#bobbin powers

[thatthingilovewith]

Picrews of Reaper, Dill, Bobbin and Facet I made when I was bored in class

[elodieunderglass]

Guys GUYS

Concept: Throw Your Heart Over as an animated show of some kind but there are, like, educational appendixes at the end of each episode like “the making of planet Earth” but it’s about some Fascinating Fact. So for example, in an episode in which the Celt and his Irish Hobby have been doing weird feats of equitation in the corner of Killie’s eye, there would be an ENTIRE 20-minute documentary video essay in which people like @mylittlehony would be able to explain to you everything about the Irish Hobby, from whether it did give rise to the Thoroughbred, to how it fared in medieval battle, and how it gave rise to the term “hobby.” We’d bring in linguistics and DNA evidence and people would be fascinated, they’d be like “but my horseboy yaoi show” and we’d be like “it was a TRAP to get you interested in……… medieval horse warfare apparently. Uhhh. next episode has a recipe for Sachertorte though. And then we are getting FULLY into… narrowboats… and Kendal mint cake.”

But but but the funny thing will be that a pennywhistle-based musical motif that pops up associated with the ghost horses would be “concerning hobbies”. and you THOUGHT this was a LotR joke combined with wry commentary about how WORRYING these interests are. But then halfway through you hit the Irish Hobby infodump, find out that it was a joke about hobby horses, and put a KNIFE THROUGH YOUR TV SCREEN

[saturday-byte]

Chat I relapsed again

These are a little wonky bc I started them in a moving car and then got too tired to fix the poses sorryyyy render as. Apology

Lou belongs to @ai1dennn , Bowtie belongs to @themindelectric4 , Bobbin belongs to @clockworkmadness , Sparky belongs to @steambot-sparky , Asmodeus belongs to @ghostlykermode and Tenrec belongs to @grubbylilgoblin

[trashpandacraft]

a bobbin's a bobbin, right? i mean, it works...

flicking it to make it spin on the lazy kate is much faster than any of my other options.

obligatory progress photo, which looks just like the last photo i posted but is different, i swear.

[thisismyobsessionnow]

I wanna make lace so bad but I don't have anything set up on a pillow right now and I don't feel like doing the set-up stuff. Ugh.

[hellenhighwater]

Do you carry any other fun and whimsical things in your purse besides the brass measuring tools? can we see them??

"What do I carry in my purse" is actually a really long answer! Not very whimsical though.

I don't carry a very large purse but it is actually jam-packed with stuff. Obviously the usual—credit cards, ID, badge, money, car keys.

But the rest is taken up by a tidy little lineup of things that are useless 99% of the time and crucial 1% of the time. Some of it (most of the top row) floats loose in my purse; most of the bottom row packs into the little bag there. My sketchbook du jour is usually carried separately.

So: top row:

Sketchbook and the little brass drafting tools, which I carry inside the sketchbook, and also a little metal ruler that has honestly become redundant.

Then, a bunch of pens and marking tools: A ballpoint, some pencils, paint pen, permanent marker, white gel pens, white paint pen, white mechanical pencil, and eraser. This varies depending on what I'm working on and what I've absently left in the wrong place.

Some lip gloss, hand sanitizer, concealer, chapstick, nail polish, and heavy lotion (clay dries your hands out SO hard) and a hair pin. Usually there are several sword shaped hair pins also; I took them out while working on a project and they'll migrate back when I'm done.

Headphones, a couple knives, and a tiny foldable gerber multitool. A little flat card multitool, with a heavy needed shoved into its case also, and a pack of clear sticky notes.

A two-port USB brick; I usually also carry a power bank but it's charging in the car right now.

My change purse and my wallet, which is just the IDs; my actual cards are in a pocket in the purse that also has a little nail kit. My car keys, which have a bottle opener and a combined window breaker-seatbelt cutter, a 64 gig USB key, and keys to my studio, house, garage, and the courthouse.

The bag itself is metal mesh, which means it’s durable but also somewhat see-thru.

That little tin is a tiny first aid kit, which probably I should have unpacked, but it's got bandaids, bandages, skin tape, blistex; antiseptic, itch, and burn cream; eyedrops; several small packets of common meds (tylenol, advil, etc) and a little folded chart for meds, since I’m terrible at remembering which can be taken with which; a breath mask. There's also a razor and some safety pins tucked in there. It's held shut with a hair tie.

There's some single-use earplugs and some zip ties, some more eye drops, and a tiny vial of liquid breath mint.

A deck of mini playing cards.

A tiny sewing kit--needles, pins, earring backs and pin backs, some heavy black thread on a bobbin, a measuring tape, and some foldable scissors. There's a couple glasses screws in there from before I had Lasik.

Another little multitool, some binder clips, a tiny level, a 120 gig USB, and some bobby pins.

Matches and a lighter, a flat pen, and coils of 20 lb fishing line, picture wire, and monofilament, as well as two short USB cords.

A tide pen and a glasses screwdriver.

The bag contains cardboard strips with several yards of tape: Electrical, packing, scotch, duct, gaff, and skin tape. Superglue. A spare piece of heavy cardboard to use as a cutting surface if needed.

An Xacto knife with the blade reversed (learned my lesson after jamming my hand into my bag and taking a chunk out of a finger when a springloaded switchblade opened itself) and spare blades.

Some more clear sticky notes and a tiny lined notebook for when I just need scratch paper.

My car actually includes two slightly different emergency bags—one for regular roadside emergencies (including emergencies in blizzard weather) and one for camping emergencies, and a bit more of an extensive first aid kit.

[fairykukla]

Why "Universal" means "Equally bad."

So you go to the store to buy needles for your sewing machine. You are going to find one of two things: a few "Universal" needles, or a large section with dozens of needle types.

"None of these say my machine brand on them," you think. "What do these numbers mean?"

I'm here to help you out!

It turns out that needles for sewing machines have amazing specialties to help make the work easier.

Ball point/Jersey: these needles have a rounded 'ball' point so that they don't accidentally cut the threads in a knit fabric. Ever cut a thread in a sweater? We don't want that to happen in a knit fabric either. Knits are used for t-shirts, Sweatshirts and the like.

Sharp/Microtex Sharp: My Beloved. If you sew on any woven fabric, and see "puckers" along your seam, you're not using a Sharp needle. Developed for micro-textiles, these are brilliant for printed quilting cotton, satin, woven silk, and the like.

Jeans/Denim: larger eye, bladed tip. The Sharp is a stiletto; a Denim needle is a sword. The bladed tip makes it easier for your machine to power through densely woven fabrics like canvas, upholstery fabrics, brocade, and old-fashioned denim.

Stretch: this needle is designed to sew on Elastic fabrics with minimal skipped stitches. Spandex and Lycra can stretch so well that they're carried by the needle into the bobbin area of the machine, preventing the stitch from completing. Stretch needles pass through the fabric easier without punching holes.

Quilting: Yep! There's a needle for this! Great for piecing, these really shine while sewing through the layers of fabric and batting. They make free lotion quilting a lot easier, and you won't have to fiddle with the tensions as much!

Leather: perfect for Vinyl, pleather 'vegan' leather, actual leather, and suede, this needle is like a Denim needle with a twist; a twisted blade, that is. It makes a perfectly round hole to prevent the dreaded "Tear along the dotted line" effect.

Metallic: yes, all needles are made of metal, but this type is gentle to metallic threads for decorative work.

Topstitch: this needle has an extra large eye and groove to accommodate heavier threads. Great for high-contrast visible topstitching with heavier threads.

There are others, but this is a good place to start. "Universal" needles don't have any of the specialized features listed above. They aren't sharp, aren't ball-pointed either. They have an average sized eye and groove.

They will sew. They will form a stitch, and they can be a lifesaver when you're not sure what kind of needle to use because you're sewing with more than one challenging fabric simultaneously. However, they aren't "good at" anything. They're kind of "equally bad" at everything.

Do yourself and your sewing machine a favor: Use the right needle for the right project.

One final pro tip: change your needle every 8 hours or so of actual sewing, or at the beginning of every major project.

[evermarch]

on the mortality of president snow

this post has been in the works since i finished sotr, but i wanted to revisit ballad before sharing my thoughts. one thing i absolutely loved about sotr is that snow was not the #1 Main Antagonist so much as The Capitol, abstractly, because it hammers home one of the most essential points of the trilogy. we have this image of tyrants like snow as all-powerful, hyper-intelligent demigods four steps ahead of everyone else. like a snake charmer, they woo a population into submission with superhuman charisma. we have that concept of snow because that's katniss' view of him, and certainly the view he has of himself in ballad. snow in sotr entirely disrupts that perception. in fact, during each substantial interaction between snow and haymitch, snow appears, more than anything else, weak. in haymitch's words, "he's just a man, as mortal as the rest of us."

in private, snow's fragility is a striking juxtaposition with the young man he presents himself as in his own narrative. in the meeting at the heavensbee home, snow is retching and shuddering from poison. he seethes over how, half a century ago, the heavensbees were rich enough to keep books when he had to burn them. though haymitch doesn't, we know that he's word vomiting about the covey because he’s still not over a girl he had a thing with 40 years ago. the implications of this doomed tribute are so concerning to snow, a man with indefinite and unlimited authority and resources, that he arranges a meeting with haymitch under the guise of warning him that, should his behavior continue, his family will be harmed.

only, that's exactly what happens. publicly, snow and haymitch are caught in a chess match in which, each time the audience is paying attention, haymitch forces snow to forfeit a pawn. when haymitch slow claps over louella’s body, snow has no escape. he is "mocked" on camera by a boy wearing a covey necklace. later, the most snow can do on stage at the victor's ceremony is issue a subtle threat to "enjoy your homecoming." yes, haymitch's family will pay. but that wasn't what snow wanted. it wasn't sid who drank his milk. it wasn't willamae who flooded his watchful eye with its own tears. snow had been unable to kill haymitch, even in the middle of a televised battle royale. amongst the roaring applause for the victor, snow must crown him victorious, kneecapped by the demands of his own people.

not only is snow astonishingly fallible, but he is never solely responsible for any of his horrors. in ballad coriolanus was powerless, and he had to take matters into his own hands. he killed bobbin personally. he used highbottom's weakness against him by poisoning the morphling. only sejanus was not his death blow—but he, a lowly, rank-and-file peacekeeper, reported his friend knowing it would inevitably result in his death, no matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise. in sotr, not a single one of the atrocities snow orchestrates happens by his hand. from lou lou to beetee and ampert to the games themselves to the deaths of sid/ma/lenore dove, each one involves a substantial number of people. each requires scientists and escorts and gamemakers and arsonists and peacekeepers willing to execute his plans.

so why would people back someone so feeble? someone who is not only personally weak, but whose power depends entirely on other people? because it's not snow they're supporting. it's not even the games, for which people still need convincing. it's what they represent. the message, even 50 years later, must be constantly reinforced to every citizen of panem with posters painted in blood to spread the narrative of "no capitol, no peace." in the districts, "no peacekeepers, no peace" means that, without the peacekeepers upholding the system with their guns and whips and ropes, they will be obliterated for their crimes. just like district 13. in the capitol, "no hunger games, no peace" means that, without the games to punish the enemies responsible for "starting" the war, they will forget and try again. and the capitol will fall besieged once again.

this messaging works because both sides still have people who remember the dark days. they remember the brutality of the capitol and the siege of the rebels. to the survivors, capitol and district alike, giving up their rights and self-determination is unequivocally worth preventing a return to war. it's not a conscious choice, of course. it's implicit submission. and the critical point is that people implicitly submit not to their specific role in upholding the system, and not even to snow, but to the narrative. to the opinion of government. to the inevitability of the system itself. and snow, as the #1 peacekeeper, manifests that narrative.

we meet characters from the districts and capitol alike who represent various points on the spectrum of implicit submission. people who swallow the propaganda wholeheartedly like drusilla, someone who lived through the aftermath of the war, who has dehumanized her enemies so much that she channels her cruelty and selfishness to abuse "their" children. ones who, in the face of hopelessness, forfeit their morality, like jethro callow and the booker boys. those who believe, as mr. donner does, that whatever facade of power their wallets provide is enough to spare them from the system which fuels that facade. and people like effie, whose kindness and humanity remains intact, who feel true sympathy for those who suffer in the name of upholding the system, but swallow like sugar the belief that it is for the greater good.

snow, specifically, appeals to each of these people, whether as a villain or as a savior, not because he is so intuitive or charming or brilliant as he considers himself to be, but because no one believes the propaganda more than coriolanus himself. throughout ballad, he constantly questioned his theory of governance, but he never, not once, questioned his core belief that the capitol is superior to the districts. that capitol people are superior to district people. when lucy gray threatened this fundamental reality by becoming someone worth loving, he first tried to distance her from his enemy by emphasizing her covey background. but when he went to 12 and saw her among his enemies, he decided he'd rather kill the piece of himself capable of love than consider that his belief system might be flawed. 40 years later, he's still not past her because she is the lock on the dam which keeps his cognitive dissonance from spilling over.

snow only learns one lesson in those 40 years, the one he adopts in the epilogue of ballad during his gamemaker internship: the value of a group project. he is successful in coming to power because he realizes that, whether they’re the intoxicated capitol crowd cheering on haymitch’s scar or the gamemakers who maysilee and maritte kill, every capitol citizen is fundamentally necessary to upholding the system over which snow now presides. regardless of their degree of complicity in its maintenance, the implicit submission of the feeble-minded masses is what keeps it running. what snow does not learn by the 50th games is that he is one of them.

not, of course, that he had the opportunity to understand that before—it was the heavensbees, after all, not the snows, who got to keep books for reading and not kindling. by the 50th games, however, coriolanus has no such excuse. yet, he still decides to send haymitch the milk pitcher in the arena. he could have had haymitch killed at any point before now, but he needs haymitch to suffer more than just an agonizing death. he needs him to die a selfish being, who deprived a poor, starving girl of her salvation, or live as a pariah, who poisoned her to survive. it is not just haymitch who needs to die. it is his poster. the opposition to the narrative. to the essence of snow's being. but it's that very choice which causes snow's plan to collapse. because his catch-22 is cut off by silka’s axe.

this moment, not his performance of illness to plutarch and haymitch, not his notice of a covey necklace while haymitch stands over a dead girl, not even his crowning haymitch victor, is what best portrays snow's weakness. that best demonstrates that he doesn’t have ultimate control over the depravity of the games and panem’s system of stratification and subjugation. snow fears chaos more than anything in the world, swallows the propaganda and rises to the top of the government in search of unimpeachable control. yet, despite his supreme power, he does not find what he seeks. because the fear, the pain, the oppression, and the deaths do not serve him; he serves them. his efforts are undermined not by some powerful capitol usurper, but by a scared and brainwashed teenager from district 1 desperate to get home to her family and to glory. his authority is undermined by his own belief system.

snow does not learn his true place during the 50th games. but the lesson is still there to be learned. and people do. plutarch, beetee, wiress, mags, and every subsequent member of the rebellion learn that snow is only one step of the battle. coin, too, learns it, training the focus of her most problematic adversaries like katniss and finnick on him so that they don't notice her. but no one learns the lesson better than haymitch. over time, he comes to realize that the threat to be defeated is a pitcher of milk, not a bag of gumdrops. the real enemy, the true antagonist, is not one man who positions himself as the villain, but the movement from where he sources his power. the real enemy has always been the capitol itself. snow was never the snake charmer. he was always just a snake.

which is why, when the war finally comes, haymitch is not among the parade of people clamoring to kill snow, but rather in the control booth directing the mockingjay. undoubtedly, haymitch wants snow dead. but, at this point, he has the perspective to recognize that his failure in the 50th games was snow's failure, too. which is why, when the war is won, he aligns his vote with katniss. because, after 25 years, he's come to know exactly what she's known from the minute she held out the berries. the lesson she learned from peeta, who's always understood that everyone, even snow, is a piece in the capitol's games. that snow’s death changes nothing. because the power is in the message, not the voice. and if the message isn't contained, its voice can change with a flip of a coin.

coriolanus snow is just a man, a mortal being. he has never been who the real enemy is. the enemy has always been the idea, the propaganda, that fueled him. from the words of a ballad and a declaration of love to the guidance of a mentor shifting the aim of an arrow, all four of the victors from district 12 learn in their own time how to fight this opinion of government. they learn not to implicitly submit. and it's because they do so that the the sun did not rise on a reaping ever again.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Word List: Fashion History

to try to include in your poem/story (pt. 2/3)

Exomis - a short, asymmetrical wrap garment pinned at the left shoulder, worn by men in Ancient Greece

Eye of Horus - or Wedjat eye, is an ancient Egyptian symbol that represents the eye of the falcon-headed god Horus and symbolizes healing and regeneration and was often worn for protection

Faience - a man-made ceramic material that was often used in ancient Egypt to make jewelry and devotional objects; it is usually a blue color

Falling Band - a flat and broad white collar often with lace on the edges, worn by men and women in the 17th century

Fibula - served as a pin to both hold garments together and to show status of those with prestige or power within society; was popular in Greek culture

Fichu - a triangular shawl, usually worn by women, draped over the shoulders and crossed or fastened in the front

Fontange - a linen cap with layers of lace and ribbon, worn flat and pinned to the back of the head

French Hood - a rounded headdress for women that was popular in the 16th century (from 1540)

Frock Coat - a collared man’s coat worn through the eighteenth to the twentieth century; rose to prominence mainly in the nineteenth century, especially Victorian England; characterized as a knee-length overcoat, buttoned down to the waist, that drapes over the lower half of the body like a skirt

Frogging - ornamental braid or cording that can function as a garment closure, or be solely decorative

Gabled Hood - a woman’s headdress that is wired to create a point at the top of the head and has fabric that drapes from the back of the head

Gigot Sleeve - a sleeve that was full at the shoulder and became tightly fitted to the wrist; also called leg-of-mutton sleeve

Guipure Lace - a type of continuous bobbin lace made without a mesh ground; its motifs are connected by bridges or plaits

Himation - a rectangular cloak wrapped around the body and thrown over the left shoulder worn by the ancient Greeks

Huipilli/Huipil - a woven rectangular shirt worn by women in Central America beginning in ancient times

Jerkin - a close-fitting men’s jacket, often worn for warmth, sometimes without sleeves; worn over a doublet in the 16th and 17th centuries

Justaucorps - a long-sleeved, knee-length coat worn by men after 1666 and throughout the 18th century

Kaftan - (also caftan) is an ancient garment, which originated in ancient Persia but then spread across Central and Western Asia; a kind of robe or tunic that was worn by both men and women

Katazome (stencil printing) - a traditional Japanese method for printing designs onto fabric using a stencil and paste-resist dyes

Kaunakes - one of the earliest forms of clothing; made from goat or sheep’s wool and meant to be worn around the waist like a skirt, it is recognizable by its fringe detailing

Kente - a Ghanaian strip woven textile that has striped patterns and bright colors with corresponding meanings

Knickerbockers - or “knickers” are full or baggy trousers gathered at the knee or just below and usually fastened with either a button or buckle; were initially worn by men in the late 19th century and gradually became part of women’s fashion; the garment was usually worn as sportswear and became especially popular among golfers and female cyclists, hence the term “pedal pushers”

Kohl - a black material made out of minerals such as galena and used for eyeliner and eye protection in ancient Egypt

Labret - a type of lip-piercing worn by various cultures to indicate wealth, prosperity and beauty

Love Lock - a lock of hair from the nape of the neck hanging over the chest to show romantic attachment; it was a popular hairstyle between 1590-1650

Lurex - a shiny synthetic fiber made of aluminum-coated plastic with a glittering metallic sheen

Mantua - a jacket-like bodice with pulled back overskirt that bustled in the back, often in elaborately patterned fabric, first worn in the 17th century

Medici Collar - a collar that stands upright on the back of the neck and opens in the front; this type of ruff was introduced to France by Marie de’ Medici in the 16th century, taking her name two centuries later

Moccasins - a type of soft animal skin shoe that were worn by Indians in North America

Muff - a tubular padded covering of fur or fabric, into which both hands are placed for warmth

Mule - a backless shoe

Muslin - a simple plain-weave textile made out of cotton and available in varying weights and finishes; historically, there were also varieties of muslin in silk and wool

Needle Lace -often known as “needlepoint lace”; is a term referring to the technique in which the lace is made of entirely needle work; it developed in the 15th century and then became very popular throughout the 16th century

Nemes Headdress - starched, striped linen headdress that draped on the shoulders and had a tail at center back worn only by royals in ancient Egypt

Panes/Paning - a method of decoration using long parallel strips of fabric arranged to reveal a contrasting fabric underneath that was fashionable from the 15th-17th centuries

Panniers - an under-structure used in eighteenth-century fashion that created a shape wide at the sides and flat at the front and back

Pantalettes - (also referred to as pantaloons) are loose, pants-like undergarments that covered women’s lower halves in the late 18th and early 19th century

Particolored - the combination of different colors within the same garment along the vertical axis

Passementerie - an additional accent or embellishment in silk or metallic threads, such as an embroidered braid, tassel or fringe

Pattens - wooden-soled platform over-shoes, which were commonly worn from the 14th century to the 18th century

If any of these words make their way into your next poem/story, please tag me, or leave a link in the replies. I would love to read them!

More: Fashion History ⚜ Word Lists

[strangeshoepatrolbandit-alt]

A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing.

Summary: He's a wolf in sheep's clothing. You're the sacrificial lamb. (What it was like.)

Warnings: Wolf and lamb imagery, mentions of sexual interactions, one of them being Non-Con... I think?("Making love", "fucking", "thrusting".), naivety, mentions of murder and blood, killing Lucy Gray Baird, being a Trophy wife, lies, mentions of breeding, being trapped in a marriage, getting hunted, guns, mentions The Hunger Games, mentions hanging(Sejanus' death), rebellion, being a shell of yourself, being tied up, getting rid of a body(Lucy Gray), toxic relationship, controlling!Coryo, Coriolanus' being 'bony'.

Fem!Reader.

I'm trying something new with my writing.

He lured you in.

He was one of the best Academy students and the only power he had was his name.

He spoke with you over open and discarded books, spewing with his charming words.

Sweet naive you.

He pressed soft kisses to your lips and thrusted in a pattern that made you see stars. Cosmic. Making love.

He was kind to your family, he was kind to your friends. He cared for you.

°•°•°

He was a mentor in the tenth Hunger Games, his tribute was Lucy Gray Baird. He helped her win, cheating for her from behind a screen while you supported him without knowing what he's done.

He was caught, and his punishment was becoming a Peacekeeper. Originally for District 8.

You threw a fit in his bedroom, crying and crying over again, begging the universe to not separate the two of you.

Dependent.

His hands held your face as he looked between both of your eyes, his own going back and forth. Left and right.

"No, you wont." He sounded so firm, but his voice still held the softness he could only have for you. "I'm going to 12. I will make sure to see through with it. You will go to 12."

And like a lamb led to the slaughter, you did.

°•°•°

You watched him beat a man, defending Lucy Gray like she was still his responsibility. You swam in the lake with him, holding onto him and laughing without a care in the world. You broke down with him after Sejanus' death. You stayed in the cabin with him and Lucy Gray.

The three of you planned a future that would get you all killed. You spoke the same words that had your dear friend, Sejanus, hung in front of a galore of witnesses.

Murdered.

Martyr.

You were oblivious to the way Coriolanus was cracking, something finally going off in his brain. He broke down.

He revealed what he's done. He told you both about Sejanus. He's why Sejanus Plinth, Bobbin, and Mayfair are dead.

Backstabber.

Murderer.

Lucy played it cool, keeping her calm as to not draw suspicion.

She grabbed your arm and a basket, making it seem innocent as she told him the two of you were going to pick katniss.

"Lucy Gray," He stared as she opened the door, a bright smile on her face as she gripped you tighter. "It's still raining."

"Well, we're not made out of sugar." And with that, she pulled you out. The two of you walked together until you were out of sight from the cabin windows.

And then you heard him.

Screaming, yelling, gunshots, running.

Cat and mouse.

Snake and bird.

Wolf and lamb.

Lucy Gray was dead beside you, and Coriolanus Snow was her killer. You were on the ground, your lover on top of you, tears spilling from your eyes as you stared at your lifeless friend. Coriolanus' hands dug into the plush of your body while he forced you to stand, holding your wrist with one hand while dragging Lucy with the other.

Back at the cabin, you were bound enough to where you couldn't run, but watching as Coriolanus wrapped up Lucy Gray's body and dumped her in the lake you all swam and laughed in just days before.

"No loose ends." He repeated to you as he forced you into the cabin, tying you to the bed the two of you slept on. "Besides you. But you won't tell anyone, will you?" He asked softly, wiping your tears and pushing back your hair.

You shook your head repeatedly, breathing heavily and staring at him with wide eyes.

"Good." He let out a breath as a smile grew on his face, now caressing one of your cheeks. "Good girl."

He leaned in and kissed you, ridding you of your clothes while you cried. He wasnt sweet. He didn't kiss the tears away, they just seemed to egg him on. This was not making love. He was fucking you while you were vulnerable.

×

You didn't get to leave Panem. You didn't get to run off and live a fairytale.

Coriolanus brought you back to the Capitol, solidifying you to him by announcing your engagement to him.

He didn't stop. Not even when he moved in with Sejanus' mourning parents, not even when he killed them.

Not even when he became the president, and you the First Lady.

You were both in your twenties, living better than you used to.

Coriolanus was no longer bony, no longer hungry. He no longer wore the clothes his cousin, Tigris, would make him. His hair was no longer buzzed like it was when he was a Peacekeeper, and his personality was different than when he was eighteen.

You're still intimate. You live, work, eat, sleep together. Your womb is warm for his seed. You're married by Panem and Capitol law. But you are not partners. He is the dictator. You're the trophy First Lady. You dress exactly as he likes. You act exactly as he likes. You move exactly as he likes. His word is law. Yours is nothing. And every moment you are his, you wonder what it would be like to not have to dance to his puppet strings.

He lured you in.

Sacrificial lamb.

[thatthingilovewith]

Another Lore Post

This is just a random collection of some of my personal Bobbin lore, as well as some lore for OC's and District 8. If you have any questions about it feel free to send me an ask!

Brocade ~ As I've mentioned before Brocade is Bobbin's older brother who cares for him at the time of TBOSAS. Brocade doesn't really have any friends due to him suffering from an anxiety disorder and being written off by those outside his family as being "crazy" so he spends most of his time alone.

Brocade is actually really good at most arts and crafts and spends most of the very little free time he has doing things like sewing or making fake flowers out of cloth. He likes to pin the cloth flowers to their apartment walls, claiming because the wallpaper is green, it makes it look like a meadow, ignoring or oblivious to the fact the wallpapers color is more like sludge.

He is not very good at most academic tasks due to his education being interrupted by the first rebellion and its fallout. He, like the majority of people in District 8 at this time, is functionally illiterate

Bobbin's friends - Bobbin only has two friends (three if you ask other people), they are all a bit strange and sit near the very bottom of the social hierarchy and as such are often the target of bullying.

Wilhelmina Corwin ~ Wilhelmina is Bobbin's oldest and closest friend. She lives in the apartment below him with her parents and brother before his death. Most people consider her to be a bit of a frump, she wears old hand-me-down dresses and sewn patches in patterns everyone thinks are hideous. She has rat's nest hair pulled into uneven pigtails and has a tendency to speak with he mouth full. Other than that she's a very nice and creative girl, always coming up with fun ideas and games to play. Though her teachers wish she would keep her ideas to herself at least until class is over.

Calico Napier ~ Calico is Bobbin's "best friend." he lives a block away, and Bobbin and Wilhelmina walk to school together every day. Bobbin and he have many of the same interests, so he considers him to be his best friend. His family can be rather weird, making loud noises, singing through the night, and experimenting with new recipes none of their neighbors appreciate. Calico can, at times, be a bit dull in his classmate's opinions, as he struggles with most school subjects. Calico is overall a good kid, though. One of his favorite activities is to play baseball in the abandoned lot near his apartment building, he's a rather good pitcher.

Lacey ~ In Bobbin and his friend's opinion, Lacey is not their friend. She used to be, but she's not anymore. She wasn't an outcast because she was mean; she was no meaner than anyone else, or because she was ugly, she was not, or even because her family was weird, they were. No, Lacey was an outcast because she wore the same exact outfit to school for nearly three years straight, that's also when she was their friend. One day, she suddenly came to school in new clothes, and the next day and the day after, too. Bobbin guessed Lacey thought that meant she was better than them now that she wasn't the poorest girl in District 8, and she tried to find better friends. Unsurprisingly to Bobbin, none of the other kids wanted to be her friend, and now she wasn't even their friend anymore. However, as of late, she'd started to pull her own hair out, making him and the others reconsider their position on if she was their friend.

General District 8 thoughts.

Scraps ~ Most people in District 8 live in run-down tenement buildings whose heaters break often. They also have access to fabric scraps left over from the cloth-making process that they tend to take home with them. It's not uncommon for the residents of the district to stuff fabric scraps into the holes in their walls and where outlets have broken and the wiring ripped out of the walls.

[silience23]

I want to know what happened to Tigris between Ballad and Mockingjay. I want to know what it was that Coriolanus did to her for her to smile wide when Katniss declared that she would murder him. This girl who loved her baby cousin more than anything, this girl who adored him and forgave him for killing Bobbin because he had to. Did she find out about Sejanus? Lucy Gray? When did her view of him switch? Katniss assumes she hates him because he took her out of the games as a stylist. Maybe she hates him because she saw what he was like when she was a stylist. Tigris was such a sweet girl and I think her making over tributes (making people over being her love language) would open her eyes to just how horrific the games are. And just how horrific her cousin is for not stopping them when he has the power to.

[20dollarlolita]

Stop putting thick thread in your freaking sewing machine.

If you have a home machine, it's not ready for it. If you have a drop in bobbin, it's really not ready for it. If it's bonded nylon then it's SUPER not ready for it.

Your Viking Emerald 118 is not a commercial machine. It's got a powerful engine, but it does not have a mechanical system that can handle the thickness and inflexibility of heavy weight thread. You're going to yank it out of time and that's not a warranty issue because the warranty doesn't cover you breaking it yourself with bad thread. The warranty also doesn't cover you trying to sew through a sterilite bin lid or getting sliced ham in your feed teeth, despite the warranty not specifically saying that you can't do that. It's not unreasonable for a machine to expect you to check your supplies for compatibility before using them.

If you want to sew with really heavy thread, you need a machine set up for that thread. This is like how if you want to put diesel in your car, you need a diesel engine.

You need a different threading set up for heavy thread, and you need the kind of bobbin case that can handle it as well. This is the Janome HD9 Professional, which is a home sewing machine that can sew with thick thread. You can see that the thread has to be wound in a different way to use the thick thread. If your machine doesn't have this, it probably shouldn't be using tex70. And by "probably," I mean "definitely."

The Janome HD9 is a sort of semi-commercial machine, where you sacrifice a bit of foot clearance, a bit of thread thickness, and some bobbin size in exchange for getting a machine that fits on your table top.

If you only want to work on thick thread, you probably need a commercial machine.

Quick flow chart on how people buy commercial sewing machines:

Step 1) Be aware that you're buying a piece of furniture. The table is part of the machine.

Step 2) What kind of foot do you want? If you're getting a machine for sewing, you need to pick if you want a straight stitch foot or a walking foot. On commercial machines, the walking foot is built into the machine, and a walking foot machine cannot be made to not walk. However, walking foot machines are a lot better than a walking foot attachment for a home machine.

Step 3) How thick are you going to put in it. Please note that I don't mean thick in how difficult it is for the machine to penetrate. The motor is a different part of the machine from the head, and you can stick a more powerful motor in there if you want. What we're talking about is how high of clearance the presser foot can give you. If you've sewn with really thick fabric on a home machine, you might have run into a situation where your fabric is so thick that it physically pushes the presser foot up so high that your tension disengages. All machines can do the same thing, so check on your machine that the physical dimensions of what you want to put in will fit under the foot.

Step 4) How thick of thread are you going to put into that thing? Tex90? Tex 180? You might need a lighter weight thread if you're making bags or clothing, but if you want that big, chunky decorative stitching you see on car upholstery, you need a machine that can handle that thread.

So, as you can see, dear home machine owners, people will buy commercial machines specifically to run heavy thread in them. If you want to run thick thread, you have two options.

The first option is to get the right tool for the job. Commercial machines aren't anywhere near as pricey as high end home machines. If you come to me and say that the only thing you want to sew is heavy thread, you're going to do better to get a Juki DDL8700 than to buy a new Emerald 118 every year when you run yours into the ground. You're only really paying about 2.5x the cost of an Emerald when you get the Juki with a full set up, and that's not bad when you take into account that you are going to be either servicing or replacing your 118 pretty frequently if you're still sticking that thread in it.

The second option is to get an old and broken sad fuck of a machine and mess up all the tensions yourself. Hang around junk shops long enough and someone's going to get rid of some kind of 1910's cast iron monstrosity that was converted to electric in the 1930's by someone who may have had no idea what they were doing. Get yourself something that you're mildly afraid of. If that maching has survived from 1914 to 2024, you're probably not going to break it by messing around with the stitch tension. If the head of the machine was made before we were capable of precision manufacturing thin, strong thread, it can probably adapt to the nightmare that is Coats Outdoor Upholstery thread or whatever that thread thing you bought on Amazon is.

Anyway, you're not going to buy the As Seen on TV Keyboard Vacuum and try to vacuum the front office of a dirt and rock emporium and then get upset when it doesn't work. Not every vacuum is interchangeable and not every sewing machine can handle carpet thread. Not every bad decision you make is covered by your warranty. Sometimes you break things and then it's your problem to fix it.

Thank you for coming to my TexX talk.

[sejanusarchive]

“Your own father used to say those people only drank water because it didn’t rain blood” vs two district boys who are assumed to be murder machines, yet prove that statement wrong multiple times: Reaper and Marcus.

PART ONE: REAPER

When Reaper is first introduced to us, we learn he’s rangy but muscular; we read about him wrapping his hands around Coriolanus’s throat on the truck headed to the zoo and about Dill, his District partner, saying he has killed a Peacekeeper before in District 11, without ever getting caught. 

Our first impression of him is that of a dangerous person, one who’s even clever in his lethality, and because of that we know he’s a presumed possible victor.

Lucy Gray mentions him more than once as one of the biggest threats, when talking about how she’s going to try as hard as she can to win the Games.

She also tells Coriolanus how Reaper apologized to the other tributes for having to kill them and told them he is going to make it up to them after, by taking revenge on the Capitol. Everyone takes this as him meaning it maliciously and with arrogance, ‘cause how else could he possibly mean it, right? Coriolanus thinks that he’s not only powerful, but good at mind games too. 

But the truth is that Reaper meant that genuinely, even with a certain innocence, and naivety to how it could have been misinterpreted. There was no malice or arrogance in his statement, but there was guilt and regret and grief, because of being forced into taking lives. He went into the arena fully prepared and resigned to kill the others to save himself, but not without obvious dissent.

When the Games start, he arms himself and heads to the stands. Coriolanus thinks he does so to begin his hunt, even if everyone else had fled in other directions and he had made no move to go after them.

Right after this we read about how Tanner, someone who’s also a presumed possible victor, is able to climb up to the first row of the stands and sit in the sun for a while, completely unbothered and unharmed. Reaper doesn’t try to fight him, even if it would have only been to his advantage, since he could have easily taken out his strongest opponent now that the Games had just begun and he wasn’t exhausted and starving.

His first interaction with another tribute in the arena is with a dying Dill, carrying her out of the tunnels, placing her in the sun and talking to her in the last moments of her life. 

His first act with another tribute, is comforting a dying child. 

This is when the “murder machine” image starts to crumble. Coriolanus’s classmates talk about how he doesn’t look so tough, doesn't look like the person who “promised to kill all the others”, which he never actually did.

But still, after all this, Coriolanus sees his distressed pacing around Dill, as him possibly being “eager to get back to the hunt”, a hunt he never even began, and not just him feeling pained and powerless at Dill’s condition. 

When Coriolanus is sent into the arena to get Sejanus out, Bobbin, Mizzen, Tanner and Coral are the tributes who go after them to try to kill them. No sign of Reaper at any point.

When Lucy Gray gets out of the tunnels with a rabid Jessup after her, he makes no move to kill them either. Coriolanus points out how he lets Lucy Gray go and only walks up to the bottles of water on the ground.

Again and again and again, he has a chance to easily take a life to save his own or take a small revenge against the Capitol, but he doesn’t. 

His second interaction with a tribute is with Lamina. He walks up to her, they negotiate an exchange of something both of them desperately need and that forms a bond between the two of them.

Then Coral, Mizzen and Tanner appear and he leaves, he goes behind the barricade and he falls asleep.

When he comes back out, he’s shocked to see Lamina and Tanner dead on the ground. And this is when he starts to make true his promise of avenging the tributes after their death. 

He lifts Lamina up in his arms and places her next to Marcus’s and Bobbin’s corpses and then collects Tanner, Dill and Sol, as well, and covers them all with the flag of Panem. And he keeps doing this with all the tributes for the rest of the Games, right until his death. 

This is the best form of revenge he could take. Not only because he disrespects the flag, causing great disdain among Capitol citizens; but also because, most importantly, he humanizes the tributes and gives them dignity, two things the Capitol has tried in every way to take away from them. He gives them as proper a burial as he can manage in those circumstances, makes it so now they can finally rest, tucked in a corner and covered, their corpses no longer on display for a bunch of sick people’s amusement. He honors them. He could have left them all scattered out on the dusty arena ground, but he didn’t. He took care of them.

Even when it’s just him and Lucy Gray left and he’s one step away from winning, he shows no signs of wanting to attack her. Doesn’t matter that he could easily take her out, save himself and finally go home. No, even then his main concern is that the tributes can properly rest with their corpses concealed. 

Everyone expected him to kill the most people, but he died in that arena killing no one and without ever even attempting to. He died holding strong to his humanity and making sure the fallen tributes could hold strong to theirs as well even in death.

Contrary to what we and the Capitol are made to believe initially, Reaper turns out to be pretty innocuous. He’s not a naturally violent or aggressive person, not a natural born killer and he refuses to be as well. This was a life or death situation and yet he didn’t even harm anyone. He has killed before, he is capable of it, but if he didn’t even do it in this case, even when all it would have taken for him to save himself was killing a girl smaller and younger than him, then imagine how dire and desperate the situation must have been when he had to resort to it.

He defied the Capitol by not participating in the Games, by not letting them turn him into the murder machine they wanted and expected him to be, and by honoring the corpses of the children whose lives have been so cruelly and unjustly cut short.

(Before moving on to Marcus, I wanna clarify some things in case anyone who’s reading this has only seen the movie. Reaper snapping at Clemensia during the one-on-one mentor-tribute interviews never happens in the book, neither does him looking angrily into the camera in the arena and challenging the Capitol to punish him arrogantly. Like we’ve just seen, this perceived arrogance and aggression in Reaper is a very surface level misconception of the people around him, that’s easily debunkable, that who made the movie took and ran with wrongfully. 

And actually there’s a few heartbreaking scenes in the book that contrast heavily with the image the movie created of him, like him tying a piece of the flag around his shoulders like a cape and spinning around, watching it fly behind him, and then running in the sun with his arms spread wide; and him rocking gently back and forth on himself for comfort, after the snake attacks, which is not when he dies in the book. He’s not the threatening, angry guy who tests the Capitol that they made him in the movie, he’s just a severely traumatized kid. Nothing more than a kid.

The movie made tons of stupid changes like this, that completely miss and disregard the whole point of both characters and story. Trust me when I say 99% of the characters are portrayed very wrongfully in it. So please keep that in mind.)

PART TWO: MARCUS

Marcus, like Reaper, was initially seen as a probable winner in the Games, before being murdered. Coriolanous makes note of his size multiple times, describing him as “towering”, as having a “colossal frame”, as “dwarfing the other tributes”, and comparing him to a grizzly bear. 

It’s exactly because of his size that people think of him as a sure winner, as capable of taking down everyone else, as threatening and deadly.

But then we hear Sejanus, the only person who actually got to know him at some point, talk about him, and the first and one thing he mentions about Marcus is his kindness. 

He tells Coriolanus how when they were still classmates in Two, he hurt his finger really badly and Marcus helped him by bringing him a cup of snow he scooped from the windowsill. He says he did it without being prompted by anyone, without consulting anyone, not even the teacher, and without even being friends with Sejanus. 

That’s actually the very first thing Sejanus tells us about him. They weren’t enemies, but they weren’t friends either. Marcus had no real reason to do it, especially considering how the Plinths were, and still are, deeply despised in Two, for having helped the Capitol win the war. He did it almost as a reflex, because that’s who he is as a person. 

And this pure, unconditional kindness, told by the one person who actually knew him, goes against the image of him everyone formed by just looking at him, against what everyone assumed because he’s district, he’s a tribute, and he’s tall and strong and broad, so he has to be dangerous and lethal, he will brutally kill everyone to save himself; he’s capable of it anyway.

As I already said, the Plinths are deeply despised in Two, Sejanus is a filthy traitor in his eyes, one who’s benefiting from a luxurious, safe life in the Capitol, thanks to blood money; blood of thousands of what were supposed to be his people, blood whose spillage made them lose the war and caused the realization of the Games, bringing Marcus to that very situation.

Sejanus doesn’t have to worry about whether or not he’s going to be able to fill his stomach everyday; whether he’ll be able to finish his studies or will have to drop out of school early, to go work to help sustain his family; whether the dangerous working conditions will be the cause of his early demise, or being sent to an arena to kill or be killed by a bunch of other children for amusement will be, and what will happen to his family once he’ll be gone. All of this thanks to his family’s betrayal.

No doubt he resents Sejanus and is angry at him, a part of him maybe even faults him a bit for everything, but he never takes it out on him. It would be easy to single him out, pick him and make him pay for this situation, since he can’t make the whole Capitol pay; take some sort of revenge on Strabo Plinth in the name of Two and Thirteen and all other Districts, by harming his son. 

Sweet Sejanus, who brings the tributes food when no one else thought about it, who keeps pleading with him to accept it, who tries to help them however he can, would probably let him do it. He would take the hit, metaphorical or not, because it’s clear he has guilt gnawing at him and would feel like he deserves it. And Marcus is definitely aware of it. 

But he never gets violent, physically nor verbally, never tries to attack him or spit insults or hate at him. Instead he just ignores him.

He had many chances to do harm, even to kill Capitol citizens and Peacekeepers as revenge, a small and trivial one, but still a revenge, and he had many chances to let his frustration and anger out on Sejanus and use him as a punching bag, but he never did, because despite what everyone assumed about him, that’s not the type of person he is.

PART THREE: SEJANUS 

Sejanus, whom I’ve already mentioned several times in this post, is another District boy with the ability to take lives, but who’s repulsed and disturbed by the mere idea of it. 

With Marcus and Reaper, it’s a matter of first impressions and then getting to actually know them and learn they’re not like they seemed. With Sejanus it’s the opposite. 

First thing we learn about him in the book, is his background: born in District 2, his father made fortune during the war and was able to buy his family a life in the Capitol. 

But the first thing we learn about him as a person, is that he’s shy and sensitive. 

Throughout the entirety of the book, over and over and over again, we see that he’s good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet and takes things so to heart. It’s constantly pointed out by the people around him. 

And it’s constantly shown to us by him as well, with the passion he puts into standing up against the dehumanization and mistreatment of District people; with how affected he is by these aspects and by the Games; with how he tries in every way he can to help the tributes; with how he made it his life mission to make things better for the Districts; with how he’s never mean or spiteful to people who bully, dehumanize and disrespect him; with how he was ready to give his life in protest.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is at its very center a discussion on human nature. He (alongside Dr. Gaul) is the main character who explicitly talks about it, and he believes in the inherent goodness of humans and constantly advocates in favor of it. All the injustice and atrocities he witnessed and experienced, never made him change his mind or his actions, never made it so compassion and love weren’t his driving forces.

His heart is big, and kind, and pure. And he wears it on his sleeve all the time. He’s referred to as “emotional” and “compassionate”, his eyes are soulful, his face is incredibly expressive, and there’s so many instances in which he’s described as speaking with a voice so full of sentiment, so many instances of his eyes filling with tears, of him wiping his face cause they spilled out. 

It’s well established how good and uncorrupted he is, how devoted to humanity he is, how much he values life.

And then in the third part of the book, we learn he’s an excellent marksman, a natural one even, who has been training in shooting every week since he was tiny.

He’s so good, that the sergeant in Twelve, as to not lose someone with Sejanus’s level of ability, refuses to give him the recommendation he needs in order to train to become a medic, even when Sejanus purposefully shoots much worse than he’s capable of, to hide his talent. 

The boy who values life more than anything in the world, has the ability to take one even with his eyes closed.

When he arrived in Twelve, wearing on his body the signs of the toll that the Capitol, the Games and what happened to Marcus, had taken on his mental health; with the prospect of building a new life for himself in which he could help the world become a better place; of training to be a medic and save lives; Coriolanus noted he had a much lighter air to himself, as if a heavy weight had been lifted off of him.

But when he is confronted with the reality that he is now a soldier and is expected to kill, Coriolanus says that his expression goes back to being as gloomy as it had been in the Capitol, the heavy weight now back on his shoulders. 

At dinner he doesn’t take a single bite of food, which is a behavior we’ve seen from him before, one he falls into when his mental health gets concerningly bad. And the reason is that he is terrified by the idea of having to kill someone, or someone dying because he can’t bring himself to shoot first. Because to him, every life is precious and none is disposable, and the possibility of being the cause of one being taken away, is an unbearable thought.

Reaper and Marcus had many chances and what could be considered reasons to kill, but they refused to. Sejanus, who is expected to kill because he’s a soldier and the best shooter, who would be punished, possibly even with execution, if he didn’t, refuses to. 

All three of them have the power to take lives with little effort but choose to cherish and honor them instead, choose kindness, choose humanity, even over their own self preservation, proving both the Capitol and Crassus Snow’s statement about District people being bloodthirsty, wrong, by simply being their honest, uncorrupted selves until the end, by being truthful to who they are no matter what.

[howlingday]

An Offer

Clover: (Walks in) ...You Jauney?

Jaune: Jaune Arc.

Clover: Specialist Ebi. (Sits)

Jaune: ...You alone?

Clover: I'm not that lucky. The only other badge you'd see in here is the health inspector.

Waitress: What can I get ya?

Clover: Just a coffee, thanks.

Waitress: (Pours coffee, Leaves)

Clover: (Pulls out flask) Need a kick?

Jaune: No thanks.

Clover: (Pours into mug) Suit yourself. (Stows) So... You said on the phone you might have a... proposition for me?

Jaune: That's right.

Clover: Well, if you're looking for another stoolie on your payroll, you called the wrong cop. I'm not looking for any... "new friends".

Jaune: Good, because I'm on the run. I can't even pay for the coffee. But I do have something to trade.

Clover: And that is...?

Jaune: ...How long have you been in town?

Clover: Three years. Got my start in Mantle.

Jaune: And they gave you the Branwen case, right out the gate?

Clover: Like I said, I'm not that lucky. And what's it to you if I am?

Jaune: Well, it's a tough case, right? It's probably getting cold by now...

Clover: And you got somethin' to warm it up?

Jaune: Yeah. I got somethin'.

Clover: And what's my end of the deal? Lien? Some kinda immunity?

Jaune: None of that. I have people I need to protect.

Clover: Ah... Family man. Weak point of just about every man, even the crooked ones. So, who you got? Dying mother? Wife and kids-

Jaune: A wife and a daughter.

Clover: And no one else to watch your back, right?

Jaune: I wouldn't be here if that wasn't the case.

Clover: Sorry to hear that. Someone once told me you need friends to survive in this world.

Jaune: Mhm, but in my world, it's the other way around. (Sips coffee)

Clover: Not surprising.

Jaune: ...

Clover: Look, I can't promise you anything for your family. Not until I hear what you're trading. So, are you gonna start talking, or are you just killing time before they come for you?

Jaune: I can-

Clover: No, you can't. Oum's sake, look at you. You've got bags under the bags under your eyes. Twitchin' like you've had more than just this cup here. Your neck's probably sore from all that turnin' you've gotta keep doin'. No, the way I see it, you've got someone REAL powerful on your ass, and they're not givin' up 'til you're bobbin' in the river. Now, if you want to walk out that door without me, be my guest. I'm willing to bet you don't make it five steps before you're someone else's case.

Jaune: ...

Clover: BUT... you stick around, tell me your story, and maybe you've got a shot at seeing your little girl walk down the aisle from her arm, rather than from the clouds. (Sighs) Either way, I'm buying you coffee.

Jaune: ...Fuck, I don't know how it all got so cocked up...

Clover: No one ever sees the trap until they're standin' in it. But you didn't get handed a weapon while you were still in diapers, were ya?

Jaune: ...No. I was a cab driver when I met them...

Jaune: I mostly drove nights 'cause the money was better. I was at the end of my shift when I first met Yang and Qrow...

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

Yang/Qrow: (In screeching car) SHIT!

Jaune: (Checks tire pressure)

Qrow: Son of a bitch!

Yang: LOOK OUT!

Yang/Qrow: (Crash)

Jaune: Huh? (Looks over)

Yang: (Runs over, Turns) C'mon, Qrow! There's a taxi here! We're gonna be okay!

Jaune: (Backs away)

Yang: (Pulls out gun) HEYHEYHEY! Get in the car! NOW!

Jaune: (Gets in)

Yang: (Gets in)

Jaune: Uh, where to?

Qrow: (Gets in) Anywhere. FAST!

Jaune: (Drives)

Yang: I've got a gun pointed at the back of your head! They catch us, we're dead, but that doesn't mean you get to walk away!

Jaune: I-I don't want any trouble!

Qrow: Well, you've got it. Now drive!

Yang: How the hell'd they know we'd be there?

Qrow: Doesn't matter now! We just need to lose 'em! How many cars are following us?

Yang: Just one, but there'll be more.

Jaune: (Getting shot at) Hang on! I'm gonna try something! (Swerves, Escapes)

Yang: HOLY SHIT!

Jaune: Who were those guys?

Yang: Hey, you don't get to ask questions! We need to get across the bridge. Take this right over here.

Jaune: O-Okay...

Yang: Ngh...

Qrow: Your arm okay?

Yang: Hurts like hell. (Winces)

Qrow: When we get back, I'll wake up doc.

Yang: Uh, I dunno... Maybe it'll be okay?

Qrow: Callin' him anyways. And hey, I see you listening, cab driver. You don't get to listen, either!

Jaune: I'm just taking you guys to where you wanna go.

Qrow: Then do that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jaune: There's more of 'em!

Yang: SHIT!

Jaune: (Rams through blockade) Don't worry, I know a couple shortcuts that'll slow 'em down!

Qrow: I don't care how you do it! JUST DO IT!

Jaune: (Swerves through construction, Causes one to crash)

Yang: That's your shortcut?!

Jaune: I lost 'im, didn't I?

Qrow: Not all of 'em!

Jaune: Man, these guys really don't like you, do they?

Yang: Sometimes business partners fall out. It happens.

Qrow: Shut up, Yang! The more he knows, the more likely he doesn't live to see the sunrise.

Jaune: I didn't hear anything, guys.

Yang: I count three cars down- How many were at the exchange?

Qrow: Uh, four? Five? Knowing her, she's probably called double that by now.

Yang: Definitely feels like it. Knew we should've taken more muscle.

Qrow: Trust me, when SHE hears about this, there'll be hell to pay!

Yang: They just keep coming!

Qrow: We're not safe until we're back on our own turf. Let's get back home!

Jaune: (Speeding up)

Yang: Uh... The bridge is up, dude...

Jaune: Yup. We can make it.

Qrow: What the hell are you doing?!

Yang: Just hang tight and pray!

Jaune: (Jumps the bridge, Lands safely)

Qrow: ...Never flew like that before.

Yang: Me neither...

Qrow: Alright, take us to Little Patch. Now. Your night's not over.

Yang: I didn't see this comin'. You think someone squealed?

Qrow: What I think is you should shut up. We'll talk about it when we get to the bar.

Yang: ...Okay, we're close. Pull over in front of that bar.

Jaune: The Crow Bar?

Qrow: That's the one.

Jaune: (Pulls over)

Qrow: Wait here.

Jaune: Why?

Qrow: ...You wanna get what you earned, right?

Yang: (Gets out)

Qrow: (Carries her inside)

Jaune: (Gulps, Shivers)

Qrow: (Walks out, Reaches into coat)

Jaune: (Holds breath)

Qrow: (Pulls out envelope) This should cover it. Gas, transport, and even the damages. With this, we're even.

Jaune: (Takes the envelope) I... think it's more than enough.

Qrow: Good. Miss Branwen wants you to know she's grateful for what you've done. If you ever need anything- lien for a loan or even a good job, don't hesitate to ask. The Miss doesn't forget her friends.

Jaune: Okay, thanks.

Qrow: ...And one other thing. What happened tonight stays here on this street tonight. Anyone asks where you got the lien, say you won it in a card game. The scratches on your cab? You got 'em from swervin' to save a kitty-cat's life. Got it?

Jaune: Of course.

Qrow: (Nods) See ya 'round, kid. (Leaves)

Jaune: (Inhales, Drives away)

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

Jaune: Fix the cab... Yeah, right. When I opened the envelope, I could've died right there. I almost had enough to buy a new one! I thought about what Qrow said about work. I wasn't interested. Sure, the money was good, but I didn't want to get in with criminals. Better to be poor and alive than rich and dead.

Jaune: So right there, back then, I was out.

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

Jaune: (Drinking coffee)

SMASH!

Jaune: SHIT! What the- (Grabbed)

Melanie: Remember me? (Tosses him) Yeah? (Kicks)

Miltia: (Smashes up cab)

Melanie: Lil' Miss isn't too happy. Maybe you shouldn't go around helping Branwen's little birds, right? (Bends down) Now I have to beat up your pretty, little face, just so you don't forget who owns this city.

Jaune: (Gets up)

Melanie: You won't be walking much for a-

Jaune: (Shoves her into Miltia, Flees)

Melanie: (Giggles) Oh, I love it when they make it fun... LET'S GET HIM.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yang: ...Hey, check it out.

Jaune: (Sprinting across the street)

Melanie/Miltia: (Chasing after him)

Qrow: Hm... Jaune. Long time, no see.

Jaune: (Runs past him, Panting behind)

Yang: (Walks inside)

Melanie/Miltia: (Run up to them)

Qrow: Melanie, Miltiades. You got business with The Miss?

Melanie: No, we don't. We just need to talk to that cab boy behind you. That's all.

Qrow: Yeah? Well, this is The Miss's favorite driver. So, anything you gotta say to him, you can say to me.

Melanie: Is that so? Well, let me tell you something then. We're not leaving here empty-handed.

Yang: (Walks out) Then I guess you ain't leavin' at all~! (Levels shotgun)

Melanie: ...Fine. See you around. Let's go, Miltia.

Melanie/Miltia: (Leave)

Yang: (Cackling)

Jaune: Thanks...

Qrow: Least we could do.

Yang: C'mon~! Let's go say to The Miss~!

Jaune: Miss Branwen?

Qrow: Yeah. She's gonna wanna hear about this.

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

Raven: (Walks in, Sees Jaune)

Jaune: (Gulps)

Raven: (Gestures to seats, Sits down) What's your name, son?

Jaune: Jaune. Jaune Arc, ma'am.

Raven: Qrow said you ran into some trouble?

Jaune: Yes, ma'am. They smashed up my cab really good.

Yang: Malachite's girls went after him, since Jaune helped us-

Raven: (Holds up hand) And your... taxi. This is how you make your lien?

Jaune: Yes, ma'am.

Raven: ...A part of me feels responsible for what happened to you, so I'll set you up with a loan. Just enough to get your cab fixed.

Jaune: I appreciate, ma'am, but I can't accept lien without working for it.

Raven: ...Then why are we here?

Jaune: I want a shot at those bitches who wrecked my cab.

Raven: Heh... You hear that, Qrow? The boy needs my permission to get into a fight.

Qrow: Uh-huh. That's what I heard.

Raven: ...Very well, Jaune Arc. All of Malachite's miscreants hang out at a bar she owns. Yang, you know the one.

Yang: Sure do, boss.

Raven: Good. You can ride with Jaune then. There's a place right next to the bar where they park their cars. Give 'em a make-over. Send Malachite a message. She can't rough up good, honest working-class folks in MY turf without getting a black eye!

Jaune: Thank you, Miss Branwen. I won't let you down.

Raven: (Nods) ...And Jaune, when you get back, I want to have a discussion about what's next for you.

[asweetsorroww]

Macbeth and Snow as parallels (a comparative analysis on ambitious protagonists)

Collins is no stranger to Shakespearean references, whether through character names or the deeper parallels that emerge between her characters and those in Shakespeare's plays. This is especially evident in the striking similarities between Coriolanus Snow in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and the main characters in Macbeth, where their ambition ultimately leads to their downfalls.

At the outset, both protagonists show potential. Macbeth begins with a relatively clean slate, while Snow is (debatably) portrayed as a morally grey character. Snow's narcissistic tendencies surface early on, as seen in his disdain for everyone around him and his deep-seated resentment of his own poverty. He believes he is entitled to wealth and power, much like Sejanus. Snow's entitlement is also evident in his condemnation of Tigris when she implies that she might have sold her body to feed their family. He begins to harbor skeptical feelings about her. Though Snow’s selfish and narcissistic tendencies are apparent from the beginning, they remain largely internalized, leaving his true nature ambiguous.

Macbeth and Snow heavily parallel each other at the beginning of their reign.They both encounter a major turning point—a moment of epiphany where they become so entangled in bloodshed that there is no return. For Snow, this moment occurs when he kills the tribute, Bobbin. Although the act is driven by desperation and survival, the way he kills is undeniably cruel. Snow chooses to brutally murder Bobbin even after the tribute is incapacitated and poses no real threat. This shift changes Snow's motivation from self-defence to pure hatred, reflecting his view of the districts as barbaric and savage. Similarly, Macbeth’s major turning point comes in Act I, Scene VII, during his soliloquy when he resolves to kill King Duncan. This decision marks the beginning of his irreversible descent into bloodshed and tyranny. This leads us to a common thread among literary antagonists: their ambition often ignites in a crucial moment of life, where they feel wronged or misunderstood.

So, we ask ourselves now, why is that one scene so crucial, and if it is, who is to blame—the circumstances or the person themselves? In other words, nature vs. nurture. Were Snow and Macbeth simply victims of their environments, or did they always harbour the potential for such destruction?

As we have already established, Snow exposes his corrupt disposition early in the book. He is willing to destroy, use, and manipulate anyone standing in his way, which is heavily focused on in his internal monologue. Each minute action is calculated and executed accordingly. In the scene where a tribute kills Lavinia, Snow's response is a striking reflection of his character. Instead of reacting with immediate panic or concern for Lavinia’s well-being, Snow remains unnervingly composed. His first instinct is not to help or comfort the person in distress but to deliberate on how his actions might affect his public image. As Lavinia's body writhes, Snow’s focus is on the potential repercussions of the situation rather than the immediate human tragedy unfolding before him. Snow’s pragmatic, calculated nature is evident right here.

Similarly, Macbeth’s nature is inherently ambitious, which is hinted at through the witches' prophecy that eventually drives him to regicide: "I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself and falls on the other." (Act 1, Scene 7) However, an observation can be made: Macbeth’s actions are only executed after being persuaded by Lady Macbeth. At the very beginning, Macbeth is constantly unsure of his actions and needs to be swayed by external forces. So how much of Macbeth’s nature can we hold accountable?

We see at the beginning that the witches are the ones who plant the seed of ambition in his mind. Even more so, Macbeth’s initial reaction to the prophecy is curiosity; it is the witches who nudge him down that path, which he might have otherwise not taken. Another critical factor is Lady Macbeth’s manipulation; her relentless questioning of his masculinity pushes him toward the edge. It can be said that Macbeth is more of a victim of external forces. It is also plausible to say that Macbeth’s initial ambition might have remained unchecked, and thus would not have committed regicide.

Naturally, we ask ourselves the following question: Was Snow a victim of nurture? Snow makes it very clear from the beginning that he is not here to play the game, but to control it. Despite the cutthroat politics in the Capitol, Snow finds a way to be cultivated by his environment instead of being exploited. Take Snow’s relationship with Doctor Gaul—time and time again, he goes out of his way to obey Dr. Gaul, to the point where he submits his best friend to her. He is not a victim but a willing student. In contrast to Macbeth, Snow lacks guilt and shows little to no moral conflict in his decisions. And hence, being devoid of guilt and hesitation makes Snow not a victim of his nurture but a product of it.

Circling back to the topic of guilt—we find ourselves in the position to ask whether Macbeth’s guilt is his greatest weakness. Macbeth’s guilt and paranoia begin immediately after his murder of King Duncan. He is plagued with insomnia and hallucinations as his guilt manifests, and he descends into madness. As his paranoia and guilt fester, he begins to act out of fear rather than necessity. His ability to think straight and calculate his actions completely erodes by this point. Macbeth certainly does not achieve that prosperous reign, but his guilt is one aspect that humanizes him and allows the audience to relate to him.

But what of Snow—was his lack of guilt and empathy his greatest strength? Snow certainly reigned for a long, prosperous period—longer than Macbeth could, that’s for sure. What was it that upheld him for so long? What did he possess that no other antagonist before him had? The answer to all our questions rests in one quote: “You take your own humanity out of the equation. And then you’re free to do whatever’s necessary. It’s the only way to be safe.” This is it—Snow’s dire philosophy encapsulated in one line. Snow completely rejects the idea of humanity; notice he uses the word "free." It is almost as if Snow views humanity as a burden, something that is tying him down, from which he wants to be freed. So, is rejecting humanity the only way to achieve such a long rule? Is it really a strength?

While we can certainly say Snow avails a longer rule than anyone that came before him, Snow’s lack of guilt and empathy is a double-edged sword. It most certainly helps him make swift, calculated decisions without bringing his victims' emotions into the equation, but it ultimately destroys him in the end. It is his incapability of understanding Peeta and Katniss’ effect that annihilates his rule. “Hope is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective; a lot of hope is dangerous.” Snow recognizing hope is accurate, yet it is his lack of empathy that blinds him from seeing the uncontrollable aspect of hope. His approach to overcoming hope is to manage it—notice I use the word "manage." His perception of hope is in a very technical manner, just like we see in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Snow is prone to formulating plans, and thus, he uses this approach on Katniss as if she is just a step along his plan. But his failure to truly understand the power of hope is what leads him to make decisions that only spark the rebellion even more.

In conclusion, ambition is a powerful force in shaping the paths of literary antagonists like Snow and Macbeth. While their environments certainly played a role in nurturing their darker tendencies, it is their inherent ambition and how they choose to wield it that seals their fates. Macbeth's guilt humanizes him, making him a somewhat tragic figure who is ultimately consumed by his ambition. Snow, on the other hand, thrives by rejecting humanity altogether, but this very rejection blinds him to the power of hope, leading to his eventual downfall. Both characters remind us that unchecked ambition, whether fuelled by internal desires or external influences, can lead to self-destruction.