#also posted on archive of our own

[serenefreakgeekao3]

Ever in our favour

CHAPTER EIGHT - FINALE

[Table Of Contents]

Summary: The final fight... Who survives this deadly ordeal? Warnings: canon-typical violence, descriptions of mutated creatures, descriptions of blood and injuries, minor character deaths, brief mention of familial abuse Author's Note: Well, this is it! The last update of this series, I can officially mark this one as completed! It's been a long time coming, and I took a long hiatus halfway through, but I'm so incredibly proud of myself for finishing this story, and how well it turned out! Let me know what you think, comments are my life's blood!

You were so excited! It must’ve been silly, or would’ve been if anyone else had known about it. But you didn’t mind being a little silly, a little love-struck, since you wouldn’t be feeling much of anything but fear here soon. So you welcomed it, and rubbed the little scrap of paper between your finger and thumb once again, feeling the easy glide of the shiny material. You weren’t sure how he managed to sneak a scrap, or even how he managed to write the words on there, but you weren’t complaining.

“Stairwell D has roof access…

Midnight?”

You had also noticed a small smudge at the end of the words like Peeta had written something before trying to erase it. Something small, almost like a drawing. When you stared at it before, in your room, you had imagined and hoped it was a tiny heart. You can understand wanting to wipe that away, just in case. In case someone found the paper, or perhaps he thought you didn’t return his feelings? Well, in your fantasy, he had feelings for you. In reality, it was a bit harder to tell.

You felt like you had eyes on you constantly. In the training areas, obviously, but also in the hallways and living areas, even your bedroom. It felt… invasive. Though you supposed, your death will be recorded as live entertainment soon. You would wonder where the line was, but you didn’t think there was one. Or, perhaps, it was on the roof access? You’d hoped, at least, that there’d be no cameras. That you could finally talk to each other, alone, unafraid of your words.

You were currently making your way there. Supposedly, you were sleeping back on floor 9, in your extravagant and unnecessarily wide bed. Instead, you had slipped out, quiet as a mouse as you stuck to the walls, searching for the correct stairwell. This probably would’ve gone better if you’d scouted it out, but the moment you had read the note you’d began to make your way out. You hadn’t felt safe taking it out any sooner, until after you’d retired to your room. It might still be an hour early, but you wouldn’t mind the wait.

You’d already checked the stairwell on the eastern side of the building, but it hadn’t been the right letter. You hoped you’d find it soon, as you really didn’t want to be caught out here. Luckily, as you turned the next corner, the large D sat above a door, the stairwell symbol next to the handle. You rushed quickly, hand skirting over the cold medal as you pushed your way in.

The stairwell was quiet. You’d thought the hallway was too, but there had been this slight buzzing sound before. Now it’s like everything in the world was still. You hesitated on your floor a moment longer, closing your eyes and basking in the stillness of it. This was what you missed from District Nine. The peace and quiet, the serenity of the waves of grain and- the loneliness of it all. You opened your eyes and could feel a smile playing on your lips. You were ready to see him.

You began to rush up the steps, around and around, counting the floors. Ten, Eleven, Twelve. You leaned over the railing and peaked upward, one more stairwell to go. You could see the moonlight shining through the windows above. You held back a giggle by biting your lip, readying yourself to run up those last few steps. The door opened behind you.

You gasped and spun around, picking your hands up in a defensive stance. Just as you turned around, you noticed her turning back around as well, as if she was looking behind her to make sure she wasn’t being watched as she pushed through the door. You lock eyes with one of the most popular tributes in this season. Katniss Everdeen.

You both startle, and hesitate. The door closes behind her and you’re once again shunted into that noiseless space, the sound of both of your breaths mixing in the air. You made to take a step back but almost tripped on the stair upward, grabbing the railing to keep yourself standing. You huff an awkward laugh, glancing up, then back to her. “Did he invite you too?”

She looks confused at first, her eyebrows pinching together and down. You hesitate for a moment, glancing up once more before back to her, then behind her. She shakes her head slowly, lowering her arms. “No,” She whispers, “No, what do you mean? Who invited…?” She trails off, unsure of her own words. You try a small smile, but it feels forced.

“Peeta. He invited me to the roof,” You point up toward the stairwell, toward where you were itching to go. He still might not be there, but the idea that he was or would be? “I thought for a second that he invited you too.”

“Peeta,” She begins, tilting her head, then looking up. “I saw him going this way, I just thought…” She trails off again as if all of the dots are finally connecting in her head. She meets your gaze, her piercing stare directly into you. “What is your deal anyway?”

“What?” You ask on instinct, flinching very slightly. You shake your head and attempt to force a smile once more. “What do you mean?”

“You keep hanging around Peeta,” She lifts a finger, pointing it loosely in your direction. “In- In the training rooms. After Caesar’s shows. Anytime I look for Peeta, you’re there too.” She takes a step forward toward you, “What do you want with Peeta?”

“What do I want-” You repeat her slowly as if trying to comprehend the question. Did she suspect you of playing him? Why did she even care, Peeta had said Katniss never pays him any mind? “I don’t want anything with him. I-” You stutter slowly, shrugging, “I mean, besides his time. If he was willing to spare any.”

“You’re trying to gain his trust, why? Are you going to betray him in the arena? Or use him until it’s time to cut him off?” She takes another step forward, dropping her arm and glaring at you. “Or did you plan to string him along to the final two, just to off him then?”

“No,” You try to argue, shaking your head quickly. “No, of course not.”

“There’s nothing else this could be,” Katniss argues, shaking her head as well, albeit slower. “You know what this is just as well as I do. We’re not just going in there to die. We’re going in there to kill each other.” She said those words harshly, each word enunciated with intent. You could feel them shake your core. “We’re not just sacrificing ourselves, we’re-” She huffs a laugh, though you doubt it was one of humour. “We’re being forced into submission by a Capitol that doesn’t care about family, or hope, or love.”

You flinched on the last word. You tried not to, but you flinched, and you knew Katniss had seen it. She widened her eyes, falling back a step. Your head shakes quickly, taking a step forward. “No, please, Katniss. You have to believe me. I know all of that. I know what we’re being thrown into, how hostile this entire thing is. But I-” Your voice cracks, and you can feel tears springing to your eyes. “I don’t care how this game plays out, I could never hurt Peeta. So, you don’t need to worry about me.” You shrugged your shoulders, the disparity weighing on them. “If you’re worried about Peeta, just know I’ll give my life to make sure he wins.”

She breathes heavier, and emotions- fear, disbelief, anger- flicker through her eyes in rapid succession. You’re surprised she’s so easy to read, how was she surviving here in the Capitol? She raises her finger again, taking a hard step forward to poke you in the chest. “Leave Peeta alone. Run from him in the arena. Stay. Away. From him.” She backs up until her back hits the door.

“I won’t hurt him,” You whisper, tears coming to your eyes. Nothing she could say would deter you, of course. You were still going up those stairs, still going to see him, still going to meet up with him in the arena and protect him with everything you had.

“Don’t you see?” Katniss whispers, snarling at you, her own tears beginning to fall down her cheeks. “This. Doing this, giving him this hope. That is what will hurt him. Seeing you die. Don’t you get it?” She’s shaking her head as she pushes open the door, wandering back to her own floor and leaving you with the buzzing and the silence and the tears, slowly dripping down your face.

The talking ends as Marvel hoists his spear above his head, horizontally. He was rearing back, ready to throw, as Katniss let loose her arrow. It hits his elbow, causing him to drop his spear and rear back in pain. All three of you began running, Peeta just ahead of you to your left and Katniss off to the right side. Glimmer was rushing toward Katniss, Marvel nearby but distracted. You and Peeta sprinted toward Cato and Clove, both of whom had a manic but pleased smirk on their face. Peeta was rushing to drop a backpack strap, trying to hoist it around himself, and just managed to raise it in front of his head as Clove threw the first of her daggers. Cato swings his sword in a circle, then arcs it down right as he expects Peeta to be in range.

Clove grabs another dagger, her eyes on Peeta. He was dodging around Cato’s sword swings, trying to somehow be more agile than he normally was. You’d already seen a slice bleeding on his arm, the backpack sliced open and dropping its contents. An arrow whizzes by, and you draw in a deep breath, watching Clove raise another hand. You raise your own- this knife was useless, too flimsy, too close range- and throw it with all of your might. The knife spins in the air and the aim is off and wobbly. It won’t hit her, but it doesn’t need to. She doesn’t throw the knife she had aimed, jumping back away from your throw uselessly.

She looks up to you, growling into the air. She begins to charge, tackling you to the ground. You both struggle, but she has knives hooked in her hands, short and hardly painful cuts appearing on your skin everywhere you look. You heave, then heave again and you flash back to pushing Thresh’s body off of you before he died fully, and Clove was suddenly thrown from atop you, onto her side and crying out. You stumbled, throwing yourself on top of her and grabbing one of her hands with both of your own, shaking and yanking downward. She drops one knife as she stabs you in the back with another, and you cry out but reach forward, finally grasping hold of a capable weapon just before being slung off of the teen girl.

You roll, then look directly up to Cato, dodging your head to the side just as a sword buries into the ground above your shoulder. Cato’s body is tackled away, the blurry form of Peeta wrestling him to the ground as Clove stands behind where they just were, readying to tackle you. You throw your boots out, kicking her in the stomach during her dive and redirecting her to the side. You scramble quickly after that, trying to get your own feet under you. You tuck the dagger into a pocket and take hold of the sword’s hilt, yanking it out and feeling the heft. It was heavy, and you had to wield it with two hands just to swing it properly. Clove, standing, cackles at you.

“You really think you could wield that? You?” She rushes and you swing wildly. Despite Clove’s taunting, a sword is still a sword. Your swing is wobbly, but the sword is faced in the right direction, and it cleaves into Clove’s arm without issue. You wince from pain as your back pulls, the fresh wound made apparent, watching Clove stumble back in shock. She presses a hand to her arm, pulling it back to widen her eyes at the sight of her blood. She looks up at you, startled, then throws a dagger. It hits your shoulder- she must’ve thrown in a panic- and you gasp in pain, dropping the sword to the ground.

You reach a hand up to your shoulder, grasping the knife as you watch Clove turn tail and begin running. Glimmer was on the ground, motionless, with Katniss kneeling in the dirt and aiming an arrow at Marvel. He was favouring his injured arm, but he still swung his spear around in arcs, trying to hit Katniss. She rolled back once, then twice, and you see Clove still running, and getting away, and Peeta is calling out in pain and there’s no time.

“Katniss!” You yell for her, and she turns to look at you just as Marvel stumbles and falls to the ground, an arrow sticking out from his thigh. You point, yelling, “Clove!” You both turn at the same time as the dark-haired, pinched-faced teen girl grabs ahold of- of Rue! She spins her around and holds a knife to her throat and-

Katniss looses her arrow, straight through the middle of Clove’s chest. She falls backwards, and Rue immediately takes off running once she feels the girl’s grip fall from her. Rue is crying, it seems, tears streaming down her face. Katniss is held down by Marvel, struggling, and Peeta- ‘Where’s Peeta?’

You’re tackled to the ground, a familiar sword gleaming brightly right against your throat. “I know I said I’d save you for last,” Cato grabs your head with his other hand, lifting and smacking it down quickly. Your vision turns blurry as you try to orient yourself. “But I always relished the idea of your death. I told them you were mine, you know?”

You haven’t stopped struggling once, but you were no match in strength. You threw your head, regardless of the threat above you, rapidly side to side. You couldn’t see him, you couldn’t see Peeta. Cato sat up straight, taking the sword vertically, placing the very tip against your throat. You swallow and feel the blade cut just lightly with how close it is to you. You finally look up once more, raising your hands to try to push Cato’s hands back but it’s useless, and you’re stuck once again and how do these people keep pinning you down?

As Peeta- because of course it is, who else would it be?- tackles Cato off of your chest, you flash back to every single time he’s done that already. In the very beginning, when you woke up. At the river, after you saved his life. His attempt with Thresh.

You shoot up and scramble to your feet, watching as Peeta ruthlessly picks up the discarded sword, lifts it above his head, and brings it down. You watch as it slices clean across his throat- Cato, killed by his own weapon. Rue tackles into you, and it forces you a step back, but barely. You hold her to yourself, looking around quickly. Peeta, standing and dropping a bloodied sword. Rue, panting with fear and exhaustion against you.

Katniss, heaving with breath and with blood pouring from her nose, raises her bow and notches her final arrow, immediately turning to set it on you. Marvel was lying to her side, likely dead as well now. You feel a flashback from earlier in the day quickly cross your mind, though the rest of your thoughts pool to, ‘This is it, finally. I guess that’s okay. At least I know Peeta is safe…’

You’ve never seen him move so fast in your life. He dives in front of you, stumbling in his effort to stop his forward momentum. He turns to face her directly, falling backwards into you. You catch him, of course you catch him, and hold onto his back as he reaches back to hold onto you as well, one of his hands pressing against Rue’s fluff of hair. His voice is rough with exertion as he yells out, “No!”

“You-” She lowers her bow slightly, the arrow still pulled taut. “They betrayed us!”

“No, they didn’t!” He yells back, shaking his head furiously.

“You heard what Cato said!”

“He’s lying!”

“Well, we can’t ask them, can we? They’d just lie.” She raises her bow again, placing the string against her mouth.

“They don’t remember!” He calls out, his voice wrecked. You tighten your hold on Peeta, ready to shove him to the side at a moment’s notice.

“They-” Katniss lowers her bow again, looking at him with a mixture of shock and disbelief. “So what? You’re running on blind faith? On hope?”

“What else is there?” Peeta screams, taking a step forward and breaking the hold between the two of you. “If we don’t have hope, then what do we have? Nothing!”

The barking gets louder suddenly, out of nowhere, and all three of you turn to see the mutated mutts. Where once they clawed at an invisible barrier- that barrier seems to have disappeared. They were running, fast and agile and straight for all of you. The four of you turn immediately, beginning an all-out sprint, similar to earlier. You knew you could outrun them, you just had to use all of your stamina to do so. Rue begins to fall behind, limping pitifully, and you watch as Peeta takes in a deep breath and runs back, reaching down and scooping up one arm of Rue, hoisting her up. You manage to steel yourself in place until they can catch up, scooping up her other arm and resuming your sprint with them in tow.

You didn’t realise where you were running at first, just following along. But the cornucopia shines brightly in the sun, glimmering and almost blinding you as you run directly for it. You all practically slam against it, and you and Peeta work at throwing Rue as far up as you can, holding her feet as she scrambles to the top. Peeta, once no longer able to reach her, turns quickly to look behind you with panic. He laces his hands and yells, “Jump!” You have no time to react, just using his hands as a step, he hoists you up as well. You scramble, slip, and as much as Rue tries to help she really has no strength behind it.

The moment you’re secure in the fact that you won’t fall, you immediately spin around and reach a hand down. Peeta takes a running leap and takes hold of you, and you try to pull him as his feet catch on the slippery gold- streaked with blood. You grunt, watching the dogs race up and begin lunging, clawing, trying with all of their mutated power to reach him. He cries out as a few claws catch his shins, then throws his other hand out. Katniss is next to you, you don’t know when she got there but she did, and she took hold of his other hand with both of hers. With your combined power, you managed to pull him up.

You breathe.

You finally breathe, and the mutts are scrambling at the bottom of the cornucopia but there’s nothing they can do, they can’t get up here. Rue is panting and crying and burying her face into Peeta’s jacket. He pets her hair as he stares directly at you, and you let your eyes roam to the last person. Katniss, now standing, stares down at the mutts. She still has one arrow left, the one that had just been aimed at you. You all left the weapons behind, just a dagger in your pocket- one buried in your shoulder, still- that would be no help against these dog-like mutations. Katniss seems to come to the same conclusion, her eyes roaming the writhing mass of bodies beneath you.

You push yourself up enough to lean on your elbows, watching Rue finally stop crying and take deep breaths, peaking her head out to look between everyone. Even Peeta finally tears his gaze from you, raising it to the standing Katniss. She looks to the sky, her face void of emotion, then raises three fingers to her lips. She kisses them, then raises the salute into the air. You didn’t know what it was, or what it meant, but it seemed symbolic.

The next thing you know, she’s notching her final arrow once more- your own hand shoots to the dagger in your pocket. It may not be of any aid against those mutations, but you’d fight her to the death. You would kill her if it came to it. However, she doesn’t aim it toward you. She lifts the bow, aiming the bolt directly for the sun. She looses the arrow and you all watch as it soars through the air, upward. More, and more, until it’s just a blur, until it's a speck and you can’t see it anymore. And then the world pulses.

Not exactly the world, mind, but the sky definitely. From wherever that arrow was, you assume, it’s like a pulse-wave shoots outward. Once, but then again. As it pulses a third time, there are more waves, and once more before it stops looking like waves altogether. The sun blinks and flickers, and the middle of the sky seems to be caving in. The sky was falling, down around the four of you, large metal pieces and chunks that could kill you if it landed atop you. But they fall and fall and suddenly a different sort of light is pouring in through the holes. You weren’t sure how you believed the faulty imitation to be the real sun before when you see it now.

A shadow falls across your group as everyone begins to stand, and you feel a large hand slot into yours as Peeta takes hold of you with a firm grip. You look at him, unsure what is happening. This was the end, for sure. If this was the Capitol, you were all dead. But who else would it be? Some mystical saviour here to stop the Hunger Games once and for all? You remember joking about that with Peeta before, but the possibility was close to zero.

You hear the beats of what could only be helicopter blades, right as you hear harsh metal screeching fill the air. The mutts were being scared off, running and yipping back into the forest. But their absence reveals the source of the screeching; large metal pipes rising into the arena, evenly placed through the entire grounds as far as the eye could see. You watch as they begin to release a green-coloured gas into the air.

You turn quickly toward Peeta, the hand holding Peeta’s hand lifts and rests atop Rue’s head, your other hand reaching out for his cheek. This was it, whatever happens. You duck forward and kiss Peeta as if it’s your last. He pulls you in by the waist with his spare hand, and the last thing you feel before the blackness takes over is Peeta’s lips on yours.

You wipe the tears away as you take the final steps up the stairs, looking out of the small window on the door. You could see him. Peeta was sitting on the edge of the roof, looking over the side with a small smile on his face. Was Katniss right? Were you just hurting Peeta by loving him?

You pull the door open and step outside, the crunch of your feet on the gravel underfoot drawing Peeta’s attention to you. He sits up straight, smiling brightly over. “It’s early. I guess we both had the same idea?”

“I couldn’t wait,” You admit quietly, smiling shyly. You continue your approach, moving to sit across from him on the wall. “Although, I did run into somebody in the halls.” The shock and worry on Peeta’s face were reassuring as he sat forward quickly, easily taking your hands into his own. You weren’t expecting such quick affection, after trying to keep yourselves distant in the training halls.

“What happened? Did you get in trouble?”

“Oh, no,” You tried to reassure, forcing a smile and idly rubbing his hands with your thumbs. “Nothing like that. I saw Katniss.” His face fell from worry to confusion, tilting his head slightly to the side like a puppy. He really was adorable. The lights from the Capitol lit up his hair in an array of colours, and his eyes were just that right shade of blue that reminded you of home. You didn’t stand a chance when it came to him.

“Katniss? What was she doing?”

“Following you, I think,” You whisper, biting your lip hesitantly. You look away, out toward the cityscape around you. You hadn’t taken in the sight since you arrived on the roof, too taken with the image of Peeta. The city was colourful and grand, and you could see yourself thinking it was beautiful if it didn’t run on the lives of children. “She threatened me though.” You felt his hands tighten around yours, tugging gently. You assumed he was trying to get you to look at him, but you kept your head turned.

“What?”

“She told me to stay away from you.” You could feel the tears welling in your eyes, and you sniff as you turn back to face him finally. From the look on his face, he could see the wetness reflected in your eyes. “At first she thought I was out to get you. And then, she said that just being with you like this, or meeting up in the arena, was just going to end up bad for you. That it’ll hurt you more than just me avoiding you.”

“That’s not true,” Peeta is quick to reassure, scooting closer and raising a hand to place on your cheek. “I know we haven’t had the proper time to talk yet, without everyone listening and watching. That’s why I asked you here, anyway. But I don’t think I could go into that arena without you. I don’t know if I could’ve made it this far without your humour and encouragement.”

“You don’t mean that Peeta,” You sigh out, letting the self-doubt take control. “We hardly know each other, and like you said, we’ve barely been able to actually speak our minds.”

“Well here’s my mind then,” Peeta whispers, leaning closer. “I didn’t know someone like you existed. Someone so sweet and hilarious, that you’d practice setting traps and accidentally spring one and still apologize. We laughed and you apologized still- even though we’re supposed to be doing this for real here soon. Even though he had been screaming and threatening you the entire time.” You chuckled lightly at the memory of Marvel being hoisted into the air, his face red with anger and blood. “You saw me picking the wrong herbs and berries, and instead of letting me off and rightly assuming I’d die in the arena to poison, you came over and taught me instead. I was enamoured with you from that point on.”

“I was sooner than that,” You admit quietly, a small smile playing on your lips. “You weren’t dressed as coal miners before the chariots went off. We locked eyes-”

“I remember that,” Peeta whispers quickly, his smile widening as he scoots even closer. Your knees were touching and his hand that had been resting on your cheek was now set on your hip. “I’d say I noticed you then, but all I really noticed was a long stalk of grain.” You bark out a surprised laugh, nodding.

“Our costumes are never very good.”

“I liked the wheat crown though.” He leans forward, and you see the sky in his eyes once more. “I liked yours better though. The one you wore when they called your name.” Your mind immediately flashes back to that day, wearing that itchy outfit and bashfully pulling the dead crown of stalks off of your head. Everyone keeps mentioning it like it’s so important.

“I learned to weave them from old friends back in Nine.”

“All I learned back in Twelve was how to bake bread and how to take a beating.” You look up quickly, eyes filled with worry and affection. You open your mouth to speak, but he shakes his head. “No, don’t. It’s fine. It only happened when I did something that we couldn’t afford, like give out bread to the hungry and dying.” You blow out the air from your mouth, pursing your lips.

“Things really are pretty tough in District Twelve, aren’t they?” Peeta only nods blandly, staring into your eyes. You continue, lowering your voice further. “But I guess it doesn’t matter then, does it?”

“Not for me anymore,” Peeta agrees, his head just barely nodding that you don’t think he even noticed. He sighs, a pained expression crossing his face. “Y/N… I don’t think we’re going to survive the games.”

“I don’t think so either,” You begin, but leave out the part that you’d sacrifice yourself for him in a heartbeat if it meant he survived. You had a feeling he felt the same.

“I don’t want them to change me.” You pull on Peeta’s hands as he whispers this, watching tears begin to fill his eyes. “I don’t want them to make me into something I’m not.”

“They won’t,” You try to reassure, adamant about it.

“You don’t know that-”

“I know that we can watch each other. Make sure neither of us changes.” You watch Peeta bite his lip, and you raise one of your hands to wipe the tears that begin to spill from his eyes. “We can die together, with love and hope in our hearts.” Peeta nods slightly, then coughs out a laugh. You tilt your head, wondering why.

“What if we survive, though? What if we’re the final two?” You blink a few times, watching the trepidation in his eyes.

“I think we both know-”

“You aren’t dying.”

“Neither are you.” You sigh, smiling softly. “As I was saying, I think we both know that neither of us are willing to kill each other. So I guess, whatever the game makers have in store.” You shrug, taking both of his hands in a firm grasp. “If we refuse to kill, they’ll send something out to kill us anyway.” Peeta looks shocked momentarily, as if this thought had never occurred to him. He thinks it over, then steels his expression with a smirk.

“We don’t need to go in there and just lay over and die, though.” You watch his resolution, his absolute faith in you. It fills you with inspiration. “We go in there and we try our damndest. If we watch each other’s back- actually, legitimately watch over each other and not just turn on each other later like the Careers or any other alliance- then I think we have a chance.” Your smile grows, and you can’t help yourself.

“Who knows? If we play up the romance enough, maybe they’ll let us both win.”

You were being pushed and prodded, forced toward the halls and through the doors that’ll eventually lead to you in the arena. You weren’t ready- of course, you didn’t think anyone was, but you haven’t seen Peeta since the training area. You hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye, to say you’ll meet up, to say-

You shook your head, dispelling the thought that he’d die immediately from your head. You’ll meet up. You’ll be on those platforms, and look around for him, and you’ll run together. You have to trust it, believe in it. You have to hope.

“Y/N!” You turn quickly, still being pushed toward a door opposite the sound of the voice. You were in a rather large room with a multitude of doors, about a quarter of the tributes being transferred to their positions. Peeta was being pushed toward his own door at the end of the hall, and he pulled his shoulder free from the soldier. They grab him again, but he yanks harder and begins to run toward you. You suck in a breath, not having to pull anyone’s hands off of you as you’d been listening before now, and take off running to meet him.

You crash together in the middle, Peeta wrapping his arms around your torso and holding you close. You could see his soldiers coming for him over his shoulder and were sure he was seeing the same of your own.

“What did Cato say?” Peeta’s voice was low and fast, and he raised one hand to place it on your cheek. You wrap your arms around him, pulling him in close for a hug so you can whisper into his ear.

“He wants Katniss. He hoped my alliance with you would extend to her, said to bring her to the cornucopia and he wouldn’t hurt me. I told him I’d do nothing without-” The soldiers were pulling, tugging on you both, but you held fast. “Without you too. He doesn’t believe that I care about you, just laughed.”

You both are pulled back enough that you can look into each other’s eyes, Peeta’s own calculating. You don’t hear him say anything in response to it, but you were sure you’d hear of it in the arena. You knew he wasn’t mad, but you could also tell he didn’t trust Cato. You didn’t either. There was an understanding between you, on this at least.

“I’ll see you in there-” He begins, before being cut off by the soldier’s shouts.

“Let’s go! Move it!”

“Meet me-!” You begin before you’re yanked roughly. You cry out as your shoulder flares in an abrupt but quick pain, and you watch Peeta’s eyes flash in anger. He gets away from his soldier just enough to push yours away from you, yelling out in anger. Two sets of hands find themselves on Peeta now, pulling his arms back and restraining him. You rush forward.

You didn’t know what you were doing until it happened. You placed both hands on his cheeks and leaned in, pressing your lips to his. They were soft and lovely and he moved his head as far forward as he could to kiss you back. Your first kiss- ever, not just with Peeta- and it was mind-blowing, amazing in a way you couldn’t describe. You tried to inch closer, push into the kiss more, before you were forcibly yanked back away from him.

“Peeta!” You call out, watching him kick and struggle as he’s dragged away by three soldiers, out through his door. The moment it closed behind him, you’d stopped struggling. The soldiers dragged you toward your own door, then through it to your own demise.

You gasp awake, the sterile smell of alcohol and disinfectants assaulting your senses. You’re surrounded by white- white bedsheets, white curtains surrounding your bed, white walls, white curved ceiling. Beeps and jingles fill the room at various points- one harsh beeping right next to your ear- but you can hear no voices or sounds of danger. Obviously, this looked like some kind of med bay. But why would you be in a med bay? Was this some new sick twist to the games?

One of your curtains is pulled open harshly, and a tall lady with her blonde hair pulled into a tight bun gasps loudly in surprise. Her eyes widen as she looks you in the eyes before quickly swiping the curtain back closed with a loud metal ‘zing!’ You open your mouth to call out to her, to ask where you are, but you can’t get your voice to work.

You begin to panic, pushing harder and it hurts, until finally you hear a raspy breath and the slight sound of your voice through your panic. Memories flash backwards through time until you can clearly see Thresh atop you, holding you down by the neck. Your neck must’ve gotten worse after you fell unconscious. You try your best to sit up, pain shooting through your shoulder and up your back. As the bedsheet falls, you see your chest wrapped up in those very spots- no blood showing, but as tight as can be. You feel something crinkle on your neck and reach up, gently feeling some soft cloth laid across your neck. You could tell there was ointment there, the cloth just there to keep it covered.

You gently lean back against your pillows, looking down at the tubes running into your arm and electrodes placed in various places of your body. You glance at the machine next to you, the loud beeping one, and try to study the different graphs, lines, and bars. You couldn’t make sense of any of it.

Zing, the curtain slides again, and you look up quickly. There’s another man there, one you don’t recognize with blond hair that falls to his shoulders, and an older complexion with grey, unsettling eyes. He wore rugged clothes, with a beanie pulled over his hair, that gave him an air of unprofessionalism- he couldn’t be the doctor here. He stares at you hard for a moment before stepping in, closing the curtain behind him and finally taking an unsolicited seat on your bed beside your legs.

You open your mouth to speak again but think better of it and close it once more. You hear the man chuckle, crossing his arms. You begin to look around frantically, looking for anything that might indicate what you’re wanting to say. You pat the bed, reach to the bedside and slide open all of the drawers, and just as you’re beginning to check under the pillows, the man reaches a hand out and tries to calm you down.

“Okay, okay. Okay!” He takes both hands and forcefully sets them down in your lap. He gives you a hard look, patting your hands before leaning back again. He’s quiet for another moment, and it is getting to the point that you’re about to start looking for a pen and paper once more when he finally speaks up again. “I assume you want to ask after Peeta.”

Your eyes widen, nodding quickly and without thinking, wincing from the pain in your neck. You lean forward, eager to hear. “He’s fine. He’s asleep- well, unconscious right now.” You tilt your head and can feel your face expressing your worry. “That green gas that was emitted at the end of the games was a knock-out gas, the Capitol was trying to keep us from saving you. Honestly, it just helped our escape, we were able to scoop all of you up without a fight.

“Peeta was the first to wake up from the gas, while we were getting everyone situated in their beds at the medbay. He was struggling like no other, trying to find his way to you. Shouting your name over and over, calling us all Capitol pigs- he wouldn’t listen, no matter what they said.” He hesitates, looking you over before adding on, “We’re not the Capitol by the way.” You furrow your brow, wanting to ask what this was- what they were- but he continues on anyway. “They had to pull me from the war council to come in and calm him down.” Your face furrows even more, falling backwards against your pillow with another wince. ‘Why would this man calm Peeta down…?’

“He saw me-” His eyes had been roaming, as well as his hands, while he spoke, but he gives you a side-eye now. “Oh, right. Haymitch, by the way. The only District Twelve victor.” He holds his hand out to shake, but you take too long as he withdraws it back anyway. “Peeta saw me and calmed down enough for me to tell him that you’re all safe. You all are, by the way. We made it in time to save all four of you. Katniss was our main target, but we’d been watching the games. She wouldn’t leave without Peeta, and Peeta wouldn’t leave without you.” He shrugs, and you take a deep breath. ‘Of course, this is about Katniss. Who else would this be about.’ “Rue is also safe. Everyone was glad of that, of course. We had a chance to save one of the youngest kids to go into the arena, and we took it.” He blows out a breath, and you begin to wonder if this strength was a facade, as you see a small crack in it when he speaks of Rue.

“Anyway, he kept struggling, even against me. ‘Kept saying he needed to see you, to see you were safe and unharmed and make sure-” He stops, sighing heavily. “They injected him with something to knock him out while they dressed his wounds, but he’s fine.” He studies your tense posture, coming to some kind of conclusion in his head. “I’ll let you see him. Here-” He reaches forward, ready to begin pulling the tube from your arm as the curtain swings open once more.

“Haymitch-” The voice is startled, but falls quickly to stern, “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Someone had to reassure this one. You saw how Peeta got.” You make a noise, mostly like a whine, but both sets of eyes turn toward you. The new person was wearing a long white coat like a doctor- you assumed that’s what they were. You nod quickly, turning back to Haymitch with wide eyes. He turns to the doctor with a smirk. “They want to see him.”

“Well, they can’t get out of bed. They’re injured, they need-”

“What they need,” Haymitch growls out, pulling the tube from your arm as you wince, and you watch his face as he begins to pull the electrodes from the different places on your body, “Is to see the man they spent close to a week protecting and healing and defending.” Haymitch glares over his shoulder, but his face falls to a kindness you hadn’t thought you’d see from him when he looks back at you. “You’ve already wrapped them up, and the rest are superficial injuries. Let them go see their friends.”

The moment all the wires were taken off, you swung your feet to the side and began to stand. You feel slightly wobbly, so you go slow, not wanting to give the doctor any other reason to argue. You can already hear whispered complaints from the doctor to Haymitch, but you ignore them both in favour of pushing the curtains aside. The room was small, filled with similar cubicles of white. You limp over to the closest, gently pulling the curtain back to peak inside. You recognize her instantly from the bushy hair lying across the pillows- a sleeping and peaceful-looking Rue lays in this bed. She was so small that the bed dwarfed her in comparison, but seeing her alive and well was enough to make your knees weak. You walk inside just enough to press a kiss to her forehead before backing out once more.

You glance over, seeing Haymitch’s stare on you as you move across the room slowly. You glance between the left and right cubicles, turning to glance at Haymitch once more. He says something to the doctor without looking at them but nods his head to the left subtly. You take this and run with it, approaching the curtains on the left. Gently, you pull back to peek.

You couldn’t explain the feeling of relief that hit you when you saw Peeta’s face lying gently on the bed. His hair just slightly fanned out around him like a blond halo, his eyes peacefully pressed closed without pressure. He looked soft, approachable- he looked like you needed to defend him, in all honesty, but you were just hoping that Haymitch’s presence meant you wouldn’t have the need to. You walk in, pulling the curtain closed behind you as quietly as you can. Similar to Haymitch earlier, you walk forward and take a seat by his legs.

You’re hesitant at first, but slowly you build up the courage to reach forward and slot one hand in Peeta’s closest one. He doesn’t flinch, but you feel the pressure of his hand grow tighter on yours, like unconsciously he wanted to hold your hand back. You realize you’re staring, but you can’t bring yourself not to. You survived, you both did, after being so sure that neither of you would. It’s a miracle, honestly, and you didn’t want to risk taking your eyes off of him for even a moment.

You’re unsure how much time has passed before Peeta’s face begins to scrunch up. You tilt your head, leaning closer and reaching slowly out to place your hand on his cheek. Before you make it, his head begins to toss and turn back and forth, and little grumbles fall from his mouth. He slowly gets more and more violent with his tossing, and you finally realize he’s having a nightmare. You reach forward, placing your hand on his cheek to stabilise him and open your mouth to speak kind words when nothing would come out. Frustrated, you take your other hand from his and place it on his other cheek, holding him still.

His eyes burst open and his hands reach up, scrambling to pull you off of him before finally meeting your eyes and slowly relaxing. “Y/N?” He asks gently, eyes wide with fear and hope. You nod, smiling, and lean forward to place a gentle peck against his lips. As you pull away he chases, and you giggle softly before wincing from the pain of it. His eyes flicker down to the wrapping on your neck, then back up to your face. He’s holding both of your wrists with his hands, holding them against his cheeks. He leans into one of your hands, gently rubbing his cheek against it. “Don’t try to talk, I don’t want you to hurt on my account.”

You just shake your head fondly in response, rubbing your thumb across his cheek. His smile grows, and he begins to match your look of disbelief. “We made it, Y/N.” You nod, leaning forward, and he laughs out in relief. “Holy shit, Y/N, we made it. We’re both alive. We’re out!” He finally releases his hold on you to grab your face, dragging you closer. Your foreheads press together, matching smiles of relief and contentment between the two of you. “We made it out together.”

This was it. The hope you’d held wasn’t all for nothing. You were finally here, in each other’s hands, alive and breathing and- well, injured, but alive. You were saved from the Capitol by someone, or something. You wouldn’t be forced back into the arena, you wouldn’t be paraded in front of the Capitol and Districts as ‘Victors,’ you wouldn’t have to face the inevitability of your death at the hands of the one you loved.

Of course, the world wasn’t perfect. You were sure the Capitol would never stop hunting you down. You were sure you’d never see your family again if they even survived after your escape. You’d never be able to go back home, show Peeta the rich blue of the skies that mirrors his eyes, or visit his District. And- your mind hesitates and repeats the arena, over and over, like a flipbook. You still made a promise to yourself that you’d kill Katniss. Would you still have to, now that you’re out of the arena? If they had only wanted Katniss, but Katniss wanted Peeta- obviously she didn’t want you to come along. Would these people relent and get rid of you if she said so?

Peeta rubbed your cheeks, and your eyes reopened- you couldn’t remember when they had fallen shut. His smile is gentle as he whispers, “You back with me?” You nod gently, not wanting to displace his hands. He sighs in relief, reaching forward to gently peck your lips. “There’s nothing and no one that’ll keep us apart, now.” He pulls you in for a deeper kiss, and you let yourself fall into it. You climb fully on the bed, unwilling to part from him and wanting the comfort that only he could provide.

He was right, of course. But hearing his voice, so soft and gentle and sure, made that tingling and anxious feeling in your chest finally settle. His voice is as soft as you’d ever heard it as he whispers, “We’re finally safe now.”

[bardofavon]

not to be controversial bc I know this is like…not in line with shifting opinions on fanfic comment culture but if there’s a glaring typo in my work I will NOT be offended by pointing it out. if ao3 fucks up the formatting…I will also not be offended by having this pointed out…

‘looking forward to the next update’ and ‘I hope you update soon!’ are different vibes than a demand, and should be read in good faith because a reader is finding their way to tell you how much they love it. I will not be mad at this.

‘I don’t usually like this ship but this fic made me feel something’ is also incredibly high praise. I’m not going to get mad at this.

even ‘I love this fic but I’m curious about why you made [x] choice’ is just another way a reader is engaging in and putting thought into your work.

I just feel like a lot of authors take any comment that’s not perfectly articulated glowing praise in the exact manner they’re hoping to receive it in bad faith.

fic engagement has been dropping across the board over the last several years, and yes it’s frustrating but it isn’t as though I can’t see how it happens. comment anxiety can be a real thing. the last thing anyone wants to do is offend an author they love, and that means sometimes people default to silence.

idk where I’m going with this I guess aside from saying unless a comment is outright attacking me I’m never going to get mad at it, and I think a lot of authors should feel the same way. ESPECIALLY TYPOS PLZ GOD POINT OUT MY TYPOS.

[iamanartichoke]

I don't know who needs to hear this, but as a creator -

I am fine with "the audience" -

downloading my fics

printing my fics

copy/pasting or screenshotting my fics

sharing your saved copy of my fics with anyone else who might want them in the unlikely but never impossible case that my fics are no longer available on ao3

making a book of my fic(s) and running your fingers across the pages while lovingly whispering my precioussss

doing these things with anything I create for fandom, such as meta, headcanons, au nonsense like 'texts from the brodinsons,' etc

I am not fine with "the audience"

doing any of the above with the purpose/intent of plagiarizing my work or passing it off as their own in any capacity

feeding my work into ai for any reason whatsoever

Save the fandom things. Preserve the fandom things. Respect the fandom things.

Enjoy the fandom things.

[felixcosm]

I think it's mean how some people talk about fics on AO3.

'Oh you gotta wade through literal trash to find the good stuff'.

Were you not a beginner once? Did you not write crack fic or self indulgent things for your own entertainment?

Maybe don't speak that way about your fellow fic writers? Just because some fics aren't as polished as others, or involve fetishes and tropes you don't enjoy, or are not the style you want your fics to be doesn't mean they're trash.

It's a horrible thing to say and beginners are going to be discouraged from writing knowing that their fics might be considered trash because they're just starting out.

[crispyliza]

It's always funny when an author on ao3 that I subscribed to for a specific fandom starts posting fics for another fandom that I'm also in. Especially niche ones. Great minds think alike I guess.

[mimiscappinisideblog]

Me throughout 2020-2021-2022-2023:

Me the moment AO3 has been down for more than ten hours:

[doodlewizardry]

Have you ever wanted to find your old Ao3 comments? Easily keep track of which (and how many) fics you've commented on? Rediscover a fic that you left a time capsule of a gushing essay on?

Well, you can! And it's simple! (* Note: it only works for comments written after you turn this on.)

Go to your Preferences:

There's a checkbox labelled "Turn off copies of your own comments". This is selected by default. If you deselect it (and save your preferences) then you receive an email for every comment you leave.

But I don't want to get my inbox flooded by Ao3!

Understandable! Luckily, most email clients allow you to set up rules for incoming mail depending on their sender and contents. For instance (using Gmail), I've made it so that these emails skip the inbox, are marked as read, and moved to a label I call my "Comment Collection".

The result? A complete, organised and fully-searchable repository of any comments you leave from this point onwards! Search by fic name, author, date, that one sentence you vividly remember leaving!

I've set up other rules, too, like starring emails that are replies to my comments - I'm always excited to receive them!

I love this system, and I think it's motivated me to leave more comments. I hope that others find it useful too. Happy commenting!

Original preferences trick from this Reddit thread. Tagging @justleaveacommentfest, which motivated me to write this post!

[leveragehunters]

Google Germany blocking AO3 in search results

I haven't seen anything on this cross my dash, and I thought it was worth bringing here with as much accuracy as possible. (I first encountered it on Reddit.)

Currently (24.12.2022) Google is blocking AO3 from search results in Germany as a result of a complaint.

It is only Google, not other search engines. The government did not request it. It has nothing to do with copyright. It does not impact access to the site itself. ETA: If you use Chrome, it may not let you bookmark AO3 URLs (reports are mixed).

I tested it using a VPN set to Germany, searching for my AO3 username. This is a Google search for leveragehunters showing no AO3 results while connected to a German VPN:

The same search from Australia, with the first result AO3:

A DuckDuckGo search for leveragehunters while connected to a German VPN - AO3 is the third and fifth hit.

The bottom of the Google search using the German VPN states:

In response to a legal request submitted to Google, we have removed 2 results from this page. If you wish, you may read more about the request at LumenDatabase.org. This is the link to read more: https://lumendatabase.org/notices/9415.

What was the complaint? You can read it here (and it is seriously light on information): https://lumendatabase.org/notices/9415, but it says:

A URL that otherwise would have appeared in response to your search was not displayed because that URL was reported as illegal under German youth protection laws.

Ihre Suche hätte in den Suchergebnissen einen Treffer generiert, den wir Ihnen nicht anzeigen, da uns mitgeteilt wurde, dass die entsprechende URL rechtswidrig gemäß deutscher Jugendschutzgesetze ist.

Like I said up there, this was not a government request. Government requests to remove material from Google say so on the notice (see, for example: https://lumendatabase.org/notices/30045178 or all of these).

Anyone can make a complaint to Google and ask them to remove something for allegedly violating local laws. I suspect what's happened is that someone has reported the top level AO3 URL to Google through their procedures and that Google, being the knee-jerk risk-adverse devil company that it is, has blocked the site pending investigation (AKA lawyers saying yes or no) or just went stuff it, a shoddy complaint's good enough cause we don't actually care.

The Reddit thread is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AO3/comments/zsgt6v/is_ao3_blocked_from_being_displayed_in_google_in/, but mixed in with the reports from German users is a lot of maybe not so helpful/accurate information so, you know, grain of salt and all that.

@ao3org

[serenefreakgeekao3]

Ever in our favour

CHAPTER SIX

[Table of contents]

Summary: Someone new enters the fray... Warnings: Cannon typical violence, descriptions of blood and death Author's Note: Hey, it's been a super long time since I've updated this fic, and I apologize for that. This chapter is also a bit shorter than the rest, but I felt it was a good stopping point, and figured posting something rather than nothing would be better. Enjoy!

“You mean to tell me you showed someone one of your specialities?” Your mentor stared at you with a saddened look in her eye, her long blonde hair tied up into a messy bun atop her head. She shook her head slowly, sighing. “What did I say before?”

“I know,” You mumbled, shrugging as you poked your food around your plate. The dining room in this apartment was splashed with a multitude of colours- it still shocked you, having grown up in the muted world of District 9. “Don’t show them what I can do so they don’t know what to look out for. Don’t make friends, don’t talk to any of the others, because you’ll just feel worse when you’re in the arena. I know.”

“What do you mean, ‘don’t make friends’? Did you make a friend?” She asked, glancing between you and your district partner- the one that had brought up this conversation. The one that had told on you to your mentor, saying you showed a contestant or two how much you know about differentiating plants. You didn’t really care if she knew, but you were trying to avoid this exact argument. You sigh, looking back up into her eyes.

“Yes, I made a friend. I think if I’m completely alone out there I’ll be killed quicker than I can run.” You held back your next comment- that you actually liked Peeta, that you hoped he liked you back. But you couldn’t think that way, you were doomed. You both were. Your mentor shakes her head again, reaching out to place a hand on your fidgeting one.

“Y/N-”

“Oh stop it,” You pull away, shaking your head. “We both know I won’t survive this. I’d rather go out on my own terms. Being loyal to someone who is loyal to me. Maybe even helping the right victor succeed.” You push away from the table with a huff, shaking your head. “I’m going to my room for the night.”

Those memories were already precious in your head, and you wouldn’t let either of them spoil it, not when you were about to lose your life no matter what. You would take that smiling, sparkling image of Peeta to your grave. His laugh was infectious, and you knew from the looks of the other contestants that you were just painting another target on your back. But he’d seemed so sweet… You had just wanted to know if his eyes really were that shade of blue…

As you startle awake, you hear voices nearby. The events of last night slowly come back to you as you sit there, blinking in the low light. After having escaped from Toby, the boy you had killed for the fish, the group of you had hunted down a secluded enough spot to build a campfire and rest for the evening. Peeta seemed almost too good at spotting the right areas to sleep, as he had come across a natural cave opening that seemed the perfect spot. You had settled down to begin carving the fish as Rue ran back and forth, gathering materials to build a big enough campfire that could cook the fish for the lot of you. Peeta spent his time disguising the entrance to your little cove, and after all was said and done you had taken a look. If you hadn’t just pushed past that bundle of leaves, you wouldn’t have even known where the entrance was hidden at- or that there was an entrance to begin with.

You would feel settled by that fact now if you didn’t hear a distinct female voice that you knew was not Rue. Not only did Rue tend to talk in almost hushed whispers most of the time, but this one sounded older. Probably around your own age. You push yourself to stand, wincing at the soreness of your muscles, before inching yourself into the small grotto that Peeta had surrounded. You spot Rue sitting next to the snuffed campfire, knees pulled up with her arms wrapped around them. She lifts her head as you emerge, shooting you a smile through her fear, and you begin to make your way toward the exit. You can hear the voices clearer now.

“What do you mean you can’t- Peeta-”

“Listen, I have-” You hear him grumble, and you begin trying to find a spot where you might be able to peek through the foliage. “I just can’t come with you, okay?”

“What, is it that District 9 person you kept talking to before? You know they’re just going to betray you, Peeta.”

“And what, you won’t?” Peeta’s voice almost sounded harsh, but his demeanour wouldn’t let it get that far. Instead, he just sounded firm, almost in disbelief of what the girl had said. The silence that followed said a lot before you heard her finally speak up again.

“Of course not, Peeta. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Only one of us can make it out of here alive, Katniss.” ‘Oh, it’s her. The girl from your hazy memories, the Girl On Fire. Peeta’s district partner.’ “You know that as well as I do.”

“But you choose to follow around someone you don’t know?”

“I know-”

“Someone you hardly know, then?”

“And I know you more? You hardly knew me back in twelve.” There’s another silence and you feel yourself getting antsy, patting your pockets to locate and withdraw your knife. You flick it open, feeling it lock into place as you strain to listen for any movement. “Look, you should just go. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if you give me a reason.”

“You wouldn’t hurt me, Peeta,” You hear a soft voice reply, and that antsy feeling in your chest ramps up to 100%. You push your way through the disguised exit, not bothering to hide the knife you’re wielding, but not raising it either. You watch as both sets of eyes turn to you quickly from the noise, and you make sure to keep your face emotionless. She looked plain, almost too plain for someone who had flames bursting out of her back a week ago.

“I think he said he’d like you to leave now.”

Katniss stood tall, a few feet away from Peeta, with her hand holding a rather impressive looking silver bow. With Peeta’s eyes on you, he missed her reaction. You never thought you’d see such a burning hatred in someone’s eyes, something that was hardly reflected on her face. She still looked emotionless, but she couldn’t hide her feelings in her eyes. You began to wonder if Peeta could see it too, if he knew how to read her as easily as you did. You glanced to him, watching him visibly swallow, eyes slightly wider than normal, his hand twitching at his side. They both spoke at the same time.

“Y/N, please, go back inside-”

“I told you before, nine-”

CRASH

You stumble back, knocking into the pile of bushes behind you, managing to catch yourself before you fell through. The scene before you seemed to happen in slow-motion, but also in an instant. Something- someone, just crashed through the nearby brush. Someone large, who had pushed through from the opposite side of the tiny clearing the three of you had been standing in. Katniss was knocked to the ground immediately, and you watched in sick fascination how her head banged against the rock nearby before she immediately tried to push herself up, shaking her head. Meanwhile, the figure that had pushed Katniss down now grappled with Peeta. You knew from experience that he had some skills with wrestling, but it didn’t seem to matter when opposing this brute of a man.

You couldn’t think, everything began moving quicker and quicker, Peeta getting thrown to the ground and Katniss stumbling on her own feet, shaking her head and raising a hand to her new wound. The man turned his attention to you. You locked eyes, his deep brown gaze penetrating yours, and his dark hands reached out toward you. You swiped your hand toward him, feeling resistance and watching in satisfaction as he hisses and withdraws his right hand, a new slash of blood welling up on his palm. He snarls, moving to pounce.

Peeta had pushed up already, tackling the man with all of his might, but still unable to move him more than a slight stumble. You try to regain your balance from your half-leaned position in the disguised opening of your campsite, but you couldn’t regain your footing fast enough. The man grabbed Peeta by his shirt with both hands, lifted him until his feet were no longer on the ground, then yelled out in fury as he threw Peeta a good distance away. Your heart rate spikes, and panting, you finally manage to gain a footing, crouching slightly in some memory-locked defensive position. Behind him, Katniss raises her bow, aiming an arrow for his back.

He looks at you, then charges. His hands wrap around your throat, pushing you down to your knees. You couldn’t fight him, his strength was just too much. You glanced behind him again, and watch with dread as Katniss slowly releases the tension on her bow and lowers the arrow. She wasn’t shooting him.

You were pushed further down, struggling against his hold. You couldn’t breathe- not in a panicked way that you’ve since grown to know, but in a holy-shit-I’m-about-to-die way. Your back hit the grass, the dew from the morning beginning to sink into your shirt and soak it. What an odd thing to worry about now, the chill on your back as you struggle to find breath. You beginning hitting his hands, pounding down onto his wrist in any attempt to move him.

“Thresh!”

This scream was familiar, but you had no time to ponder why Rue would suddenly be yelling since you were able to finally gasp a lungful of air. Thresh had looked up, directly behind you- likely at the young girl who called for him- and accidentally released his hold on you in surprise. You gasp in again, pushing his hands away from you in a panic before his gaze looks back down at you, locking eyes. Then a silver arrowhead appears in the center of his throat. Through his throat. You can see his eyes widening, a gurgle of blood spilling from his mouth and falling down onto your chest. Frightened of your fate if he falls forward, you begin to frantically push him to the side, managing to get your feet planted on the ground for an extra shove. He falls to the side, and you decide you can’t look at him anymore- figuring the gurgling sounds and his clawing at his own throat will haunt you enough.

By the time you managed to stand, the blackness fading from your vision as you heave deep breaths, you watch Peeta run across the small field and shove Katniss.

“What the hell was that?” He screams, and you’ve never heard him so angry, so bloodthirsty.

“What do you mean? I saved them!”

“I saw you!” He pointed at her, glaring as he took a few steps back. “I saw you lower your damned bow-”

“I shot him, didn’t I?”

“You were protecting the kid!” Peeta screams, clenching his fists. You blink, remembering Rue and turning quickly. She stared in shock at Thresh on the ground, unmoving. You rush to her, turning her around and holding her face to your stomach.

“Of course I was protecting the kid! You think I’m going to protect them? What do you think this is, Peeta? Some romp in the woods? A fun little camping trip to meet friends?” You placed your hand over Rue’s available ear, pressing her tighter against yourself. Peeta was visibly shaking in anger, shaking his head.

“I know what this is, Katniss.”

“You obviously don’t.” There was blood framing the right side of her face, dripping down from the top of her head and beginning to drip off of her chin. Her eyes were dead of emotion, but flickering constantly for danger. She looked deadly.

“I’m not going to let them change me, Katniss.” Her eyes finally settled on him, and there was something there. She was too far away, and the light was low surrounded by all of the trees, but there was something there that just looked too familiar.

“Then I’ll do it for you.”

She’s so quick you almost missed her moving, but suddenly she had an arrow notched and ready to fly, aimed directly at you. You watched her breathe out, and it was a split second before she released that Peeta sidestepped quickly to set himself between the two of you.

“No,” Peeta growled out angrily, shaking his head. His hands were still clenched, and he looked tense enough to pounce at any moment. “I won’t let you. If you touch them- either of them- I will kill you myself.” You hear no response, but after a few moments pass (long enough that you want to throw Rue somewhere safe and push Peeta down and yell at him to stop being so self-sacrificing) you watch as Peeta takes a slow step forward, his voice low and dangerous. “It wasn’t five minutes ago you were telling me that you don’t believe I’d harm you. Want to test that theory?”

You slowly start prying Rue off of you, who had at some point raised her arms and circled you in a death grip. It took a bit of struggling, but you pulled her off and kneeled down in front of her. As quiet as can be, you point back into the concealed camp. She shook her head, her curls flying back and forth, before you stern your expression and point again. She raises a hand, rubbing the (real) tears from her cheeks, and begins to scamper back into her hiding spot, as quiet as a mouse. As you stand, you hear her voice.

“We should worry about One and Two before we start the infighting, don’t you think?” Glancing over, Katniss not only finally lowered her bow, but slung it onto her back. Peeta was still tense, his hands loosening and clenching once more, over and over. If you didn’t know any better, he might’ve been deciding whether to deal with her now or later. You take a small step forward, then another. Enough that you’re right behind him now. With a light touch to his back, he still startles, loosening the tension as he turns to look in your eye. He seems so conflicted, and your heart breaks slightly for him. He must’ve known her back where they’re from, somehow.

“I think that sounds like a decent plan, don’t you?” Your voice was a whisper at this point, but you could still see the confusion cross both of their faces, as you turn your gaze from Peeta to Katniss. It might not be a very smart plan, in all honesty, but you only knew one thing for sure. You would kill Katniss, yourself.

[themoonking]

when people bring up the racism, homophobia, transphobia, romanticization of domestic abuse / rape / pedophilia / incest, literal actual written porn of literal actual real life flesh and blood children, et cetera et cetera on archive of our own, one of the ao3 stannies’ main defenses is “you can just filter out the tags if you don’t want to see that!” when that defense has no fucking legs to stand on.

ao3 is not an archive, it is barely even a website: a rant <3 (very long)

ignoring the fact that it’s a problem that all of that is permitted on the site in the first place (i guess child porn and racism are fine, and the people who allow it on their platform are fine, as long as i, personally, do not see it), that defense literally means nothing. it’s assuming that every little thing on ao3 is tagged properly and it absolutely is not, and if you think it is you are dumber than rocks. i mean for fuck’s sake, just touching on archive warnings and not tags, “creator chose not to use archive warnings” is literally a valid option for fic authors to use when it should fucking not be.

if someone is a freak who thinks that pedo shit is hot, they might not tag it as “rape” (archive warnings OR tags). i’ve literally seen underage father/son rape porn with no trigger warning tags but “child abuse if you squint”. IF YOU SQUINT. if someone thinks that domestic abuse is actually cool and sexy when attractive people do it, they might not tag it as “abuse”. if someone is a freak who likes incest, but bends over backwards to justify it by only shipping adopted family members, then they tell themselves that they don’t view it as incest, and might not tag it as “incest”. if someone is a racist, a homophobe, a transphobe, et cetera and they wrote bigotry into their fic (or else wrote a deliberate troll fic to trigger people on purpose), do you really think they’re going to tag it as racism / homophobia / transphobia / et cetera? and some people get kicks out of writing purposefully triggering content and either leaving it untagged or mistagging it so that people will read it unsuspectingly.

even for just general content tags, it’s a mess. people just forget to tag things all the time. people deliberately won’t tag the endgame ship of their fic because “it’s a spoiler heehee”. people use the romantic or sexual “x / y” tag instead of the platonic or otherwise “x & y” tag, sometimes by mistake sometimes on purpose. it’s a joked about issue how people will tag characters or ships that appear in their fic for two sentences.

there’s no standardization of tags, which is a pretty obvious problem. what first comes to mind is the “dead dove: do not eat” tag which should just not be a tag at all because it just has no meaning. depending on the individual fic writer using it, it could mean anything from “literally the most sickening and depraved thing you’ve ever read in your life” to “horror w/ gore”. but it applies to other vague tags too - different fic writers will have different ideas of what the tag means.

in addition to that, what is and isn’t made a filterable tag, what tags are made synonymous, et cetera, is entirely up to the whims of the site staff. as an example, if you’re trying to look for fanfiction of a singular animated disney movie, the infinite crossovers with other disney movies will not actually be counted as crossovers (which they are) because they’re classified as the “disney theatrical animated universe” (which isn’t a fucking thing), so you can’t filter them out the “exclude crossovers” way. if you try to filter out the fandom tag “disney theatrical animated universe”, it’ll show up with zero fics because that tag is synonymous with every disney animated film (regardless of if the fic author actually used the tag “disney theatrical animated universe” or not), thus also filtering out the one you actually wanted to find.

and do not get me fucking started on the “all media types tags”, which also just shouldn’t be a thing because it makes it fucking impossible to find the specific fics you’re looking for. some people use it in place of tagging a specific canon / adaptation when their fic very clearly draws from one specific canon / adaptation, and you can’t filter it out because it’s synonymous with every fandom tag under its umbrella.

as an example of the issues of both the “all media types” tag and mistagging in general: as a fan of the witcher books, it used to be a fucking ordeal to find fanfiction specifically for the books (post netflix show release). some show fans would, for whatever reason, tag their fics with the book fandom tag in addition to (or even in place of!!) the show fandom tag when their fics were unquestionably show-specific, meaning i could not simply search only in the book fandom tag. i could not simply filter out the show tag, because some show fans would, for whatever reason, tag as fucking “all media types”, when their fics were unquestionably show-specific. and alas, i could not filter out “all media types” and the show tag, so that i see only those fics which have been deliberately and exclusively tagged as the book, not only because as mentioned some show fans would tag their show fics with only the book tag, but also because the fucking all media types tag filters out the book tag as well, leaving me with zero fucking fics REGARDLESS of if the author actually used the “all media types” tag. now, thankfully, i’ve thankfully seen this issue in this specific fandom lessen, but it still occurs in other fandoms and i guarantee that it didn’t lessen in the witcher fandom because of any fixing of the site on the part of ao3 staff.

another common defense of ao3 freaks is that it’s an “archive”, and therefore can’t get rid of anything anyone posts, and disregarding the fact that that is not how archives fucking work, they don’t just allow anything and also ao3 DOES get rid of fics... when they say that they don’t like proshippers, apparently, archives have... you know... archivists. they have someone or a team of someones making sure that everything in the archive is *properly fucking categorized*. they have someone or multiple someones making sure that everything they recieve (1) belongs there and (2) is properly labeled and organized. same for libraries. meaning that if ao3 really were an archive and not a sub par fanfiction website, they’d have something like that in place. something as simple as a report button for fics with a review team that will see if something’s been mis- or untagged. they’d have some kind of standardization of tags (especially the warning / trigger tags) and have proper tagging enforced in some way. and then they could also do something like stop being spineless racists, queerphobes, and pedos have the barest minimum of content guidelines saying that you can’t post fucking hate speech.

if something is mistagged or untagged, the most you can do is leave a comment politely asking that the author fix the issue, and then hope and pray that they do that. and if that person thinks [insert form of abuse] is hot, or if they’re just straight up a bigot that wrote bigotry into their fics to be bigoted, or they’re a troll that gets kick out of deliberately traumatizing people by tricking them into reading their mis/untagged fics, they might not! AND if you see a major tagging issue on an orphaned work, or a work that has an inactive author / hasn’t been updated in forever, good fucking luck getting even a negative response.

you can’t permanently block tags (i mean even tumblr.hell has that), meaning that if you would like to search for fic without coming across something troubling, triggering, or just something you don’t like, you have to either (1) do a work around by having a bookmarked link for every fandom you’re in or every character you like with all of your tags already blocked, (2) download browser extensions that do the work for ao3 because they can’t be bothered themselves, or (3) input every individual tag every time you search ao3 and don’t forget that all of those options only fucking work at all when everything is tagged properly, and we’ve already established its not. you also can’t actually block people (you can only prevent them from commenting) meaning that if there’s a specific person you’d like to stay away from your fics or a specific fic author that you don’t like and would like to stop seeing their fics clogging up the tag, you’re out of luck (though for the latter you could insert “-[username]” into the “search within results” box, but then uh oh we’re right back around to having to input that every time or have a bookmark)

their archive warning system is shit. first of all it’s functionally useless because, as mentioned, “creator chose not to use archive warnings” is an option. what’s the fucking point of special required archive warnings if you’re going to allow people to opt out anyway. second of all, aside from “chose not to use warnings” and “no warnings apply”, the only warnings are “major character death”, “graphic depictions of violence”, “rape/non-con”, and “underage”. disregarding the fact that they shouldn’t be allowing porn of underage characters in the first place (but i’m talking to a brick wall on that issue) and that “non-con” (and “dub-con”) as terminology needs to die, it’s just fucking rape lets not use weasel words... this is a paltry list of possible warnings. there’s no official warnings for depictions of: domestic abuse, animal abuse, depictions of racism / homophobia / transphobia / et cetera, suicide, self harm, et cetera et cetera. and we return to the issue of standardization of tags. in your required archive warnings at very least, there should be a standardization of what these mean, but ao3′s own faq is just like “ehh... you decide. we’ll leave it up to you”. what qualifies as graphic depictions of violence? two people may write the same level of violence, but qualify “graphic” differently, and make different decisions regarding their warnings. and we also return to the issue of: if a freak doesn’t see something that is clearly rape as rape, they might not tag it as such.

this website gets a disgustingly large amount of money every year that it doesn’t fucking do anything with. it’s been over a decade and they’re still in fucking beta. features that would actually be useful, like an actual block system, don’t exist. they technically have a report system for abuse and harassment and such, but apparently what they qualify as abuse and harassment is fickle. ao3 defenders seem to be very proud of the legal work they do for fandom / fanfic authors, but they set aside a very small amount of the money they get every year for legal advocacy, and they actually use even less of that, because it’s not the early 2000s “anne rice hates fanfiction” era anymore - you aren’t going to get fucking sued for writing fanfiction in the first place. based on their own self-reported yearly cost of upkeep, they literally already have enough money to run the site as they are now for the next twenty years.

once again: ao3 is not an archive. it is not a library. it is barely a even a website.

[roastybeans]

Guys.

Guys?

Guys????

[marfian]

The pavlovian response I had to come to this hellsite to check what was going on with AO3 because I KNEW I would see it trending needs to be studied.

[thegeneticopera]

hey for the record its uncool as hell to make your own repo archive blog and then come mass rb from this one to pad yours with our curated posts lol

[taradactyls]

Trying to Tread Water: Chapter Thirty

The Elizabeth/Darcy Marriage of Convenience fic no one asked for

Chapter Thirty: Elizabeth's first ball in town - and the first official dance she is attending as Mrs Darcy - has arrived. As have the Darcy family's collection of jewellery, which Mr Darcy sent for. Of course, despite that their marriage was made to secure her safety, his love for Elizabeth means he wants none but her to wear them. They stay close to each other during the ball, and he cannot keep his eyes off her. Especially when they dance.

Read on Ao3 here

First reviews of Chapter Thirty: "Honestly when I get the email this story has updated I get very excited and it’s a proper treat! I made a coffee and sat down to read it as soon as possible." "Loved this update! Oh man the vibes during that dance were just perfect." "I'm literally so unreasonably happy that they had a nice night out😭😭 grinning in public like a lunatic rn..." "I really loved the ball in its entirety, honestly. The descriptions of the room and atmosphere, and especially the last dance, all speaks to your writing prowess. 12/10, would recommend." "This story is my absolute favorite notification and I seriously enjoy reading it so much! The characters, the world building, just so incredibly well done!"

Story updates on Ao3 fortnightly, with Chapter Thirty-One coming out on the 17th May.

Story tags: Elizabeth/Darcy, Marriage of Convenience, Unrequited Love, Not Really Unrequited Love, Slow Burn, Pining, Pining Despite Being Married, Mr Darcy thinks his worst enemy is Wickham but maybe it's himself.

[reinanova]

so you're new to ao3

and want to learn how to find and filter fics. then boy oh boy is this post for you

(this is going to be a Long post so I'm adding a read more break now)

but where to begin? i personally like to search by fandom or by ship. there are two ways to go about this:

search the fandom, then click on the first link for the fandom you find:

2. click on fandoms in the upper left corner and find your fandom in the giant list of fandoms

(Same concept applies for searching for a specific ship)

Great! now you're in the search results of all the works in that fandom! I'm now going to introduce you to your new favorite button: Filters

When you click on the filters button, the filters menu pops up. There are two main ways to filter works: including tags and excluding tags.

the Include Filter

before we begin: keep in mind that ao3 shows you the most popular tags under each filter. if what you're looking for isn't listed, you can use the search boxes under each filter category to find what you want

Ratings and Warnings

If you want to read a fic with a specific rating or a specific warning, this is where you select that. I personally prefer to use the exclude filter to filter out the ratings/warnings I don't want, but that's up to you. (Notice how you can only pick one rating: if you want to only read one rating, this is great for you. if you want to read anything except a certain rating, that's when exclude is your friend)

Categories and Fandoms

This is great if you want to read a specific slash or a crossover with a specific fandom. (I personally don't use these filters)

Characters and Relationships

this is the good stuff. here is where you can pick the relationship(s) you want to see. If you select more than one, you will only see results that include all of the selected options. The relationships filter is my favorite include filter--utilize it!!

Additional Tags and Other tags to include

want to read fluff? hurt/comfort? this is where you go. If the tag you're looking for isn't on the list under Additional Tags, you can search for the tag you want. ao3 will start to suggest tags, so you can select what you want from that list.

we have now reached my favorite part of the ao3 filtering system:

the Exclude Filter

ao3 operates on a don't like, don't read principle. the exclude filters exist for a reason: USE THEM!!!! i love the exclude filters and use them for every single search

Ratings, Warnings, Categories, and Fandoms

This seems pretty self-explanatory. Let's say you don't want to read fics that are not rated and fics that are tagged as major character death, but every other rating or warning is fair game. Boom, you've excluded them from the search results.

Characters and Relationships

Don't want to read a fic with a certain character or ship? You can get rid of all of them from the search results. For example, if you don't want to read any /Reader fics, you can filter those out here

Additional Tags and Other tags to exclude

Anything else you don't want to read about? maybe it's something that is a trigger for you, or something you just aren't into. Maybe there are specific relationships not listed under the relationship filter that you want to exclude. you can exclude those tags here. The exclude tag search feature is great for this.

More Options

there are some more ways to filter fics, including crossover status, completion status, word count, date updated, and language. Let's say you don't want any crossovers and you want to read a work in progress. you would select Exclude crossovers and Works in progress only here.

One last thing before you hit sort and filter!

You can sort the results by a variety of different features, like date updated, hits, and kudos. Be careful tho--sometimes some of the best fics you'll read will be the ones that don't have the same number of hits and kudos as the "popular fics" so don't judge a fic by it's numbers

That's it!! Now you're ready to sort and filter the results to your heart's content! This button is at the top and bottom of the filter tab for your convenience :)

Based on the filtering, your new search results will appear. Now you can read what you want and ignore the rest!

In summary:

Including: will show you only the results that have ALL of the included tags

Excluding: will show you results that have NONE of the excluded tags

Don't like, don't read! ao3 is an archive, not an algorithm--you have to search out the content you want yourself. hit the back tab if you don't like the fic you're reading

Remember to leave comments and kudos to make an author's day!!