Despite ostensibly championing the rights of children in the face of domination, Kankri asserts himself as the “teacher” to Karkat’s “pupil”, assuming that the transmission of truth will be one-sided. When confronted by Porrim about this hypocrisy, Kankri defensively insists that he is having a “man to man conversation” with Karkat, an equal exchange. (And oddly, even as she advocates for Karkat, Porrim leaves Karkat in his silence, gently assuring him that his dejected glance has said all he needs to say...)

At any rate, the Karkat-Kankri dynamic illustrates that the immediacy of communication within the primordial union brings with it an element of domination. The subsequent pairings (Cronus-Mituna and Kurloz-Meulin) elaborate on problems and abuses that can accompany compromised speech and silence, each section emphasizing a particular child symbol: respectively, angels and cats (which I’ve established previously). 

Angels first: Cronus’s claim that “as a wwingman [Mituna] is a total disgrace” uses “wingman” to invoke the image of angels. This method is repeated by Lil Hal, who observes that Dirk views him as a “counterproductive wing man”, to which Dirk sarcastically replies “nice deduction Lil Einstein”. The reference to the Disney Jr. show neatly ties the angel reference into the fact that as Dirk’s creation, in a sense Hal can be considered Dirk’s child. And in the same way that Hal (the child/angel) functions partly as a reflection of Dirk’s own nature, Mituna’s angel status indicates that he can function symbolically as Cronus’s “inner-child”, the self with which one is pregnant.xx

Silence is an interminable pregnancy. Not speaking means not birthing the baby, not letting the angel fall to earth. The hush is a measure against the corruption and ruin associated with English. (Even though the silent characters are his most devoted servants?)

Cronus demonstrates this with the command “vwait here, try not to fall dowvn, and ABOVWE ALL, try not to be seen” in which “above all” doubles as the place from which Mituna is falling. Language is the instrument of descent, Mituna’s garbled speech emphasizes his “fallen” status within the paradigm. Cronus “really hates the sound of” Mituna partly because he views Mituna as a caricature of himself, again not unlike Dirk’s violent rejection of the negative qualities he identifies in Hal.

This is why Cronus’s opening gesture is to fail a tongue-twister and cry GLOBES in exasperation: it is as though he has hit a snag in his verbal kick-flip and face-planted onto the earth (the globe) -- Mituna bombing his literal stunts and falling down being the root visual. Skateboards (and other 4-wheel devices) are vehicles unto “unreal air”: a status of immaculate lofty ideality, and thus untouchable and pure. The other skateboarder, Latula, made a point of emphasizing her untouchability as she performed some “objectively rad” tricks for Kankri. And more to the point, Latula claims that her intuitions “just make sense” and explaining them would not be "radical”, saying in her own way that bringing her feelings/intuitive knowledge into the realm of speech would in some way tarnish or degrade them. “4 grlz gott4 s4cr1f1c3 und3rst4nd4b1l1ty for th3 s4k3 of r4dn3ss” she says.

Another way to put it is that not expressing a thought can make seem invincible -- it cannot be exposed to the risk of contradiction or mockery. A relevant quote:

MEENAH: i heard a rumor you think youre a human now MEENAH: that true

CRONUS: its a privwate matter. i dont see vwhy i should havwe to talk about it vwith you, and open myself up to more of your judgmental scorn.

MEENAH: sounds like another desperate cry for attention imo

(Aside: an old friend of mine faced almost this exact conversation on facebook when they came out as a trans man, so this one actually hit home a little bit.)

Roxy’s sensitivity to the reactions of others is perhaps implicit in the paranoid staring contests with the void, but in relation to their gender expression, it becomes most explicit in the epilogue -- not only in the faltering manner by which Roxy begins to assert their gender expression, but in the narration itself. Although Dirk’s narration seems to largely reflection his own hesitation to embrace Roxy’s newfound identity, it should be remembered that he is effectively Roxy’s brainghost when narrating their thoughts. That is to say, Dirk’s reaction to Roxy is symbiotic with what Roxy imagines Dirk’s reaction would be. The mockery in the narration is the mockery Roxy expects and fears. Thus, Roxy’s level of comfort and security with their current gender expression necessarily coincides with the level of ease expressed by Dirk’s later narration.

But let’s return to Openbound.

The traumatic deafening of Meulin is analogous to the deathening of Jaspers: one is blasted with the violent shriek of a clown, the other sassacrushed by the “daunting text” of Mark Twain. With the cat as a symbol of the child-self, the message is basically that the child’s encounter with language is a violent experience. (Lord English is destroying reality, etc etc) Kankri neatly echoes this point of view by announcing one of his lectures as “my crushing harangue 9n this delicate su6ject” -- to rephrase, he is crushing the delicate subject (child) with his harangue.

Like much violence in Homestuck, violence of speech is sexualized. There is a moment where Cronus openly relishes the unilateral communication first displayed in the Kankri > Karkat pipeline. He basks in the fact that Mituna is incapable of repeating anything coherently, or that Mituna’s word is otherwise held in such disrepute that no one will take Mituna seriously. As Cronus does this, Mituna laments that Cronus is touching him and will not stop.

The bad-touch motif continues with Kurloz and Meulin, who achieve their own mode of “perfect communication” (union with child-self) via streams of wordless, emotive images. In the above exchange, Kurloz mimes an Ewok rubbing a child, to which Meulin responds with a small frown and a laughing Sailor Moon, as if to convey that she were the one being tickled in the previous gif. She slams the UNSEE button to emphasize her displeasure. (It is only after this sequence that we learn Kurloz can control Meulin’s mind, further linking harmonious union with tyrannical, unilateral communication)

It’s worth noting here that Meenah’s goal in parts 1 & 2 is to get through gates established by Karkat, ultimately convincing him to join up with her. Karkat who, alongside Kankri, currently represents the child-self. Just as Rufioh interprets Meenah’s invitation to join as a romantic proposal, Meenah interprets her successful recruitment of Karkat as a date, sealing the euphemism by reassuring her recruit that he “will not regret hitchin [his] wagon to [her] starfish”, which is a sex joke. The undertones of age disparity later surface as Meenah joins up with her second Vriska (x):

MEENAH: can i ask a kinda personal question MEENAH: i mean not even that personal but whatev 

VRISKA: Sure...? 

MEENAH: how old are you 

VRISKA: Uh, VRISKA: Almost seven and a half sweeps. VRISKA: Getting close to eight!!!!!!!! VRISKA: I pro8a8ly sound like a fucking nerd, 8ut I've 8een excited a8out reaching that milestone pretty much my whole life. 

MEENAH: 7.5 huh MEENAH: i guess thats a lil more respectable 

VRISKA: More respecta8le than what? 

MEENAH: nofin

For Roxy, the libidinal investment in kids is confined to subtext for basically the whole story: jokes about the speculative mechanics of boning chess people and elves, the sexual tension between Russet and the boy with 100 merit badges, the time Roxy was briefly upset to learn she had been “flirt-larping” with a 13 year old Dirk, only to resume the game a page later -- little moments. In the epilogues, Roxy being highly conscious of her interactions with children and the potential for reproducing systems of domination seems embedded in her trepidation towards any of the players governing the world they created (a hands-off attitude toward parenting that may also offer some rationale for Mom’s neglect of Rose, if all that is true of Roxy holds true for her past self).

But let’s move forward.

4: To See Oneself as a Host Plush

I’d like to reiterate here that the Kankri-Porrim dichotomy suggests that the categories of ‘baby’ and ‘boy’ are blurred in their mutual opposition to ‘girl’. Again, the letter of the law: BOYS DROOL! This offers a rationale for oddities like Roxy wiping John’s mouth for him during their date in Candy (boys drool), or this little slip-of-the-tongue which I wouldn’t quite call subtle:

ROXY: doin ok up there b?

JOHN: i’m fine!!! JOHN: wait. b?

ROXY: yea like short for babe ROXY: cuz ur my babe b

JOHN: oh, haha. right.

If we’re being less charitable, you could characterize this as Roxy keeping her eyes on the prize -- as though in addressing John, she is actually addressing the baby that he can provide her. And while I’m not certain of that, the notion of such double-speak (seemingly addressing the person in front of you when you are actually addressing an unborn child) is crucial for understanding the metaphors embedded in the Damara-Rufioh-Horuss triad.

The motif of pregnancy is here introduced via Fiduspawn: impregnate the host plush and a baby pony comes out.

You might remember that Rufioh refers to girls as ‘doll’ -- this quirk links the host plush to the feminine (at least within the context of this dream). To be more precise, the doll is characterized as a void that invites (or even demands) filling: this is a complementary reading of Horuss’s claim that Rufioh “stole his breath away”, synonymous with the claim that Rufioh “has a way of drawing the breath out of people”. The Rogue of Breath has difficulty standing up for himself (Horuss calls it “affable pliability”), so Horuss often speaks over him or on his behalf, as though Rufioh were a marionette. Horuss is saying that Rufioh’s passive demeanor invites this sort of behavior, that Rufioh’s effective silence means he is “asking for it”, to use a loaded phrase. 

How funny then that the “doll” of their group Damara (whose name means Silence) is literally “asking for it”, constantly. The same logic applies to Dirk’s decapitated head (from just before this intermission!) and Vriska’s comatose body -- through narrative contrivance, each voiceless vessel hauntingly implores a living Page to kiss them, to fill them with a Breath from without. The sequences suggest a conviction on the part of the kissers: that which is “empty” must desire to be “filled”, a framing that becomes particularly unpleasant when sexualized.

What Damara is asking for is ambiguous, at once referring to sex and the child to which sex serves as vehicle (among other potentials). I wrote awhile back (x) that Mom gave Jaspers an ostentatious burial as a proxy mourning for a miscarried child that preceded Rose, and her cat-cloning was oriented towards the eventual revival of her lost baby. For Damara (and thus Roxy) this becomes a fundamental myth: the desire for children is complemented in intensity by the conviction that the child has already been lost, or stolen from you. Horuss observes that Damara’s remarks a leaning “bloo” because (it’s a pun) her dirty talk is tinged with mourning. There is, inexplicably, sorrow when Damara says she wants to feel her nipples between your teeth. She’s not talking to you -- she’s talking to the baby.

This is also the joke when Latula/Terezi threaten to kill Damara for approaching Mituna/Karkat: the LAW will not permit you to access BABY! You may not recover your child or your childhood, time has barred you from both. (Though of course, through the pedophilia lens this becomes much less sympathetic).

A similar moment can be read into Horuss: Kankri, like all trolls, acts as a manifestation of some emotional surge, so Kankri’s sudden appearance implies that someone is legitimately triggered, despite the comic’s apparent commitment to denigrating his point of view. Like Cronus, Horuss’s horse-kin status entails an identification with his inner (child) self -- but the trans allegory melds seamlessly into other modes of union with the child image, such as pregnancy. So when Kankri asks Horuss to confirm that he is triggered by Meenah’s skepticism towards his identity, the reply “Trigger sounds like a wonderful name for a hoofbeast” is not merely a flippant non-sequitur, but also another echo of the core lamentation, a wistful musing on names for a dead/unborn child.

A brief step backwards: at the beginning, we outlined how Lord English’s destruction of reality was (in the present context at least) a mythic expression of fears and frustrations about communication and speech. Dissatisfaction /produced/ a fantasy individual to whom the problem could be sourced and blamed assigned. A similar attitude should be adopted in examining Damara’s theft of Rufioh’s “happy thought” Tinkerbull -- she represents an already existing discontentment with his circumstances, crystallized into an individual.

This is where Damara would seem to slot into the dysphoria proceedings: she crushed Tinkerbull with a refrigerator, a reprisal of the sassacrushing of Jaspers. The refrigerator is a womb symbol (I insist), suggesting that the womb is a hostile force on par with the Law of English (Girls Rule!). From the perspective of Mom, this could be read a response to her miscarriage, a result of blaming her own body for the child’s death. From Roxy’s perspective, it might be better characterized as ‘the body itself is a domineering force suffocating my child self’ -- and thus dysphoria. Damara crushing Tinkerbull represents the sense that your own body is a meat prison, a shell imprisoning (if not outright killing) your happiness.

This is why Damara manifests for Kanaya, who struggles to reconcile herself with Porrim, a daunting image of ideal womanhood, especially as it concerns the care of matriorb (ie motherhood). Porrim assures her that even though motherhood is to some degree a societal imposition, a role, this does not mean Kanaya cannot embrace the perpetuation of her species on her own terms. This is a good lesson, and Kanaya agrees -- but there stands Damara regardless, joy-stealer, lingering discomfort with self-conception as a host plush. “Just ignore her until she goes away” is all the advice Porrim has to offer on the subject.

(Passing thought: It occurs to me that the phrase ‘happy thought’ used to describe Tinkerbull could be replaced with ‘euphoria’, forming a clean complement to ‘dysphoria’... but wordplay reliant on a missing link is somewhat suspect, so let’s leave that one in the margins)

5: High Euphemistic Density

Let’s review by playing with some euphemisms in Horuss’s opening address to Meenah. I’m dividing his words into 3 sections for ease of reference:

1 HORUSS: 8=D < Your Harness... I mean Hayness. Highness I mean. HORUSS: 8=D < F*DDLEST*%. Please pardon my utterly e%ecrable language, and unforgivable stammering, your Horseness. #Sh*ot! #I mean Hayness! #Whew. 2 HORUSS: 8=D < I am a bale of nerves in your royal presence, and it has been so long. 3 HORUSS: 8=D < And when I am so spooked, you must know how that causes me to even more firmly identify with the majestic hoofbeast.

Starting with three: recall, “girls rule”. Femininity is characterized as a daunting (or even domineering) imposition. Kanaya displaying anxiety at the prospect of measuring up to the image of Porrim is one way this motif crystallizes into a character dynamic. Another way seems to be Horuss’s anxiety before his empress -- just as Kankri (child) rebels against Porrim (mother), the presence of Meenah (mother) induces Horuss to identify with the hoofbeast (baby). Both cases present a shrinking away from a feminine authority figure as metaphor for rejection of the societal strictures of femininity.

Two is a dick joke: while Horuss is ostensibly lamenting his anxiety, a penis is a literal ‘bale of nerves’, a sensory cluster. “It has been so long.” The pun is reinforced as the expense of Rufioh, who apparently did not have ‘the nerve’ to ‘finish [Damara] off’ on her quest bed, which is an innuendo for sexual inadequacy. That Horuss’s smiling face emoji is itself a dick suggests a conflation of identification with his happy thoughts and identification with the member -- which, based on previous discussion of Tinkerbull, would seem to blur the line between having a dick and being pregnant? Which aligns with the notion that pregnancy becomes a metaphor for masculine identification via union with the child self.

(“You very nearly caught a glimpse of a horse penis and began to cry” conveys a mournful yearning of the same order as “I want to feel my nipples between your teeth”?)

But the metaphor goes both ways: the brain is another ‘bale of nerves’, thus offering a rational for Mituna’s presence on the outskirts of the dream. His fall from the brain tree strikes me as less an ejaculation (from brain-dick) as birth (from brain-womb) -- hence the use of Mituna as the lost child, forever denied to Damara by the law (Latula).

And we arrive at one, which repeats a bit from Cronus’s introduction: Horuss trips over his own speech, illustrating the Fall. Just as Cronus attempts to silence Mituna to avoid the embarrassment expected to accompany self-expression, Horuss attempts to c*nsor himself before the judgement of his empress. The need to hide himself (as the stoic smile might indicate) is also embedded in the way Horuss describes his mouth as a load-gaper, and begs pardon for his potty-mouth: silence is golden, and conversely speech becomes excrable, fallen and profaned.

(Silly thought: on occasion, censorship can also designate the holy, eg censoring the name of G*d so as not to besmirch it. That in mind, I find it amusing to take Roxy’s line “holiest of shits // the shit.... // is down right // SACROSANCT” as a literal deification of excrement, making Horuss and Rufioh’s self-censorship look like a last ditch attempt at keeping the angel-child up in heaven. No?)

6: Conclusions and Questions

Obviously, this isn’t all that can be said of Openbound -- people have written extensive character studies of the alpha trolls, mined their stories for clues and parallels to less tangential plot-lines, and otherwise made whatever sense could be made of things. My contribution is some words on the mixed metaphors, word play, and psychological motifs that surround the proceedings.

If you, like me, are frazzled by the sheer density of double and triple speak at play, this is the gist of what I’m arguing for:

“Merge with child” seems to be the overarching motivation expressed in Openbound. But to follow that command verbatim is impossible -- the goal must be interpreted (as getting pregnant, as being true to oneself, as pederasty, as nostalgic pursuit of simplicity, etc) in order to be realized.

That the ideal merger is an image whose wholeness/breadth of possibility is lost in the specificity of actualization would seem analogous to the Fall occurring between silence and speech... so the motif persists on a meta level, maybe? But we don’t need to dwell on that more than we already have. 

Instead, I’d like to end with several new points that give me pause.

It’s still not clear to me why the silent characters are the direct servants of Lord English. Communication with them is impossible, and that frustration is what causes language to be conceived as a threat in the first place, but I have an itch that tells me there’s a bit more to it than that.

I don’t know what the transmission of the codpiece has to do with anything. I suspect it may number among various metaphors for trans masculinity, but that’s confirmation bias speaking -- from the scene itself, I gathered very little.

I wonder if Aranea’s info dumps at the end are factored in... you could construe them as placing Meenah in the position of Karkat relative to Kankri -- on the receiving end of spoonful after heaping spoonful of words. So even though Karkat disappears after you follow him, you’ve nonetheless “merged” with the child-function that he performs here? But again, I worry that this sort of hasty integration means I’m missing out on new info.

I’m pretty firmly of the mind that this whole intermission is chiefly devoted to Roxy, but I do worry that Meenah’s doppelganger status could have misled me on that point. After all, Jane’s planet quest contained references to her friends desires, not only her own (x)(x) -- would it be so odd for the same to be true of Roxy’s dreams? In which case it would be worth revisiting this intermission to double-check whether any given section might map more closely to the other alpha kids -- especially since Rufioh/Horuss is a transparent commentary on Dirk/Jake

This is a good a place as any to note that when I was operating under the assumption that Roxy was a trans girl, I was inclined to read the Rufioh/Horuss break-up as ambivalence on the question of getting rid of your dick -- which seemed sensible enough at the time, though the present model seems more consistent across the various conversations. It should be noted though that the language of gender questioning can easily serve multiple directions at once. So... I guess I want to make sure the apparent success of this approach doesn’t blind me to other interpretive potentials? Fingers crossed

...there’s more things to question, probably, but I think that’s good for now.

Special thanks to @red-zora for giving this mess the once-over.

Good night everyone.

[ellanainthetardis]

And today, I bring you the baby shower from hell.

[FF] or [AO3]

27. Thirty One Weeks

Haymitch was in hell.

Baby showers were no fun.

He had naively thought the wedding would mark the end of the Trinkets’ visit. Naively. It had turned out that, while Tadius had needed to go back to the Capitol for business, Lyssandra, Elindra and the kids were perfectly happy to stay a while longer – although the kids were mostly under the nanny’s supervision. It had been Elindra’s idea to take advantage of Annie’s and Johanna’s presence to throw an impromptu baby shower – although it might not have been that impromptu because gifts and presents had been in their trunks – which was how Haymitch had found himself stuck in a room full of women.

Liam Clarke had tried to get him out of it by inviting him for a coffee but Effie had told him under no uncertain terms the shower was for Aidan and thus for the both of them and that she wouldn’t have him being rude by skipping the party.

His only consolation was that Johanna and Katniss seemed as overjoyed was he was. The two of them were sitting a bit apart from the others and regularly exchanged eye rolls and sarcastic smirks. Haymitch had chosen to stand between the couch and the window so he could at least have some distraction and had flat out refused to partake in the games the Capitols had planned.

Decorating your own romper?

A diaper change competition?

What sort of games were those?

And when had Elindra or Lyssandra ever changed a diaper?

Effie was having a blast though, so he kept his peace about how stupid the whole thing was.

“Now, ladies, it is time for gifts!” Elindra declared, tossing him a pointed glance.

Effie’s smile was softer when she patted the empty spot next to her on the couch. With a deep sigh and a glare for Johanna, whose snickers weren’t appreciated, he dutifully took his seat next to his wife while the others gathered their presents.

His eyes fell on the diamond on her finger and it made him relax. The marriage was only five days old and he still got a thrill out of thinking about her being his wife. He had always thought a wedding would be more of a formality than anything else but he had to admit he was enjoying the idea of belonging that went with it. He belonged to her and she belonged to him. They were a family in every sense of the term now.

She discreetly brushed her lips against his cheek. “Just a little while longer and you can safely make your escape. Do remember to rescue Katniss, the poor dear will roll her eyes out of her skull.”

“Not Jo?” he asked, in a low voice that didn’t carry much further.

“Jo can suffer a bit longer.” she countered. She flashed him a grin full of mischief and he couldn’t help but chuckle, always a bit mystified by their strange friendship.

Katniss was actually the first to hand a gift, as if it could get her out of there quicker.

“It’s from Peeta.” she told them. “For the baby’s room.”

The boy would have enjoyed the party a lot more than the girl had but he was stuck at the bakery. The reopening was imminent and it had become a priority.

Peeta had painted a stunning view of the Capitol by night. Haymitch wasn’t sure it would fit in the nursery and, given Effie’s grateful but slightly tense smile, she agreed. They would figure that out later, he guessed.

Eileen Clarke’s gift was a sort of sling that had Annie and Jo nodding to each other as if it was the most practical thing. It completely threw Katniss and the two Capitol women. It turned out, it was sturdy fabric that allowed to safely carry the baby while leaving both hands free and, it seemed, it was also helpful when the infant needed feeding.

“I have never seen something like this in my life.” Lyssa frowned, inspecting the embroidered white fabric with obvious interest. “Very ingenious…”

“I guess you can only find them in the Districts…” Eileen ventured with a shrug that soon turned into a smile. “Anyway, it will be your best friend, Effie, trust me. And you can use it too, Haymitch.”

He let out a non-committing noise and snatched the baby sling as soon as they had moved on to Elindra’s gift – a complete set of baby plates, cutlery and small cups made out of silver that he preferred to ignore.

“Talk about being born with a silver spoon in his mouth.” he grumbled for Effie’s ear only.

He was painfully – accidentally – elbowed in the side for his trouble.

“How lovely, Mother!” she exclaimed in her fake cheerful voice, studying every piece with attention.

Haymitch chose to examine the baby sling instead, testing the fabric to make sure it would hold. It seemed resistant enough…

“The baby won’t fall.” Annie told him knowingly. “It is very useful. That’s a really nice gift.”

Eileen smiled warmly at her and Four’s victor shyly withdrew a little, still uncomfortable in a crowd – and with so many people in their living-room, it was a crowd.

“That’s from Annie and me.” Johanna mumbled, putting a term to the Capitols gushing over the ridiculous silver set. She tossed the wrapped box in Effie’s direction and Haymitch immediately dropped the sling to intercept it before it could do something harmful – like hit her stomach. Seven’s victor snickered. “Nice reflexes, old man.”

“Watch it.” he snarled, placing a protective hand on the baby bump.

It was soon covered by Effie’s. “I am fine. Do not be rude.”

“Rude?” he repeated, baffled. “She could have…”

“I am fine.” she insisted firmly. “Now, open the box.”

He tore the paper away, paying no mind to Elindra’s chiding about unwrapping gifts properly, and stared at the box in complete puzzlement.

“What the fuck is a breast pump?” he asked the room at large, handing the box to Effie in case she had a better idea than he had.

“We didn’t know if you were planning on breastfeeding…” Annie hesitated. “But we thought… Just in case…”

“Perfect gift for a cow.” Jo added with a pleased grin at her own joke.

Haymitch’s eyes widened when he realized what the machine’s purpose was and then he made a face, snatching the box back as if to better protect her from the torture tool. “But it’s gotta hurt like a bitch. She can do it the normal way.”

“You sweet innocent man.” Eileen chuckled.

Lyssa openly shuddered. “I tried breastfeeding once, then we decided to switch to formula.”

“Is it that painful?” Effie frowned with a bit of apprehension.

“It does not matter.” Elindra swiftly cut in. “No need to torture yourself and deform your breasts with that. We are not in barbaric times. Formula is just as good. Both Lyssandra and you were brought up that way and you turned out perfectly alright.”

“Books say it’s healthier if the mother breastfeeds.” Haymitch argued, flushing a nice shade of crimson because the last thing he wanted was to discuss that sort of things in a room full of women.

“Easy for you to say when you’re not the one who will end up being sucked on.” Jo snorted.

Effie was becoming jittery and Eileen leaned over to squeeze her hand.

“We’re scaring you for nothing.” the woman said, sounding reassuring. “It’s not that bad. It’s different for everyone anyway.”

“Oh, yes!” Lyssa hurried in agreeing, clearly noticing her sister’s tension. “And, in any case, nothing can be as bad as the birth itself.”

Effie grew white but bravely smiled all the same. “And how bad is that?”

“It is bad until they allow you the drugs.” Lyssa wisely nodded.

“The drugs are the best.” Eileen agreed.

“It was a relief.” Annie concurred, a bit dreamily.

“It was good stuff.” Jo snorted. Haymitch didn’t ask how she knew that, he figured she must have stolen some.

“I am having a home delivery.” Effie announced.

All the women save from Katniss, who looked bored and confused, paled except for Elindra who audibly gasped.

“You cannot be serious, Euphemia.” her mother stuttered. Haymitch automatically reached for Effie’s hand for support. She clung to it. “It is not safe. And the pain… You won’t be able to stand the pain, trust me.”

“I can handle a lot of pain.” Effie retorted, probably vexed. “I have had a lot of practice in that department.”

Everyone fidgeted, ill at ease with that reminder of the war, but Elindra stood steadfast, her lips pursed and her arms folded. “I absolutely forbid it.”

Haymitch scoffed. “You think you can give orders under my roof, lady?”

“I am her mother.” Elindra hissed. “And I won’t see her get through an unnecessary painful and traumatizing ordeal when there is a perfectly viable alternative. I am astounded you would stand for this ridiculous decision, Haymitch. Home delivery! In this day and age! Why, pray tell, won’t you have this child in a hospital like everyone else?”

“Because she can’t.” Katniss spat, glaring at the woman. “She’s strong and we’ll be with her. Leave her alone.”

“Thank you, dear.” Effie cleared her throat. “Do not work yourself up for this. It is not worth it.”

“Home deliveries are a lot more common than you’d think.” Eileen interjected, clearly uncomfortable with the blunder that had just been committed. “And it’s natural.”

“What does she mean you can’t?” Elindra frowned, refusing to take the hint.

“Can you drop it already?” Haymitch growled.

“Would you mind your manners?” the woman deadpanned. “I am not talking to you, your negligence in this matter flabbergasts me. I would have expected you to be the first to demand a safe delivery for mother and child. You…”

“It is not Haymitch’s decision to take, it is mine.” Effie snapped, squeezing Haymitch’s hand as if by reflex.

“It is a preposterous decision.” her mother huffed.

“Perhaps, but it is mine.” she scowled.

“And am I obliged to simply accept a decision you cannot even properly justify?” Elindra bristled. “If you do not trust the local hospital, something I cannot fault you for, perhaps you should consider coming back to the city with us for the last couple of months. I do apologize, Euphemia, but I am not exactly reassured by the idea of you…”

“She can’t go to a hospital without having a panic attack or a flashback.” Katniss hissed, bolting to her feet in anger. “And she’s not getting anywhere near the Capitol. Back off.”

That declaration was followed by a heavy silence and Haymitch clucked his tongue once against his cheek in irritation. He was annoyed both by the situation and by Katniss who had just blurted out something that wasn’t exactly public knowledge.

It had the benefit of calming Elindra though. The woman looked subdued now, staring at her daughter with a mask of detachment that badly hid her worry and pain. Not that Haymitch cared about how she felt. Effie was clearly upset by the whole ordeal and anyone who upset Effie would have to answer to him.

Katniss was panting, glaring at Effie’s mother, her hands curled into fists…

“Perhaps you should go get some fresh air, Katniss.” Effie suggested calmly, as if nothing was amiss. He heard the steel in her voice though, the touch of irritation. The girl looked at her and then stormed out. She winced and released his hand. “You should follow her.” she told him. “Make sure she is alright.”

“She doesn’t need me.” he grumbled. “You do.”

“She always needs you.” she countered softly. “And I am a big girl who can handle herself. Go.” Johanna stood up but Effie glared at her. “You, sit back down, there are still gifts to unwrap.” She flashed them all a fake bright smile. “Now, Lyssa, I do believe it’s your turn…”

Haymitch hesitated for a few seconds and then, when he was sure she truly would be fine, he made his escape. Once outside, he immediately glanced around for Snowball before remembering that the puppy was with Lyssa’s kids – they asked if they could babysit him during the party and since they had always been respectful of the dog, he had found no objection to the three of them playing together. Tracking Katniss down wasn’t really difficult with or without the puppy though. He might not have been much of a hunter but the boots tracks in the muddy streets that went in the direction of the woods were a good clue.

He caught up with the girl long before she even reached the first tree.

“Care to explain what that was?” he asked, taking pain to keep his voice light.

Katniss violently kicked a pebble out of the way.

“I hate those people.” she snarled. “I don’t get why they’re still here. We don’t need them.”

“We don’t.” he shrugged. “Effie does. They’re her family.”

“We’re her family.” she snapped. “We’re her family and they want to take her away from us, don’t you get it?”

“Katniss…” he sighed, trying to keep up as she ducked under the branch of a low tree and entered the wood in a place that was clearly not a trail. He had to squeeze between trunks and watch his steps for a few minutes. He was seriously irritated by the time they reached a more practical spot. There were still deep heaps of snow here and there and the ground was treacherous. “Effie’s going nowhere.”

“That’s what you say now.” the girl retorted, walking so fast he had trouble keeping up. She knew the woods by heart, she automatically sidestepped slippery patches. It was like she was born there, he wasn’t that at ease in there. “But Jo’s right.”

“No sentence beginning with Jo’s right can be good.” he taunted. “The fuck she put inside your head, girl?”

Katniss stomped her feet for two minutes before she folded her arms over her chest, burrowing in her father’s old leather jacket. Haymitch figured she was regretting not having brought the bow. He was ready to bet if she had been armed any poor squirrel in a mile’s radius would have been hunted down.

“She’s going to go back to the Capitol.” she spilled out eventually.

He rolled his eyes. “That’s never going to happen.”

“Maybe not right now.” she hissed. “But Jo’s right. Now she’s back in touch with her family and they want her to come live with them and, one day, she’s going to wake up and she’s going to realize she’s too fabulous for Twelve.”

“She doesn’t think she’s too fabulous for Twelve.” he countered, even though that was a lie. It was Effie Trinket they were talking about. Of course, she was too fabulous for Twelve.

“Oh, please!” Katniss scoffed. “She had nowhere to go so she came here but don’t you get it? Now she has somewhere else to go! And she will leave and you will go with her because she has your baby and you won’t want to leave him.”

“Katniss, we’re not going anywhere.” he argued but she wasn’t listening.

“And what about me and Peeta? What about us?” she went on, completely oblivious to what he was saying. She was walking at random, ducking between trees and avoiding the most obvious hunting tracks. “Jo’s right. We won’t count. ‘Cause we’re not yours and…”

“Alright, enough.” he growled, grabbing her arm and tugging hard to make her stop moving. She faced him but she wouldn’t meet his eyes, she was stubbornly staring at his chest. “Where the fuck does that come from? We talked about this, yeah? I ain’t about to abandon my kid. Any of my kids.”

“But Jo’s right and we’re not really your kids.” the girl whispered, sounding sullen, jealous and a thousand things in between. “If Effie leaves with him…”

“Effie isn’t about to pack up and leave either.” he sighed in irritation. “When has she ever let you or the boy down, Katniss? We don’t leave our kids.”

“But we’re not your kids.” she insisted, glancing up.

She was quick to blink back the tears but he saw them anyway. And he was honestly stunned by them.

She wasn’t jealous or sullen, he realized. She was terrified.

So he did the only thing he could do, the instinctive thing, he used the grip he still had on her arm to pull her into his chest, hugging her fiercely, protectively.

“You listen to me, sweetheart, and you listen hard.” he muttered in her good ear. “You’re mine. Blood’s got nothing to do with it, you’re just as much mine as that baby boy, get it?”

“But…” Katniss argued, trying to wriggle free.

“No.” he spat, holding fast to her. “No buts. You’re mine. End of the story. I ain’t dying and I ain’t taking off. I’m not your dad and I’m not your mom. I’m your mentor, yeah? Mentors stick with their victors. It’s a forever kind of bond.” He rolled his eyes. “And Effie feels the same way I do and, frankly, sweetheart, it’s insulting you’d think anything else.”

She was hugging him back now and Haymitch relaxed a little when he felt her giving up on the flight response.

“Jo said…” she riposted weakly after a few minutes.

“Jo always says a lot of bullshit.” he cut her off. “Maybe she was trying to work you up, maybe she’s got her own insecurities.” He cupped the back of her head protectively. “Effie and I aren’t going anywhere. This is home, alright? Her family’s a pain in the ass but she’s got a right to want them in her life.”

“They abandoned her.” she grumbled, leaning her head on his shoulder. “She shouldn’t be giving them a second chance.”

He hesitated a moment and then decided it was all or nothing. “If your mom came back with an apology, you wouldn’t slam the door in her face.”

She broke the hug fast and started walking again. “It’s different.”

“Not really sure it is.” he argued, following after her. “They treated her wrong, nobody’s disputing that. Your mom treated you wrong too.”

“She did nothing bad.” Katniss hesitated.

“She did nothing at all.” he scoffed. “Doesn’t mean she’s not still your mom. So, maybe, if she visited, you’d like spending some time with her… Doesn’t mean you’d go back to live with her or that you’d follow her to Four, yeah?”

“She’s not my real family.” she snarled. “Not like Peeta and you.”

“But she’s family all the same.” he pointed out.

“I guess.” she granted with a sulk.

“Well, maybe Effie feels the same way.” he shrugged. “They’re her family but not like we are.”

“If they want her to leave…” she countered again.

“She’s not gonna leave.” he sighed. “She doesn’t want our kid brought up the same way she was.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Don’t let Jo put ideas in your head. She’s lonely and miserable and she likes everyone to feel the same way she does. Come on… Let’s go home.”

It took a few more minutes to convince her to turn around.

By the time they came back to the Village, the party was over. Katniss would have headed straight for her house but he grabbed her arm and steered toward his, determined to burry that problem once and for all.

The house was warm and welcoming after the freezing woods. Something white and excited jumped around him before he even had time to take off his coat. He bent down to pat the puppy on the head, humoring him by pinning him down when it became clear the dog wanted to play.

“Haymitch?” Effie’s voice asked from the kitchen.

“Yeah.” he answered.

Katniss looked uncomfortable and she was sulking, eyeing Snowball with mistrust. Haymitch gently but firmly nudged her in the kitchen’s direction.

Effie was standing up, clearly waiting for the kettle to whistle, a hand applying pressure to the small of her back, the other clutching the edge of the counter.

“You’re alright?” he immediately worried.

“Yes, it is just my back acting up.” she dismissed, her blue eyes tracking Katniss’ every move with curiosity. Effie had always been good at body language and the way the girl was shuffling her feet and averting her gaze was probably screaming troubles at her. “Is everything settled?”

“Sure.” he snorted, pushing Katniss in her direction. It warranted him a glare but he ignored it. “So, you know how the books say parents have to make sure other kids don’t get jealous during the pregnancy? Like how it should be made clear the baby’s not going to replace them or whatever?” Katniss glared harder but Haymitch simply smirked as understanding dawned on Effie’s face. “Sweetheart, tell our stupid kid we ain’t gonna take off with the shrimp and leave her and Peeta to hang.”

“You’re an ass.” the girl scowled – not that it really mattered because Effie was already in her space.

For the second time that day, Katniss was forced into a hug.

“Oh, my dear… Don’t you know how I think about the two of you?” Effie whispered. “My victors…”

“She thinks maybe you’re gonna go back to the Capitol with our kid to your real family.” he mocked.

She met his eyes over Katniss’ shoulder – who was meekly trying to get out of that hug and failing because Effie could be very strong when she wanted to. He shrugged in answer to the unspoken question.

“This is my real family, Katniss.” Effie declared in a soft voice.

“He’s making it bigger than what I said.” the girl protested.

“It does not matter.” she retorted. “I love you. Know that. You and Peeta. I would not love you more if I had carried you. We are a family and the baby changes nothing.”

“I just don’t want you to leave.” Katniss finally admitted.  

“There is nowhere else I would rather be.” she replied, almost ferocious. “And nothing would make me leave you behind. I promise. Don’t you trust me?”

“Sure, I trust you.” The girl cleared her throat, embarrassed. She tried to break the hug again but there was no escaping their former escort’s embrace. “Effie, can you…”

The back door opened on Peeta who froze at the scene he had just interrupted and then frowned. “What’s going on?”

Haymitch couldn’t help but chuckle, more amused by the whole thing than he probably ought to be. He was in a very good mood. He walked around the table and pulled the boy in a parody of a hug that was entirely too tight and suffocating.

“Have you gone mad?” Peeta worried, trying to get him off him.

“Hush now, kid…” Haymitch taunted. “We’re having a family bonding moment.”

“Okay, you’ve all gone mad!” the boy insisted, finally managing to duck under his arm. He eyed them all warily. Effie had let go of Katniss but the girl was crimson and Haymitch figured she hadn’t shared her worries with her boyfriend for fear of being mocked.

“So, do we need to tell you that the new baby doesn’t mean we don’t care for you any less or you’re good?” he teased, unable to stop himself.

Peeta looked completely puzzled. “I’m… good. Thanks?”

“Haymitch, do not be mean.” Effie rebuked, her voice immediately softened when she turned to Peeta. “Although it is true we have been remiss. Peeta, neither Haymitch or I intends to leave and the baby won’t affect the love we have for the two of you.”

The boy stared at her, then studied Katniss, and in the end he turned to Haymitch.

“You were supposed to have a baby shower.” Peeta accused. “What else did I miss?”

“Effie’s having the baby at home, apparently there’s a pump to get milk out of her, both her mom and Jo are assholes and your girlfriend’s freaking out over us loving the baby more.” he answered. “All in a day’s work.”

“I never said that!” Katniss protested.

“Haymitch, now, that is absolutely unnecessary!” Effie snapped at the very same time.

“I’m always around. Why do interesting things always happen when I’m out?” Peeta complained.

Haymitch smirked, more proud than he could say.

That was his family.

A bit broken, a tad crazy, but his.