#honestly the premise isn't that exciting on its own

[runningfrom2am]

in this life or the next

summary: It's the seventy-fifth annual Hunger Games, and you were just unlucky enough to get picked; but lucky enough for this Quarter Quell to feature pre-selected teams. You get paired up with District One's pride and joy, the one and only Rafe Cameron.

pairing: rafe x fem!reader

wc: 15k (oh my LORD)

tags/warnings: its the hunger games so like... yeah... violence and gore and stuff. definitely swearing, spoilers for the og Hunger Games movie I guess (but also not bc i changed it up a bit- you'll see), reader has a special talent that i won't spoil here, Rafe is lowkey a dick at the beginning, Ward being a shitty dad (what's new). also this isn't thoroughly edited bc.. its 15k words and i'm lazy.

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a/n: hello lovelies!! oh my gosh i have been slowly chipping away at this for actual literal months, and i am so proud of how it turned out!! i’m really glad i could finally post it by my birthday!! (i’m 23 wtf??)

thank you so much if you're going to put in the time to read this, but it honestly means a lot to me that you've made it this far. reblogs and likes would be so appreciated and let me know your thoughts in the replies! i really, really hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it. let me know if you want a part two of what happens post games, bc i think i left it at a minor baby sized cliffhanger. anyway, i’m off to eat cake now! enjoy!

Staring blankly out at the crowd in front of you, you attempt to process the echoing of your heartbeat in your ears.

"I'd like us to give a round of applause for our brave, brave tributes this year, and wish them the best of luck in this year's quarter quell!" Your attention is drawn to the woman next to you, the District Five escort, Opal, dressed head to toe in bright yellow. A universally happy color- what a joke.

The crowd is mostly silent and you can't bear the thought of even glancing in the direction of your parents. You turn silently as you're ushered back into the building from the stage, tripping slightly over your feet as the shock sets in. People are talking, possibly to you, but you can hardly hear a thing. You almost made it. You were almost eighteen- one more year and you would have been free.

You were granted the briefest of goodbyes to your family, but you were tempted to even turn that down. An action you regret not taking as your parents walk into the room, your mother with tears already coating her cheeks and your father trying to keep a strong resolve for you and your siblings.

"We'll see you soon, Bug. Remember we love you," He whispers into your hair as you sob into his shoulder. You know he doesn't necessarily mean in this lifetime.

Your tunnel vision settles back in as you're walked out of the room, glancing one last time over your shoulder only to see your dad's shoulders shaking from his silent cries as he turns his back to you.

You are quickly pushed onto the train taking you out of District Five, ignoring the other three tributes and your mentors as they talk. You just stare out the window with tired, red eyes and say a silent goodbye to the home you're already sure you'll never see again.

"Y/N..?" The girl next to you says, tapping you on the shoulder and making you jump.

"Hm?" You hum your acknowledgment, looking at the girl beside you. She's only a year older than you, and you went to school together for years; Maisie, you remember.

"I just wanted to make sure you hear them," Maisie whispers, gesturing to Opal as she starts to explain what the premise of the games is this year.

"So," she claps her hands together, clad in tacky yellow gloves. "I'm sure you have noticed that this year there are four of you, and you'll each be paired up with another tribute to compete. Not necessarily from your own District, but, anything is possible, I suppose. The exciting news is that there's a possibility for two winners this year! You and your teammate will be given a score throughout the games, and if your score as the final two is above ten, you will both be crowned victors!" The woman says excitedly- like it's a good thing.

"And if we don't have over ten?" The boy sitting across from you asks flatly.

"Well... the games shall continue," Opal explains vaguely, but you know what that means. You've seen it before.

"Okay, well, how do we get a good score?" The boy asks.

"I-" The escort starts, hesitance clear in her tone as she's quickly interrupted.

"You kill people," Your female mentor answers. She's leaning her elbows on the end of the table, standing with a knife in her hand, spinning it around like it's some kind of toy.

Your eyes drop from her form, staring down at the table in front of you, suddenly remembering your glass of water and quickly grabbing it when you realize your mouth has gone completely dry just from the idea of what's to come.

You arrive at the Capitol in the middle of the night and despite this fact, the crowds are still there. You didn't expect this, even though you've seen it on the beat-up television in your living room every year. It feels less real, somehow, when you're the one getting pushed through the crowd, not knowing what to do besides give awkward smiles to people yelling your name.

Your room is beautiful. You've never seen anything like this, but you can fully customize it at will with a remote, and this level of technology fascinates you. You spend hours flicking through different images that can appear on the walls, surrounding you in another world. Exhaustion and the sound of an artificial thunderstorm put you to sleep with the remote still resting in your palm.

"Up, up, up, my dear! We've got a big day ahead!" Opal's cheery voice startles you awake from your less-than-cozy spot on the floor. "There's breakfast on the table then we've got to get you down to prep, so hurry up, please." She says, and just like that she's gone, no doubt off to wake the other District Five tributes in a similar fashion.

"You're going to be meeting your teammates for the first time today so you can train together- gosh isn't that just so exciting!" Opal claps as you all stand in the elevator. There's a silence that follows as you and Maisie just nod, not excited about the whole idea. You're about to meet someone who will either be spending the last days of your life with you, or be killing you themselves, and you're not fond of either.

"This way you'll get to train together first, which I do believe to be a very generous act on behalf of the game makers." She adds, making you roll your eyes. How considerate. The most you can hope for is someone who is capable, and preferably someone who isn't in the twelve to fifteen age range, having seen that there were several drawn from different districts.

You shift on your feet as you try to adjust to the uncomfortably tight catsuit they squeezed you into, covered in what must be sapphire and diamond rhinestones, pinching your skin with every slight movement. Gold accents line the seams of the suit, extending out into something that resembles wings and lightning bolts protruding from your back. District Five; power. You get it, but we're the diamonds necessary? You hardly take note of the varying outfits you're surrounded with from the other kids in your district, before Opal is guiding the four of you up the line of extravagant carriages you're meant to parade out on for the people of the Capitol to fawn over.

You take note of where all of the other tributes from Five are lead, guessing based on the order of carriages that Maisie got paired up with another girl from Eleven, and the boys somehow ended up paired together. There must be some sort of personal aspect to this decision, considering you have watched those two boys fight back home. You're last, and Opal looks at you excitedly as you follow her up, and up, and up- to the very front of the line.

"Surprise!" She grins, clapping excitedly as you approach the very first carriage. "Y/N, getting paired with a career is huge. Your odds are good already, your partner has trained his whole life- he even volunteered."

"Sucks for him." You mutter under your breath as you get closer, eyeing up the boy in front of you, wearing an almost matching outfit. All the rhinestones make sense now, blending power with luxury could only mean as much.

"Y/N Y/L/N, meet Rafe Cameron. He'll be your teammate in the games." She smiles as she introduces you.

"Hi." You say quietly, taking his hand as he holds it out to you to help you up onto the carriage.

"Hey." He mutters, avoiding your gaze. It's off to a rough start for him for sure, seeing he's being paired up with someone from an outlying district must be daunting, when for you it should be exciting. Rafe did volunteer, yes, but he doesn't want to risk any kind of attachment- despite what the people of the Capitol want for their entertainment. He wants to come out alive, he doesn't care so much about who he's with.

"Okay, Y/N, remember to smile, please." Opal reminds you and you nod, looking down at her as you hold onto the handle in front of you.

You promise her with a nod, willing to do almost anything at this point to win the favour of possible sponsors. Again, your odds look better next to a career on that front, as well.

Quickly everyone is cleared away from the horses and the carriages and you start moving, catching you off guard and you stumble a little, readjusting your grip on the railing. "Careful." Rafe says beside you, quick to reach out to steady you if you needed it. You think you see the smallest of smiles on his face, but that must have just been your own mind trying to find comfort in anything around you.

"I got it." You whisper, blushing slightly. You've been with your teammate for all of a minute, and you're already proving yourself to be clumsy.

The lights hit your eyes the same time all the cheering does, being the first carriage, it's already so loud you can hardly hear yourself think. You snap out of it quickly, plastering on a smile once you see your own face on a giant screen ahead of you, you don't even look like yourself anymore. Your eyes land on the screen adjacent to the one showing you, seeing Rafe as well. He's smiling too, clearly having headed Opal's advice, or his many years of training is getting to him and he's excited. You really don't know. Then his head turns, and you turn your head as well, making dead eye contact with him for only a moment before he's looking past you into the crowds, taking in the moment.

When you finally get out of the extremely public eye and back into the building you exited from, you feel like you can finally breathe again. Not fully, in the tight, rigid suit they had you dressed up in, but more than you realized you were with all that yelling in your ears and lights in your face.

"District Five, right?" Rafe asks you as you're both stepping down and you nod. "Jeez, you don't talk much, do you?" He follows up with, taking a water bottle from someone who's walking by with them.

"I talk." You reply quietly. "Just... not much to talk about at the moment."

"The shock? Yeah, that'll do it." He nods, taking a sip from the water bottle and holding it out to you. You shake your head and push it away, making him shrug. "Shitty bust when you're not a volunteer."

You just stare at him, taken off guard by the comment. "That being said..." He leans in closer to make sure no one else hears. "I've been waiting my whole life for this, so don't ruin it for me, yeah?"

You pull back away from him and just nod again, not wanting to get on his bad side already. He won't be the one to kill you, probably, but it would still be nice if you spent your final days without your teammate hating your guts. "Thanks, darling." He smirks, patting your shoulder and brushing past you to go to the elevators.

The next day, bright and early yet again, you have your first day of training. You're sure Rafe won't even need it, but you certainly will. Your mentor told you he will likely be using it to size up the other tributes, especially considering there is a staggering amount of them this year, and you will need to focus on survival skills. Only survival skills, if you had to pick one thing- and your mentor drove that into your head until it was all that was echoing in your mind when you entered the training center.

After the trainers speech which ironically tried to do the same thing, you beeline straight for the fire making station. You're shocked to see almost no one else listened, definitely none of the boys, mostly lining up to show off their physical strengths, likely to try and intimidate each other. You'd be lying if you said it wasn't working.

You look up as you hear echoing laughter coming from the other side of the room, eyes scanning over the wall lined with silhouette targets, and racks with an array of weapons before landing on your teammate, laughing away with the other career tributes over a joke you didn't hear. He's got a spear in one hand, leaning his weight on it as his head drops back with laughter. You shake your head to get back on task, rolling the rough wood in your palms in hopes of making a spark. Good to see at least one of you is having fun, especially in your final days.

After a few minutes you get it, sitting back into your calves where you were kneeling on the ground, taking a breath of relief as you're satisfied with your success. You glance around to see how others are doing, giving a small smile and wave to Maisie when you see her, reading a book about different edible plants and trying desperately to memorize every image. You watch as Rafe takes the same spear he was leaning on before, hurling towards one of the targets. A direct hit, right in the chest, slightly right of the centre. You jump a little at the sound it makes on impact, looking finally at the boy who threw it.

He's pacing, huffing and looking a little frustrated with himself. A little to the left would have been perfect, but it was a kill shot nonetheless. There would be no coming back from that, and you count yourself lucky that it likely won't be you in place of the target in the games.

You quickly put out your fire and try again, making sure you've got the hang of it. You'll sit here all day if you must. After three more successful attempts, you're satisfied for the day, deciding you'll return to that station tomorrow and try again. You get up and brush the dirt off your knees, trekking over to where they have supplies to make game traps. You've never done this before, but there's no better time to learn, especially since your teammate has shown no interest in survival skills so far today.

"What are you doing?" Suddenly Rafe is standing behind you, as you're once again kneeling on the ground attempting to get the trigger on your bladeless trap to work.

You jump a little, startled by someone talking to you. "Uh, trying to make a snare, I think." You answer, turning to look up at him.

"Looks good." He nods, crouching down next to you. "Uh, isn't there supposed to be a blade or a spearhead or something on that piece?" He says, pointing to it.

"Well, yeah, I just didn't want to stab myself by accident." You laugh slightly, trying the trigger again- and this time it works, snapping forward into his arm.

"Ouch, yeah, fair enough." Rafe chuckles, rubbing the spot on his arm where the wood made contact.

You just nod and begin to reset it to test it again. "What if you can't get any of this shit in the arena?" He asks.

"What, a stick?" You ask, hitting the trigger one more time, sending the stick into his arm again, which he had decided not to move.

"Ow! Yes, a stick. We don't know what it will look like." He rubs his arm, examining the trap you built closer now.

"Then we're screwed I guess." You joke, leaning back on your calves again, watching him dissect it piece by piece to figure out how it works.

"So, is this like, your thing?" Rafe asks, and you tilt your head at him as you think it over.

"My thing?" You ask, unsure entirely what he meant. "I've never made one before, if that's what you're asking."

"Really?" He seems shocked by this.

"Uh, yeah, really. Unfortunately for you, you got paired up with someone who has zero survival or combat skills."

Rafe looks at you, a smug grin crossing his features. "Ha ha, very funny." He clearly thinks you're joking, but you're definitely not.

"I'm serious." You say, confused as to why he doesn't believe you.

His smile falters, replaced with wrinkles of confusion on his forehead. "But- I just watched you look at the instruction book for no more than like, three seconds before sitting down to make this."

"And..?"

"If you've never done it before it's supposed to be harder than that."

"Well, I've seen other people do it on TV and stuff every year for like, ever." You shrug. "I've just got a good memory, I guess."

Rafe nods, looking at the deconstructed trap in front of him for a moment, thinking about the implications of this. How far does this go? Could he use it? He'd never dreamt of having to work in a team in his games, but maybe it would benefit him after all. "Come with me." He stands up, and you follow as he paces over to two big screens, covered with a large array of different symbols.

"Try this, I just want to see something." Rafe says, standing next to you with his arms crossed as you quickly look over the screen, reaching down toward the one in front of you. You notice quickly that the screens mirror each other, all the images placed in the same spots as they are above. You look up at your teammate briefly who nods at you and then you tap one, watching it disappear from both screens before you tap the matching symbol. It's a matching game.

Your eyes are locked on the top screen as you tap away at the bottom one, quickly making all the images disappear one by one. It takes you no more than a minute to get rid of them all, and then a timer appears on the screen replaying your every move in real-time. Forty-two seconds. Were you really going that fast?

"Neat." Rafe says to himself, nodding as he watches it replay on the screen. That was impressive, sure, but his mind is straining to find a practical implication for this in the arena. "Go back to survival stuff. Learn as much as you can." He settles on, turning and walking off back to where he was before, returning to combat training.

The four days of training fly by insanely fast, and that's likely due to your dread of what's to come. you've got through everything in survival no less than three times, and you're pretty sure last night you dreamt of plants and making a fire. Not surprisingly, Rafe has left you pretty much alone the whole time, but you did watch from a distance as he cycled through every weapon the training center had to offer, proving he's almost mastered every last one. Of course, with over ten years of training, anything less wouldn't make sense. What scares you is the other careers showing a similar skill level to that of your teammate, but he seems to be on good terms with them. Again, maybe this would be a good thing in the beginning of the games.

You sit down for your last day of making fires and fishing hooks, working solely on memory since day one, you're feeling pretty confident that the elements or exposure won't be what takes you out- but you don't know if that's a good thing or not. You just hope your death will be quick.

"Y/N, c'mere." Rafe is suddenly calling to you, motioning for you to join him in the combat area. Not seeing much of a choice, and not looking forward to another day of doing the same thing over and over, you listen.

You make your way over, avoiding the gaze of other tributes who are looking at you like you're about to make a fool of yourself. It's possible you are. "I want you to learn how to use this." He says as you walk up, holding out the handle of a knife to you.

You take it, turning the sharp blade over in your hand. "I thought you were the weapons master." You joke, looking up at him briefly.

"Well, I need you to make fires and shit so you have to stay alive somehow, and if we get separated or something I need to know you can at least defend yourself. These are good from a distance and up close, but remember that any weapon you have they can take and use against you. So keep distance whenever you can." He answers, pointing over to the target about fifteen feet away. "So, throw it."

You look over to where he was pointing, adjusting your grip on the handle as you nod, taking in the information he's dumping on you. He is probably right, especially since you don't think he plans on protecting you himself. Why would he? If you die, he can still win without you.

You lift your arm over your shoulder, closing one eye to narrow down your aim before throwing it hard towards the target, which the knife bounces off of and clatters to the ground. You and Rafe both turn at the same time to look at the group that's laughing at you, the clang of the metal on the cement echoing loudly in the vast space.

"Don't worry about them. They're not there." Rafe is quick to grab another one, handing it to you the same way. "Try again, this time, hold it like this..." He says, grabbing your hand and placing your fingers in the correct spots on the handle. "Keep your wrist tense and straight, don't flick it or anything. Yeah, like that." He nods, taking a step back.

You look over how you're holding it, committing the feeling and finger placement to memory before raising your arm again. You throw it again, and this time it sticks, but your aim is off and it ends up in the target's leg. You look over at Rafe, unsure if you're hoping for approval or just satisfaction. "That's perfect." He nods. "Not a death blow, but that'll buy you time to get away. which is all you need."

"Okay." You agree quietly.

"Would it help if you watched me?" He offered, already grabbing a new knife while you nod. "So, you want to follow through with the throw, your shoulders should end about here if you're doing it right. You get more power that way, and better aim." He explains, standing with one foot forward, parallel to the target.

You step back to watch his strategy, noting the way he held the blade and his form when he aimed to throw it. He lets it fly from his fingers as his shoulders fall forward, smirking to himself as it hits the bullseye circle, right in the chest.

"You got it?" He asks, standing up straight again. You nod in response and he's handing you yet another knife to try again.

You go back and forth for hours, not caring that you're keeping anyone else from practicing. You're not the best at it, but it's become muscle memory now, and every time it sticks, most of the time hitting the silhouette somewhere. You tried the moving targets briefly, the gold, pixelated figures running at you quickly. You were immediately overwhelmed, and Rafe ended up having to step in to help. He said after that the minimal skill you had would be good enough to get away, and that is all you would need. You just have to focus on that.

You didn't talk a lot, besides taking a few short breaks to gather the knives and his arrows as Rafe explained the pros and cons of every weapon they had present, showing you briefly how to use some of them. Mostly how to defend yourself against them. It's hard for him to sum up years of training in one day, but he's dead set on the idea that you won't need most of it- just having to focus on keeping the two of you sheltered and fed, he can handle the rest; hopefully.

You sit outside the training center next to Rafe, waiting for your name to be called. It was the youngest female tribute from his district first, so if you had to guess, you would be third and fourth to go, which doesn't buy you a lot of time to decide what to do to best show your skills.

"What are you gonna do?" You ask, whispering in the deathly quiet room.

"Huh?" Rafe hums, leaning closer to hear you better.

You clear your throat, before speaking this time, unsure if you were clear enough. "What are you gonna do? Like which skill?" You clarify.

"Oh, uh..." He mutters, adjusting how he's sitting as he thinks about what to say. "I'm just going to cycle through some different weapons, different distance targets, I think. My mentors want me to show like, a variety of what I can do."

You nod at this, making a mental note of that. Maybe you should do the matching game and then try the knives. Opal told you that you would be scored both individually, and as a team. You hope you won't bring down his score too much, since you know he's aiming high. You planned on going for a mid-level score, not to be seen as a threat but also not as an easy kill. A perfect six would be your ideal score. "What about you?" Rafe interrupts your thought process.

"I'm not sure." You answer honestly.

"You should do your survival stuff. That will improve our team score, if we show them we have strengths at both." Rafe suggests. That's not actually a bad idea. Your individual score will likely be lower, but that's a risk you're willing to take.

"Yeah, I'll do that."

You ended up scoring a six, the judges obviously not seeing you as any kind of threat. This is what you expected, though, and you were correct about your group score as well. Rafe and you together scored a ten. On his own, he scored a ten, so you hadn't affected it in the way you feared. This left you reeling over the idea of other tributes seeing you both as a threat as you stand in yet another extravagant dress, waiting in line to be called out for your interview. The games were tomorrow, and the last thing you wanted was to get in front of a crowd and subtly plead with them to let you live, to send you gifts, and to give you their sympathy.

So far it's been in the same order they called everyone for assessments yesterday, which means you would be next. Rafe stands behind you, arms crossed in a suit that looks more expensive than any you've seen back home in all of your life, but he looks comfortable in it. Your dress is once again covered in rhinestones, and your waist is cinched in so tight you can hardly breathe as it is, so you're not looking forward to going on stage.

"Our next tribute, welcome to the stage from District Five, Miss Y/N Y/L/N!" You hear the familiar voice of Caesar Flickerman calling you out and some guards usher you forward onto the stage, very briefly glancing over your shoulder at Rafe.

You're quick to smile as you turn back around, giving a small wave to the host and then out to the audience as they cheer for you. For a brief moment, you feel as if they don't plan on watching you die as early as tomorrow, you feel as if they're rooting for you. "Hi!" You say as you get closer and Caesar stands up to greet you, shaking your hand and giving you a quick hug before gesturing for you to sit down across from him.

You look around the large theatre, spotting every camera you can. Your family is out there watching, somewhere, and you know they'll see right through this show you have to put on. You wish they wouldn't. You can picture so vividly your living room back home, with your parents and siblings scattered across the couch and the floor watching you with bated breath, they can see you- and on some level, you can see them too.

"Miss Y/L/N. Thank you for being here." Caesar sighs, reaching out and patting your hand where it sits on the armrest next to you.

"Well, I didn't have any other plans for the night, so..." You shrug, making him laugh. Laughter echoes from the audience and you smile, hoping that your plan to win people over is working.

"What? A beautiful girl like you?" He asks after he's done laughing. "You weren't planning on spending some of your free time with your teammate?" As if you got even a minute of free time since you've been here.

"Well, I guess we'll never know." You chuckle, looking back at the boy where he stands in the wing, giving you a small smile.

"Now listen, Y/N, Rafe is..." He has to stop after mentioning his name as cheers erupt again, laughing as he waits for the audience to quiet down. "Your teammate is, as you may have guessed, a popular face in the Capitol right now. Are you feeling lucky about your pairing?"

Rafe crossed his arms as he watches intently, feeling smug about his odds, especially now knowing the Capitol's opinion of him. He knows his dad is back home watching, full of pride that his son has become a fan favourite.

"I am." You answer honestly. "He's very talented."

"And handsome, don't you think?"

"I mean, who am I to argue with the people?" You joke, waving your hand dismissively as you hear the cheers pick up again. "Besides, his looks won't save us. We will save ourselves." You add seriously.

Caesar nods in acknowledgment, showing that to an extent, he agrees with you. "Well, I hope that you are right, dear." He smiles, getting up to signal you've run out of time. You stand as well, taking his hand as he holds it up above your heads. "It was so lovely to meet you, and may the odds stay ever in your favor. Y/N Y/L/N, everyone!"

You smile and thank him quietly, waving to everyone with both hands as you walk across the stage to exit on the other side. You take a few deep breaths as you step into yet another waiting room, watching the screen as Rafe is called out right behind you.

Rafe sits down on the chair across from Caesar after his introduction, which allows a few moments for the audience to quiet down. He smiles proudly as he rests one of his feet on his other knee, bouncing his leg with anxiety. He hopes it's interpreted as excitement. "Rafe." Caesar smiles at him, sitting back down as well. "I'll be honest, I have been so excited to finally meet you."

"It's good to meet you too." Rafe grins, chuckling slightly at the few whistles he gets scattered from the crowd.

"You got a fabulous score, how are you feeling about that?"

"Really good, yeah. Obviously I've been waiting my whole life for this opportunity, so it feels amazing to see it all paying off." Rafe answers, focussing on keeping the confidence in his tone.

"We can tell, can't we?" Caesar laughs, riling up the audience again, making Rafe laugh to himself as he softly shakes his head. "Yeah, yeah. So, with all this planning you've been doing, how do you feel about getting paired up? You probably expected to be going in solo."

"I did, for sure, but I don't think this is a bad thing." Rafe admits.

"Oh, getting along well with your teammate?" Caesar asks, a hint of suggestion in his tone.

"Yeah, we get on really well." Rafe exaggerates your relationship a bit, knowing it will earn you more sponsors, and maybe keep other tributes away from you in the games. "At least I think we do, I'm not fully sure about her thoughts on me, though."

"You scored incredibly well together, despite Y/N having a fairly average score on her own. What are your thoughts and feelings on that?"

Rafe chuckles as he leans forward a bit, pointing out to the audience as he speaks. "Don't underestimate her based on the score. I won't give you any spoilers, but trust me, don't overlook her. She's got as good a shot as any of us. Maybe better."

Caesar makes a surprised expression as he nods. "Well okay! Does she have some sort of secret weapon we should be worried about?" He chuckles, gripping the armrests and looking around as the audience laughs.

Rafe just shrugs in response, smirking slightly, which you can tell the audience just eats up. You're trying to decide if this is good or bad for you, though, as you watch, gnawing at your nails in anticipation as you stare at the screen.

"Okay, alright, don't spoil anything then." Caesar laughs. "It'll make for a better show, and I can get behind that."

After a moment of waiting for the cheers to die down, Caesar speaks up again. "Rafe, if I can ask, I know your father has a lot of influence in your district- how is he feeling about your selection for the games?"

You furrow your brow a little bit as you look at the screen, finally learning something interesting about your teammate. If he's from a prominent family in District One of all places, that would certainly explain his attitude. Rafe, on the other hand, doesn't want to talk about his father at all- but of course they would bring him up.

"Yeah, of course." Rafe replies, shifting in his seat. "He's thrilled, it's a huge honour to be here, and to be the first out of his children to be chosen is really special to me. I just hope I can make him and my sisters proud, he's always encouraged us to volunteer."

"I'm sure that you will." Caesar smiles at him. "I hope I will have the honour of hosting one of your sisters on this stage one day, as well."

Your stomach churns just watching this. How can any father who loves his children want this fate for them? This was your father's worst nightmare. You watch as Rafe nods with a smile, and you can see behind his eyes that he doesn't want that, not at all.

The audience cheers as they both stand up, shaking hands before Rafe leaves the stage, a cocky smirk on his face as he waves and winks at the audience. Before Rafe makes it down to the waiting room, you're grabbed an escorted out, heading for the elevator back to your room.

You can't eat, but you know you should. This will likely be your last meal for a while. You decide on just taking a large bowl of fruit and toast to your room, trying to get it down slowly with all the nerves, while you have a bath. Your parents never let you eat in the bath. It's hard to get out knowing this is likely the last bath you'll ever have.

The morning goes by in a blur, you feel Opal's arms around you as she hugs you goodbye and wishes you luck. You know you'll need all of it. You stare down at the ground in front of you as you're pushed onto a plane, of sorts, along with all the other tributes. Once you're sat down, you look around at everyone else. You remember all of their names as you scan over their faces, but you wish you didn't. You get stuck on one of the girls from District Eleven, Hope, who was only thirteen.

She's shaking, and you can see that from where you're sat down the row from her. She reminds you of Rue, the tribute from last year. Her death was a tragedy, it broke the hearts of everyone outside of the Capitol and the career districts. Hope's curly hair sat in a bun on top of her head, and tears fell down her cheeks as she sniffled. She got paired up with a girl from Twelve- the lengths the Capitol will go to to make a mockery of last years games will never cease to amaze you.

"Hey, you look a little pale." Rafe whispers, leaning close to you. You didn't even notice him sit down on the other side of you.

You shake your head slightly, looking down at your knees. "I'm fine."

"Don't think about it." Rafe instructs you, holding his arm out for the tracker to be injected as a guard approaches with the device.

You wince as you hear it get shot into his arm and he chuckles, shaking his arm off to ease the sting. You raise your shaking arm as they hold their hand out expectantly to you. You don't know what it is they're putting in you, but you've never been fond of needles. This is a million times worse. "It's not that bad," Rafe tells you, and you squeeze your eyes shut as you feel pressure on your forearm, followed by a sharp, stabbing pain. You bite your tongue to keep from making a sound, dropping your arm onto your lap as they quickly walk away.

"What did they do?" You ask him, trying to keep a steady tone.

"It's a tracker, so they know where we are in the arena." He explains quietly. You were the only two talking, and you notice it's earning you glares from several other tributes. Rafe notices this as well, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms, taking this time to size everyone up.

The plane takes off, and before you know it, you're landing at the arena on the outskirts of Capitol property. You wonder if you're close to the ocean, not that you'll get to see it anyways.

You're paraded off of the plane, still trying not to let it show how afraid you are of what's to come. You make the briefest of eye contact with Maisie as she's pulled towards a different hallway, and neither of you have it in you to smile anymore.

"We've gotta get supplies, that's our first move." Rafe says to you as you're led out of earshot of other tributes, into your own hall.

"My mentor said to run." You reply quietly.

Rafe scoffs, shaking his head. "Your what, one mentor said that? Cool. I have fifteen that are still alive and well enough to show up every year. I think we should get supplies." He tells you firmly, but you know that will get you instantly killed, maybe not him, but you stand no shot. "Just stick with me if you want to live."

You just nod a little bit, glancing at him again briefly before you're directed into a separate room across the hall from him. His pedestal will be next to yours, which is a bit of a relief. Your stylist quickly instructs you to strip, and then she helps you into the uniform you assume you'll all be wearing. It's exactly the same as last year, you notice this quickly, but with a '75' logo embroidered on the chest where the District Twelve tribute had her pin placed. Katniss, you remember her name was. She had volunteered for her sister, and at the time you contemplated heavily on whether or not you would do the same. She was so, so close to winning- to getting to see her sister again, but she and the boy from her district, the final two tributes, ended up committing together rather than giving the Capitol their Victor. It was an admirable stance, but you couldn't imagine what that was like for her family, and his.

You step off the concrete floor once you're dressed, instructed to get into the pod that will lift you up into the arena; a glass elevator. Your stylist says nothing to you as they walk out of the room, the glass door sliding shut in front of you. Your knees get weak as you realize you are totally, completely alone, and likely no more than twenty minutes from dying. You think of your family, your siblings, your dad- and the last words he said to you. You'll see him soon.

Your thoughts are halted when the elevator starts to move, lifting you up as the ceiling falls away and you can see sunlight coming through. You squint and shield your eyes as you try to look up to get a better grasp on your surroundings before you can even see anything. Once trees come into view you're frantically looking around, trying to process as much information as you can, and quickly. It's exactly the same as last year, but from what you can tell, flipped in reverse, and made larger to accommodate twice as many tributes. Or everything on camera last year was flipped. There's a silver cornucopia in the middle with the timer that's immediately counting down and supplies inside and scattered around the field in front of you. Rafe is to your right, and a boy from Seven on your left. He scored a six, the same as you, so he's not the biggest threat to you immediately.

You adjust your stance, getting ready to run once the timer hits zero. In what direction, you don't know yet. Rafe wants you to run to the supplies, but statistically, the most deaths will happen in the next five minutes and you don't want any part of that. The supply bags and weapons spread out on the grass are all the same too, by the looks of it. The closest bag to you got picked up by the girl from Seven last year, and it didn't have much of anything helpful. If you're remembering right, it had a rope and some matches, and that was it. It definitely would be useful, but you know you can do better. There should be a bag four pedestals to your right, with a water bottle, an emergency blanket, a fire starter, a first aid kit, and a knife. Right now, that's the one you have to get to. That's your best bet.

Ten, nine, eight... The timer ticks down to the final seconds as you look over at Rafe, who's already looking at you. You point to the bag as your eyes land on it on the other side of him across the field, and he looks at you confused. He's closer, he has a better shot, but you know he won't take it.

Rafe is confused, following your finger and spotting the bag. Why would you want that one specifically? There are others closer, he doesn't feel like now is a time to be picky.

Four, three, two...

Your ears ring with shock as the clock reaches zero, and you're watching most of the other tributes booking it for the center. No one has seen your bag yet as you jump down, beelining across the field and narrowly brushing past Rafe in your move for the small backpack. He stops to let you pass, almost crashing into you head-on. He doesn't have time to worry about you, so he continues on his path to the middle, but he's lost time. Precious time that he doesn't have to lose right at the beginning of the games.

He gets into the bloodbath that the cornucopia has already turned into, looking back over his shoulder quickly as he grabs at any weapon he can get his hands on. He quickly has to sacrifice the blade he just grabbed when he hears footsteps quickly approaching from behind him, turning quickly and plunging it into the boy's chest. He doesn't think to look at who it was.

Cannon's echo around you, and you're counting how many internally as you get to the bag, reaching down to grab it as you run past, trying not to slow down. You look back over your shoulder, hoping to spot your teammate somewhere, but you can't see him. You're scanning the area, blocking out the blood you see flying and scattered along the silver metal of the cornucopia. You can hardly hear any screams over the sound of your heartbeat pounding in your ears. You can't help but watch as the girl from Three jumps on who is supposed to be her partner, a girl from Twelve, snapping her neck in a second. Within moments, she just drops to the ground next to her- another cannon following. That makes a strong incentive for working in teams. At least Rafe won't betray you early on.

You freeze up for a moment, stopping to scan your surroundings. You still can't find Rafe, taking in the number of bodies scattered around the cornucopia and a few tributes running into the tree line. At least some people were smart. Something flies past your head, making you jump back a step as you look up ahead of you. Within an instant, you're being tackled back by the body of the boy from your district.

"Y/N, fancy seeing you here." He chuckles darkly while you try and fight him off.

"Don't!" You squeak out, him pressing his forearm down against your throat on the ground.

"I've wanted to do this since the second they called your name." He growls, shoving you down again.

"We can help each other, Jack..." You say weakly, clawing at his arm.

"You don't need me. You've got your career boyfriend- and whatever your secret weapon is." He scoffs. "You don't have a secret weapon, Y/N. He's bluffing and he won't convince us."

You gather all your strength and knee him in the crotch, scrambling to get away as he fumbles for just a moment. "God- you are a bitch!" He shouts, grabbing for your ankle just has you pick up the knife he had thrown at you. You grip it the way Rafe had shown you, quickly shoving it into Jack's leg. You just needed to get away.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" You exclaim, backing away quickly. Jack doesn't say another word, cutting his losses and getting up to make an escape for the woods. You hope he ends up okay.

You make your break for it as well, running back towards the woods as you once again scan your surroundings for your partner.

Suddenly you're on the ground, having run straight into the side of one of the pedestals and falling over it. You yelp with the sudden impact of the ground, scrambling to get up and continue when suddenly someone is grabbing your jacket, slamming you into the pedestal again. You scream, trying to shove them off, but they're much stronger than you. "Jael! Wait, wait- Jael!" You make out your own voice yelling the boy's name, which makes him falter. He's the oldest tribute from Eight- he seems shocked you even know his name.

In the moment when he loosened his grip, he jerks forward and then falls over you, a cannon booming making you gasp as you panic to get away. Rafe is quickly running towards you, slinging the bow he just used over his shoulder and yanking the arrow out of the boy's back. "Y/N, let's go!" He shouts, motioning for you to follow him as you continue toward the tree line, both of you keeping an eye on what's happening behind you as you disappear into the woods.

"Let's stay close, but not too close," Rafe suggests as soon as you feel safe enough to slow down, your chest heaving with the exertion of energy and boost of adrenaline. He glances at you briefly, then does a double take. "You okay? Are you hurt?"

You shake your head, coughing to ease the stinging in your throat. "I'm fine. You?"

"Good," Rafe answers, slowing his pace to match yours.

"We, uh, I think we should go the other way." You say, looking around to try and mentally place where abouts you are.

Rafe stops and furrows his brow at you, seemingly frustrated by your resistance. "Why does it matter?"

"The arena, it's the same as last year. Exactly the same. Just, scaled up a bit." You explain. "We should head south, that's where the river is. We'll need water soon."

Rafe laughs slightly, his demeanor changing as he places his hands on his hips and looks at you. "No shit," He says, truly surprised and impressed that you could tell. A lot of the games tend to look like this, and he would never notice a repeat arena down to the rivers if it punched him in the face. Your 'secret weapon' is already paying off. "And you could tell that right away?"

"Yeah, I mean, I guess so. The bags were all the same, everything was laid out the same. I bet there's a river down south." You nod, having a sudden realization. "We should get to that cave- the one the tributes from Twelve holed up in last year. That'll be a good, stable shelter. We can pretty much wait it out." You say, starting to walk in what you believe is the right direction.

"No," Rafe replies, making you stop in your tracks. "Unless you want me to have to kill you in the end."

"Oh, right." You forgot about that part, keeping score. "We're still going to need somewhere to sleep, though."

"Yeah, we'll find it anyways." Rafe nods, carrying on in the direction you started heading. You follow a few steps behind, keeping a bit of distance in the somewhat awkward silence that fell over you two after his comment about having to kill you.

You walk in the thick of the woods for about an hour before you feel like you're reaching the river. You can feel it under your feet, the soil is slightly softer, and the trees a little more green.

Cannons interrupt your thoughts a few times in the hike, totaling up to twenty-three by the time you reach the riverbank. "You were right." Rafe chuckles, mentally disparaging any skepticism he faced during the long, quiet walk.

"Thank god." You giggle, dropping your bag and crouching down to dig through it, hoping for a water bottle. You were right, everything you expected was accounted for.

"Why that bag?" Rafe says, already sitting down on the rocky water's edge to rest for a moment.

"Huh?" You question, unsure you heard over the shuffling of the bag while you zip it up.

"You pointed to it, during the countdown. Why did you want that one?"

"Oh, uh, like I said they all looked the same as last year, and I hoped I remembered what was inside." You say, laying down to reach into the water and fill up the bottle.

"Were you right?"

You nod with a small smile, sitting back up and holding the bottle out to him as you cross your legs.

"That's actually insane." Rafe shakes his head in disbelief as he takes it, downing just about everything in it before handing it back.

You take it and refill it again for yourself. "I'll choose to take that as a compliment."

Rafe wouldn't admit it, but at this moment as he's watching you drink, he's grateful that he got paired up with you. But now, that it's been shown on national television that you know the arena in and out, he wonders what obstacles the gamemakers will desperately throw your way.

"We should keep moving. I feel like a sitting duck out here in the open, I don't like it." Rafe mutters, checking his attitude as he stands up. You're quick to fill up the bottle again, following behind him yet again as the arrows in his quiver rattle together against his back walking over the rocky and unstable terrain, knife gripped tightly in his hand.

You wonder to yourself how he's feeling about leaving behind his predestined alliance of the career pack, but with the factor of most of them being paired up with other districts, it was already too unpredictable. You wouldn't have stuck around either.

The sun started to set as you followed the river upstream. You didn't want to settle without some kind of shelter, and you were committed to finding that cave before you could relax. You could tell that Rafe had the same idea, his steps ahead of you gradually picking up speed with the bow still gripped firmly in his palm.

"It's a beautiful sunset." You speak your mind before thinking, desperately wanting to fill the silence.

Rafe just hums in response, looking up only briefly before training his gaze once again on the ragged rocks at his feet and continuing on. "What's it like in District One?" You ask.

"Fine." He replies coldly. You aren't sure what you expected, but this response was pretty on par. You knew you had almost no chance of survival, so it would at least be nice to get to know the person you spend your final days with, even if he would be the one to kill you in the end.

"I've never been, but I've heard it's... nice." You've only ever heard about it from the perspective of other bitter individuals from Five, jealous of the cushy lifestyle everyone knew they must have lived.

"Yeah." Rafe agrees, clearly not wanting to discuss it.

"What are your sister's names?" You ask, deciding to push a little bit. It's not like he can kill you just yet.

Rafe sighs, but answers anyways. "Wheezie and Sarah."

You're shocked that he answered at all, but you could tell in his interview that he has a soft spot for them. "Cute." You nod, smiling to yourself. "Is Wheezie a nickname?"

"Yep, it's short for Louise."

"That's adorable." You grin, shaking your head.

"Hey, look. There." Rafe says, changing the subject and pointing down the rocks, where there's a small opening under a ledge.

"That's it!" You exclaim, deciding to drop the topic of his sisters in favour for finding your shelter for the night. You rush past him, watching your step as you climb down into the small cave.

Rafe quickly draws his bow, slowing down and peaking into the cave and bracing himself for your screams. How could you be so careless in a game like this? He doesn't understand your lightheartedness, your somewhat positive attitude, and your ability to make small talk despite the circumstances. "Hey, careful!"

"It's perfect!" You call back out as you look around, and Rafe steps down carefully, looking around more carefully than you had. He relaxes once he's satisfied that there's nothing down there waiting to kill you.

"Nice, okay." Rafe nods to himself, and you both get to work making a small fire near the entrance, hidden from view.

You take off your jacket and roll it up, using it as a makeshift pillow as you lay next to the fire, staring at the orange flicker of the flames you made.

Rafe is sitting across from you, knees tucked up to his chest as he does just the same. His mind is absolutely reeling- he needs to find something to eat, and soon. That will be the first thing you'll do in the morning, he'll have to employ your help to find something edible. "How are you with making traps?" He asks.

"I can do it." You reply, sitting up and leaning on your elbow so you can see him. "I'll set some up in the morning."

Rafe nods a little bit. He already knew you could, of course, but he's wondering about the logistics of how they work. "So like... hypothetically, would they work the same if you made them bigger?"

"Like... human-sized?" You ask, catching on to what he's suggesting. It's not ethical- but nothing about this game is. For you, this would definitely be preferable to fighting other kids to death over and over again.

Rafe nods, adjusting how he was sitting and crossing his legs.

"Yeah. I can't see why not." You answer. "It would be harder since I've never done it, but I think it could work."

"Then I say we try it."

The next day, you wake up as the sun rises and the light beats down on you from the entrance of the cave. You didn't sleep comfortably, that's for sure, waking up twice throughout the night to the sound of the cannon. That's twenty-seven. You wonder how many teams have already reached their ten-kill quota, you imagine someone in the career pack already has. Both times when you were startled awake, Rafe was standing at the cave entrance, bow drawn as he squinted into the darkness, hoping that whoever was out hunting other tributes wasn't nearby.

You sit up slowly, stretching out your tired limbs as you look over to see Rafe, fast asleep with a blade in his hand. You should let him sleep, and get to work on finding something to eat, and making some traps.

You grab one of the knives Rafe somehow collected from the bag laying next to him as quietly as possible, sneaking outside and taking in your surroundings. The sound of the river flowing and the smell of morning dew was amazing- you wish you could truly enjoy it in different circumstances.

You quickly get to work tracking down something to eat, landing on a few different plants you know to be edible. You're trekking through the woods near your cave when you come across an apple tree- making you pause as you look it over. It looks out of place- and maybe no one got close enough to it in the games last time that you wouldn't have seen it, but that seems unlikely. It must be new; it makes for the perfect place to try and set up a trap for the next hungry tribute who would be unfortunate enough to wander too close to your hideout.

You're digging a hole in the ground with your hands, avoiding the roots of the tree and sticking in some sticks you sharpened when you hear a twig snap behind you. You freeze, hoping that by some miracle, it's just an animal. You slowly turn your head to try and look, picking up the knife from the ground next to you and holding it tight.

"Just me." Rafe's voice relaxes you, and you stand up, brushing off your knees.

"You scared me." You admit as he takes to looking down into the hole you just dug.

"That looks... awful." He chuckles, patting your shoulder. "It won't kill, but it'll slow someone down enough that I can finish the job."

You nod slightly, staring into the dirt as well. You hated the idea that you were crafting something intentionally to bring harm to another person, but realistically you have no choice. "We'll set up more, along the riverbed and closer to the career pack. We can't monitor them all at once, though- can you make more fatal ones next time?" Rafe asks, pointing back towards the river to accentuate his point.

"That depends, how many arrows can you spare?"

The next few days saw the death toll rise to thirty-six. You kept track every night, scratching their numbers and names into the walls of the cave despite being able to remember anyway. You viewed it as a small memorial, Rafe saw it as a timer ticking down to when he'd have to kill you.

Your first trap had worked on one person, their screams of pain from a cut-up leg summoning your teammate back to the apple tree. He insisted you stay behind as he finished what you started. You had to reset several other traps as well, closer to the cornucopia.

Rafe would never admit it, but he was really starting to like you. He didn't want to hurt you- he was worried the traps wouldn't do enough. The passive approach you so preferred wasn't what he expected, and he knew his dad would be disappointed in him. But Ward would never understand.

He sighed as he poked at the fire with a stick, leaning his head back against the rocky wall of the cave, another cold night ahead of you.

You had your head laid on his lap, his thigh replacing the thin material of your coat that you had been using the last few days.

"How old are your sisters?" You ask out of nowhere, prompting him to look down at you. He had thought you fell asleep a while ago.

"Why does it matter?" Rafe replies, and you just shrug a little bit.

"Gives us something to talk about."

"Fifteen and Eleven." He relents.

"Hey, me too." You smile a little to yourself.

"You have sisters?" Rafe asks. He never asked much about you- he didn't really want to know, in the case he had to kill you.

"Yep. And a brother." You nod, sitting up a little bit. "He's older though, he aged out last year."

Rafe finds himself clenching his jaw. He can't hear that- to see you as a little sister. He doesn't want to imagine what it would be like to see his sisters face the same fate. "Lucky guy." He says quietly.

"Why? I thought it was a privilege, and all that." You chuckle.

"Well, yeah, but not for most. For the outlying districts like you."

"At least you get it." You agree. "How does it feel? Now that you're here, I mean."

"Scary." Rafe admits, throwing caution to the wind now with what his father will think. "Not what everyone tells you it'll be like."

"Is that because of me?" You ask after a few moments, and he nods slightly.

"Not in a bad way, though. It's just different. I expected to be on my own, to die alone, or kill my allies if I had to. Now... I don't know that I have to. Or if I even could." He can practically hear his father shouting at their large screen at home, or storming out claiming he was an embarrassment. He was told his whole life to never show weakness, to 'be a man', but now, at the end, that doesn't matter to him.

"I won't take it personally." You giggle softly, voice shaking as you try to make light of it. "My family won't either, I don't think. Maybe my dad, at first, but eventually he'll understand. They'll forgive you." You try and ease his mind, knowing that in the case that Rafe does win without you, he'll have to face your family in the next month or so during the victory tour.

"I wouldn't ever expect him to." Rafe tells you, tossing his stick into the flames now. He feels sick hearing you talk about it like it's inevitable- but if he has anything to do with it, you'll be coming home with him.

"They're good people." You assure him.

"Don't say that." Rafe chuckles, shaking his head. "I would never forgive myself."

"Okay, fine. They're awful. Just... the worst." You smile, looking up at him and resting your chin in your hand.

"That's better. Thank you." Rafe laughs, poking your forehead and gazing out onto the river as the flames illuminate the water.

In the morning, you're awoken to something brushing your leg. You groan and roll over, head landing once more on Rafe's extended arm underneath you. At least he was finally getting some sleep, pretty much unable to close his eyes since you set foot in the arena. You feel the brush again, followed by something moving on your arm, several things, suddenly, and your eyes fly open and look down when you remember where you are. You let out a scream, scrambling to sit up and pushing yourself back against the wall.

Rafe wakes up quickly, scrambling for the bow next to him when he realizes it won't be any help. You're surrounded by and quickly almost covered in a sickening combination of snakes and spiders.

You're still screaming, trying to shove the creatures off of you. "Come on- come on!" Rafe is yelling at you, grabbing your arm and pulling you towards the exit. You don't get the chance to grab your back and you regret that as you're jumping into the river in attempt to get the spiders off of your skin and out of your clothes.

You're breathing heavily as you come up for air, and Rafe is quickly there, brushing his hands over your hair to make sure every last spider is gone. He looks back at the entrance of the cave, chest heaving like yours as the bugs and snakes spill out of it. It sends a shiver down his spine- he was never a fan of snakes.

"I guess that's the gamemakers telling us enough was enough." He sighs, gently pulling you towards the shore again a safe distance away. "Are you bit?" He asks once you're a safe distance away.

"I don't think so..." You reply, hiking up the ankles of your pants to look at your calves and over your bare arms as you sit on the shore. "You?"

Rafe shakes his head, doing the same. "It was probably just a warning. We have to move." He quickly lowers his pant leg over the puncture wounds in his leg, hoping you didn't see. If it gets worse, he'll tell you. The bite itself didn't hurt much, so if it's going to be fatal, he's glad he won't have to hurt you.

Rafe helps you up, leading you up towards the tree line. "They probably want to push us in toward the other tributes, I think we should go with it before they throw something worse at us." You, the two of you now left with nothing but what you had on you, along with Rafe's bow and a few spare arrows.

He nods. "It's our best move anyways. How many tributes are left?"

"Twelve including us." You answer quickly. "There's Avril, a boy from six, Maisie, she's from my district, most of the careers I think are still in it but not their teammates," You begin to rattle off the list,

"I don't want to know names." Rafe cuts you off, and you understand why. He's been doing all the dirty work, and part of you knows it's because he's hoping to have time to learn names and feel guilty about it later. Right now, he can't afford to see them as human.

"Right." You agree. "It doesn't really matter, anyways."

"Do you know scores?" He asks, walking alongside you now.

You nod, beginning to list off all the remaining tributes and their scores, from lowest to highest. The lowest being you- and the highest being ten, shared by Rafe and a boy from district two.

After hearing two more cannons that day, and checking all the traps you had set, you're circling back to the river to be near fresh water before you set up camp again. You don't have your water bottle anymore, or anything to set up any kind of shelter with, you do your best. You set up a fire, Rafe insisting that if it draws other tributes to you so be it- he's ready for this to end just as much as you, but you don't want to rush into your death or an ambush. It's safe to say you won't be sleeping tonight.

You didn't sleep, but at least, curled up under a tree, the night sky was beautiful. The stars seemed realistic, and you wondered if somehow they were real. Between the two more cannons that struck overnight, you still wondered if you were somewhere near the ocean, or somewhere closer to home. While you're sitting next to each other in a peaceful silence, both admiring the vastness of the night sky, you hear a ringing sound coming from above.

Rafe quickly stands, reaching for the small silver pack with a parachute before it hits the ground. He's quick to open it as you stand up, looking into the container. You grab the small card, tilting it into the light of your fire to read it.

For our Y/N,

Keep fighting. Please come home to us.

Love You Always, Dad

Tears form in your eyes almost instantly, your hand coming up to cover your mouth. "It's just a water bottle and some kind of granola bars... or something." Rafe says, turning the water bottle over in his hand.

He looks up at you, frowning when he sees how upset you look. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"Nothing." You quickly shake your head, wiping your eyes. "Uhm, it's from my dad."

The fact that your family could spare enough money to send you something in the games at all was amazing to you. You heard horror stories of the astronomical prices of trying to send something from outside of the capitol, without the status and funds of a sponsor.

"Oh." Rafe replies, handing you the tin and bottle now, taking the card from you gently. He reads it over slowly, and over and over again. His family had seemingly endless amounts of money, and they had sent him nothing. He knew his father viewed it as cheating, and that you shouldn't need any kind of help to win. If he loved him, though, that wouldn't matter. He should be willing to do anything he could to keep his son alive. The way your parents did.

"My mom made these." You sniffle, grabbing a small bar from the container in her hand. "They're my favourite, she only makes them on birthdays or special occasions." You explain.

"That's... that's really nice." Rafe says, putting the card back in the tin. He doesn't know how to handle this, or what to say.

You smile sadly as you sit back down against the tree, placing the tin on your lap as Rafe joins you. "Here." You hold the bar out to him.

"They're for you." Rafe shakes his head, pushing it away.

"They're for us." You insist, holding it out to him again. "They wouldn't have sent two if I wasn't meant to share."

"Thank you." Rafe smiles genuinely, for the first time in weeks as he takes it. He's starving, having eaten only small amounts of meat and plants over the last week or so, so he's quick to take a bite. It's sweet, more so than he expected. He never thought he could enjoy sugar this much.

"No wonder they're reserved for celebrations, hey?" You giggle, having intently watched his reaction.

Rafe nods. "Yeah, it's really good. Super sweet." He says, mouth still full. You grin, satisfied as you take a bite of your own.

The night flew by so quickly, you're feeling as though it must have gotten shorter. The sunrise went by fast too. You're guessing the gamemakers and the viewers were getting antsy. To be honest, you were as well.

Renewed with your energy the sugary baking your parents had sent, you set about gathering food and water, while Rafe goes on to check a few of your traps to see if they needed to be reset. He could do it on his own, but he liked watching you do it, working the ropes between your fingers and tying intricate knots, pulling back on the stick used to trigger the arrow. By the afternoon, having taken a mental note of the amount of cannons that had fired. It was a few, at least. You must be getting down to the end. He prayed it wasn't you, but the cries of some kind of mutts in the distance right before the cannons lead him to believe that you were fine- but he should be getting back soon anyways.

You were wandering down to the water, reluctant to leave your camp, but you knew water was a priority. You were just filling up the new bottle when you heard a scream. It sounded like a boy. You quickly look back over your shoulder, noticing it was nearby. Toward the apple tree. You stand slowly, looking around as you attach the water bottle back to your side with a carabiner, reaching instead for the knife Rafe had left with you. God, you hoped it wasn't him. The absence of a cannon gives you hope, though.

You quietly head in that direction, watching your step so your presence isn't detected. When you get closer to the tree, you hear crying. Painful crying, as you're faced with the reality of the trap you set.

You watch from behind a tree as the boy from eight tries to pull his leg up from the ground, screaming out again as the sharp sticks dig into his flesh. You should go get Rafe- you feel guilty, but you can't kill him yourself. You turn quickly, and before you can get a step away you're face to face with one of the other careers- a sword held up against your neck.

"Don't move." Blake says, a smile that can only be described as evil spreading over his lips.

You try and scream out for help, hoping Rafe was still in earshot but a hand is quickly covering your mouth. "Not yet." He whispers, shaking his head. "We've got a plan, it'll be fun. You wouldn't want to ruin that, right?"

As Rafe gets back to your small camp, he expects to see you there waiting. He scans the trees above him, wondering if you had climbed up for some reason. He calls your name when he doesn't see you, brow furrowed. You definitely should be back by now. As he's heading down to the water to look for you, he hears a cannon, which at this point wouldn't bother him- if it wasn't for the scream that followed after. It was you. No doubt in his mind that it was you. With his bow drawn, he's moving quickly towards where he heard your voice, throwing caution to the wind.

You scream again, crying as the tip of the sword is dug into your shoulder, laying down next to the apple tree. You can't help it- but you don't want their trap to work. You don't want Rafe to come, so you bite your tongue until you taste blood, hoping to keep quiet. "It'll only get worse for you if you don't scream, Y/N/N." Blake scolds you, digging in the blade more. "He has to hear you." He adds through gritted teeth.

You hear a twig snap just outside the small clearing, and Blake is quickly turning to look with the sword still pinning you to the ground. "Rafe it's a trap!" You shout, hoping that it's him.

Rafe steps out then, into full view with his bow drawn as he aims at the boy in front of him. When they first met, he knew they would have been good friends if they met anywhere else. "You won't shoot me." Blake chuckles, and Rafe quickly readjusts his grip.

"I will." Rafe says sternly, pulling the string tighter as Blake moves the sword to hover over your chest. Over your heart.

"If you shoot, the last of my energy will go into killing her. I don't think you want that." He shakes his head, smiling smugly.

"I don't care." Rafe says, making your heart clench. You know that you're friends, at the very least. He does care. He's bluffing- you have to believe that.

"If you didn't care you would have shot me already." Blake calls it, and Rafe tenses up, looking down at you only briefly.

"Then what do you want?" Rafe spits.

"Oh, nothing. I just wanted you to watch." Blake shrugs. "Just makes it a little more fun, you know? But don't worry, you'll be next." You know he just wants to prove himself, somehow, not having scored as high as Rafe did. You wonder if his family was somehow similar- that he needed some kind of approval that he thought he might find through sadism.

Rafe looks down at you again, and you just nod, tears streaming down your temples to your ears. He quickly readjusts before letting the arrow fly, planting straight in the shoulder that held the sword as you quickly roll over, slicing across your chest and shoulder in the process. It was well worth it.

Rafe fires another arrow into his chest, not taking any risks and the cannon quickly follows as he rushes to your side.

"Are you okay?" He's asking, hands hovering above you as he's kneeled next to you, unsure what to do.

You nod, still biting into your tongue as blood continues to slide down your skin, dampening your now torn up clothes.

"It's not that bad." Rafe says, looking over the cuts as best he can, but you wince when he pulls the fabric away. "You're gonna be fine, alright?"

"Yeah, yeah..." You mumble, letting your head fall back against the brush below you. Rafe is quick to take his coat off, using it to push down on the deepest part of the wound on your shoulder, trying with his other hand to apply pressure to the rest of it. You try and focus on your breathing, rather than the pain, but it's hard when a significant amount of weight is being applied to your shoulder and chest.

"I'm sorry, I have to." Rafe tells you, jaw tense as he lifts his coat to check whether or not the bleeding has slowed. You didn't even realize you were crying.

After a few minutes, he's lessened the pressure a bit, still holding the fabric firmly over your skin. "You could have ran." You mumble, voice hardly above a whisper.

"I wasn't gonna leave you." Rafe shakes his head, gently peeling away his now blood soaked windbreaker.

"You at least shouldn't have saved me. Not much point in that, is there?" You smile softly, trying to sit up and Rafe is quick to help.

"There is. You have to win." He mutters.

"I'm not winning, Rafe." You smile sadly at him. "Infection will kill me if you won't, and if no one else does first."

"No, they'll fix you up. This cut will be gone in a week, the technology they have is-"

"Rafe." You grab his attention again and he looks up to meet your eyes. They seemed to suck in all the light of the sunset above the two of you, reflecting back at him in a way that makes his breath hitch. The thought is cut short, however, when you say something that breaks his heart. "Don't give me hope like that."

"Why? You're gonna go home. I mean it." He promises. "I'll make sure of it."

"I don't think we have enough." You remind him sadly, a small smile still evident on your lips as you reach up to cup his cheek in your palm. "I never expected to go home. I'm okay with that."

Your friend shakes his head softly. "That doesn't matter. You have your family to get home to, I read that note from your dad. They need you, I can see that. For me, these games are all I was raised for. I have nothing left for me after this." He admits, avoiding eye contact with you.  "I could never forgive myself if I didn't get you home."

Tears are forming in your eyes again as you look up at him. The world is watching, and in this moment of vulnerability you feel that more than ever- despite the quiet sounds around you being only the rushing water in the nearby river and the birds chirping around you. "You're a good person, Rafe." You smile at him, watching as he gently raises his hand to yours, grabbing it in his own. "I hope you know that."

In this moment, you settle on the idea that you would die for him. You never understood last years tributes, honestly, how they were willing to die for each other instead of getting home to their own loved ones, but now you do. Completely.

Without a second thought, you find yourself leaning closer, Rafe doing the same as he kneels next to you in the dark. Your eyes meet once more, lips only an inch from touching when you hear a howl in the distance, and you snap your head to the direction it came from. "The Mutts... Already?" You say, scrambling to get up and ignoring the pain in your shoulder.

"I- I heard them earlier, they sound far away." Rafe says, trying to calm you.

"You heard them? You didn't tell me?" You ask, frantically grabbing his bow from the ground and handing it to him as he goes to pull the discarded arrows out of Blake's body.

"I didn't think it mattered!" He defends, trying to hide the panic in his voice.

"There were four left last year when they sent them out. I think... yeah I think that's right. There's four of us. We have to run." You say in a panic, pulling on his hand. "Our best bet is making it back to the cornucopia."

"It'll be too open- can't we climb a tree or something?" Rafe says, following after you as you're running through the bush now in the direction of the open field.

"I don't know if that will work, but I know we'll be safe there." You explain like it's obvious. "We have to risk it- and if you can get to the others first, if they have the same idea, we'll be at ten."

You're out of breath already, adrenaline pushing you through as you hear scattered barking getting steadily closer after one more cannon. Part of you wants to stop, turn, and force Rafe to take the win if you couldn't have it, but with any hope left, you have to try and get back to where this started. The traps was an unfortunate choice in how you got your kills, because you couldn't keep track of how many since by the time you got around to checking them, the body's would have been airlifted off if it wasn't a misfire. If you had to guess, though, you were sitting at eight.

Rafe is running similar calculations in his head as he lets you lead him by memory straight to the field, mind short-circuiting as he sees the silver moonlight reflect off the cornucopia.

You sprint across the open field, blood pouring from your undressed wound again with the intense exertion of energy. Rafe doesn't pass you, though, despite you expecting that he would. You have tunnel vision as you make it to the metal structure, practically slamming into it before you can even stop. Rafe is quick to lift you and shove you up, both of you looking over your shoulders as you struggle to hold onto the edge, kicking the sides to hold yourself up.

You finally get up, reaching down to help pull Rafe up. He grabs onto your arm for leverage, mostly pulling himself up and you wince as you feel the tension from his weight in your cuts.

You flop down onto your back on the cold surface as he climbs over you, immediately standing up with bow drawn as he intently scans the surrounding area. He's only got the two arrows left, which makes him nervous if that's all he has to defend the both of you with.

You try to settle your breathing, which only lasts for a moment until the sky lights up with the recap. You miss your cave, where you could contribute to your memorial, especially seeing the face of Maisie flash above you on the sky while the anthem plays.

You close your eyes, just listening to the music now until you hear barking just outside of where Rafe can see, and you're quickly sitting up. He draws the bow tighter, aiming in the direction the howls came from just as someone pushes out into the clearing. Rafe is aimed straight at them, bow string pressed to his cheek. He's getting dizzy, and quickly. His aim can't fail him now, he doesn't have that option.

You watch them, in the dark you think it's the other boy from district one, and in your exhaustion you can't remember his name. You wouldn't dare say it, anyways. He's screaming for help, a call you know you can't answer, and you watch as they stumble on their feet, shoes and hands digging into the ground as they try to get up, just ten or so yards from you by now.

Rafe wants to shoot just then, it would be as simple as letting his finger loose and the arrow would fly towards its target. It would be a merciful end for the boy he's trained with for years now, only a couple years younger than him. The muscle in his jaw is aching from the tension he's put on it when he forces himself to let go. He has to do it, for himself, if he wants to go home.

He misses. The yelp of one of the mutts tells you it landed in a paw or back, and you look up at Rafe who's already drawn his second. "Rafe!" You cry out, pushing yourself up onto your feet and standing behind him now.

He hates to admit that your empathy has rubbed off on him. Watching you every night carving seemingly endless names and numbers into the rocks that lined the space you stepped in. He recalls waking up one morning and seeing your name and his carved in as well, closer to where he laid by the fire, his underlined and yours with a heart at the end. Like a signature on the top of a math test. He had wondered if you always wrote your name like that, and in this moment as he releases the bow again, he knows he has to find out for himself.

It happened so fast, the mutts knocking down the boy and the arrow flying from Rafe's shaky hands into where he should have been right as the cannon sounds. You don't know that it was Rafe's arrow that did him in.

"No..." You mumble, clamouring forward and onto your knees again to look over as the boys body is torn apart by the mutts. "You had to have done it. You had to." You say, trying to get a better view.

In a second, Rafe's arms are around you and he's pulling you back from the edge, sitting now behind you with his arms wrapped tightly over your body. "It's okay.. it's over." He mumbles, kissing the side of your head as the sunlight comes over the trees. He's fighting off the urge to vomit, everything spinning around him now.

You sit with him, gripping onto his arms and crying. Nothing is happening, so you must not have made it to ten. You feel sick- your heart is in your throat and suddenly you're really hot, moving away from him to look over the edge again, this time incase you have to throw up. You freeze, looking over to where the boy's body once was. The second arrow was in the ground. He missed again.

Rafe sees it at the same time as you. He sighs, hanging his legs over the edge. "Shit... Y/N, I'm sorry." He mumbles, gently reaching over to rub your back.

"No, no. It's okay." You insist, sitting up next to him. "I knew this would happen."

"I'll get you home." Rafe says, sliding down the side of the cornucopia before you can stop him. He stumbles the landing, swaying in his walk as he heads towards the arrow lodged into the dirt.

"Wait! Wait, wait, Rafe!" You're sliding down after him, running to his side and grabbing his arm before he can get to the arrow in the ground.

He turns to you quickly, hand on your cheek and he's pressing his lips to your forehead. "Sit with me?" He asks, knees already giving out as he falls to the ground.

You're instantly on the ground beside him, practically holding his head up with your free hand as you search him visually for some kind of injury.  "What happened? Are you hurt?"

"Uh, I guess so." Rafe mutters. "Snake bite. I think."

"You didn't tell me? I could have fixed this, I could have helped..." You ramble on, his eyes dropping shut now. "Hey, eyes open."

"It's okay. Just sit with me..." He says again, smiling weakly. "Wait with me... please?"

You nod, sniffling as you fight back the tears that want to fall. "Yeah, of course. I'll stay."

Before he closes his eyes, the music starts again and your eyes are drawn up to the sky after you notice Rafe is looking first.

Then, begins a similar slideshow of faces you recognize. Ten in total. Rafe's eyes flicker with slight recollection, remembering any kills he made himself and you gasp when you see Jack. Whatever damage you had done when he tackled you on the first day must have killed him. "Rafe.." You mumble, lowering your eyes to meet his. "I think we won."

Your point is accentuated by the voice of the head gamemaker over some unseen speakers. "Introducing the Victors of the Seventy-Fifth Annual Hunger Games!"

"We did it." Rafe laughs weakly, squeezing your hand.

You fully ignore the aircraft hovering down in front of you on the grass, turning your head to look down at him. You don't say anything, neither of you do, and you finally feel your lips against his. The kiss is bad, it doesn't really work when both of you are stuck smiling ear to ear, but you don't care one bit. The only thing that matters is that you got this chance at all.

Rafe pulls away from you slowly, using all the strength he has left to lift himself onto his feet as you steady him. "He needs help!" You shout to them, and you're quickly being lead onto the plane.

"They've got really good technology," You mock what he said to you just the day before. "It'll be like it never happened in a week, okay?" You chuckle, feeling waves of happiness, worry, and relief all at once as you quickly wipe away a tear with your free hand, other arm wrapped tightly around Rafe's waist to hold him up.

He laughs, and you lean into him more, your forehead against his shoulder as the aircraft door slides shut behind you.

taglist: @bookishbabyyy @madelynie, @whore-4-drewstarkey, @slut4drudy, @winterrrnight, @totalswag, @sadfury @fullfledgedemo @rafemotherfuckingcameron, @urfaveluvr, @chenslucy, @hxnnah-397, @s-we-e-t-t-ea, @tahliac11, @saccharinesammie, @ietss, @maybankslover @redhead1180, @suzyheartsrafe, @wpdailyminimeta, @aegons-bitch, @rafegirly, @lovelyxtommy @dee127

[ninapi]

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┊┊┊✧ ⁺ ⁺╚══ Snake Pillar ╝

Premise: Love isn't always something beautiful, wanted, expected. Iguro had always been in love with Mitsuri, but that didn't stop his Tsuguko from falling for him.

Word Count: 3686

Warning: Main character death, spoilers of the main manga timeline.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Spring, everyone’s favorite season was now here.

The Sakura trees were in full bloom in the capital, the streets filled with beautiful petals flocking around the chilly wind.

Animals and humans alike were now getting intimate to bring new life to this world.

The perfect season for demons to go rampage in town.

After a two weeks long mission along the fire pillar, you were summoned by Oyakata-sama and his wife, the reason was unknown to you but the messenger didn’t seem to be carrying bad news.

“(Y/N) my child. You’ve proven to be the best of your generation; we’ve both been talking, and we think you should be upgraded to Tsuguko. I believe you have the potential to be our next pillar.”

That caught you off guard, yes, the mission was very intense, but if it wasn’t for Rengoku-san you would have died, at least four times. You considered yourself just one more of the bunch, nothing special, besides your bond with the fire pillar that is. You both got more than along, were in complete sync, and everybody knew about this, even your master.

“That would be an honor, Oyakata-sama. If I may ask for something selfish, is it possible to…”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The pillars were summoned for a brief meeting a few days later, the crows didn’t elaborate on the reason, but it didn’t seem urgent, so they all arrived at their own pace.

Once Oyakata-sama arrived, they all took their respective place around the leader, excited to see their master.

“My beloved children. Sorry to call you with such a short notice, I have some good news that wanted to share with you.” this didn’t happen often, usually the meetings were about important upcoming missions or bigger troubles, but he looked awfully calm this time around.

“(Y/N) has proven her worth in countless missions and the last one was her last trial; she will be officially our new Tsuguko starting tomorrow.” Rengoku’s smile was so bright even Gyomei could feel it. He was radiating fire at this point, as proud as one could be.

“Sanemi, I think you’re the perfect match for our little (Y/N).” this caused said smile to drop to the floor in seconds, he was sure he would be the chosen one.

“With all due respect, Oyakata-sama. I can see the logic behind it, she does have great wind affinity, but I honestly don’t think she can withstand my harsh training, wouldn’t it be better to send her over to Rengoku?” Ah... Shinazugawa…such a lovely man, thought Rengoku as his smile was slowly returning to its rightful place.

“Yes, I thought so too, they do have amazing chemistry. But you know I always listen to my wife; she insists she’d be better off with you.” that left Sanemi speechless and a little bothered, he really didn’t want to train a little spoiled brat, he was already busy at it is.

“I can sense your discomfort, Sanemi. And let me lift those worries out right now, even if we both agreed you should be the one, (Y/N) herself came to us asking if it was possible to be trained under Obanai’s lead, she didn’t even know who she would be sent to by then, but she made her preferences known, and I respect that.” Iguro had a coughing attack at the news, having to place a hand on the ground to recover.

“She did what?” Rengoku was beyond heartbroken, he even forgot Oyakata-sama was the one delivering the news, he would never disrespect him in any way, but this was shocking.

“Rengoku.” Himejima clapped his hands loudly, making Rengoku realize what he had done, throwing himself on the floor at once. “I’m sorry for my behavior, Oyakata-sama. Are you sure…she said that?”

“Lift your head Kyojuro. She did, it sounded like she had a reason though. Why don’t you try asking her?” with a short nod, he went back to his seat, crestfallen.

“Obanai, I know you didn’t want a Tsuguko. But she’s the best we have right now, please make sure to train her properly and don’t be too harsh on her, she asked nicely, must really want to be under your care.”

Iguro was losing his cool. He wasn’t only getting a Tsuguko against his will, it was a girl at that. And not just any girl, the girl majority of the guys around the corps had a crush on, even the almighty fire pillar. He didn’t want this, not in the slightest.

“Iguro-san, Iguro-san! (Y/N) is so, so, so, cute! You’re so lucky! I envy you so much!” Kanroji was pulling from her braids in despair, she had been begging for a Tsuguko and had wished for a cute girl to dot on and talk about boys, you were the perfect candidate.

“Oyakata-sama, as I’m sure you know, I’m not good with girls. How can I have a female Tsuguko?” his breath was ragged, his head was spinning, he really didn’t want any of this. “Can’t you give her over to Kanroji?”

“My children,” his tone wasn’t as loving as it usually is anymore, sending chills down everyone’s spine, “This is not an auction, Rengoku and Kanroji might want her, I wanted her under Sanemi myself, but she wants you, Obanai. I’m being as fair as I can be, she’s the one who must be trained by you, the one who will suffer the consequences of this decision, and it has been made, there’s nothing more to argue about. You are all dismissed.”

They all got up from their seat, walking out to the garden as soon as he spoke, Sanemi collapsing on the floor with a satisfied long sigh, “Safe.”

Rengoku on the other hand was quietly sulking behind a wooden post.

Iguro was just there, trying to regain some air back to his lungs and to process what had happened, his loyal friend hissing on his ear trying to offer some sort of comfort.

“Iguro-san! Don’t doubt to call me if you need help! I’m a girl too, we get each other. Maybe I can even steal from time to time and smother her with love after your harsh training! Ahw! So exciting!” Mitsuri was swaying on her feet, daydreaming happily of who knows what atrocities.

“Will do….” his voice was nothing but a whisper, his feet safely guiding him back to his state. Life wasn’t on his side, he’s always been aware of this since he was a child, but this, this was just too much.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

You were in the serpent state with your bags by sunrise, ready to fully immerse yourself in the experience, a bright smile on your face.

Iguro, who just woke up was definitely not ready for this, not even saying good morning he jumped right into the matter that barely allowed him to sleep last night, “(L/N) why did you ask to be my Tsuguko? Wasn’t Rengoku a better fit? I’m sure we can get Oyakata-sama to reassign you if we both go toge-“

“I want to be trained by you, Iguro-san. Is that a bad thing?” your eyes were glossy, disappointment painting your features. He wasn’t trying to make you cry, he was just not the right man for the job.

“Why would you want that? You know my training is rough right? I won’t slow down just because you are a girl.”

“I am not expecting you to slow down. I just thought Tsugukos were chosen by affinity. I think you are the coolest Iguro-san…I would like to inherit the snake breathing techniques one day…” this was the first time someone called him cool, this was specially surprising coming from someone who’s been near Rengoku for the longest time.

“Not everyone can do this. You have to have a connection with the species-“ your eyes were glued to the beautiful snake around his shoulders, a childlike expression on your face. “You just want to touch Kaburamaru, don’t you?” his eyes were full of realization, he caught you.

This made you giggle, the snake skillfully wrapping around your arm on its own, quickly enamored by you. “Maybe…”

The ridiculousness of it all made Iguro accept his fate, his snake friend seemed comfortable enough with your presence, he is always friendly but not to this level, you probably had potential for his breathing style by the looks of it, he had to give you a chance to prove yourself.

“Go drop your stuff in the empty room by the entrance, I’ll see you in the training grounds in ten.” He’s never seen such a bright smile before, Kanroji had the most beautiful there is, but your smile was different, it felt warm, you were probably rubbing on Rengoku for too long, it had to be that.

Throwing it to the back of his mind, he moved on with his day.

He had a Tsuguko now, training would be his priority for a while.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Rengoku was still in shock, even if an entire day had gone by. He was sure you guys had a thing, or was it just his imagination?

You don’t just hold hands with random people, right? He wasn’t the most experienced in the love department, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t just him, the longing in your eyes each time you saw him, the way you smiled at him so brightly, so tenderly, it couldn’t be all in his head.

He wanted to see it with his own eyes, so he headed to Iguro’s training grounds, he needed to hear it from you, the reason why.

You were exhausted, panting on the floor after a very long training morning with your favorite pillar. Kaburamaru was laying on you, sunbathing on your belly, making you giggle as you caressed his beautiful scales. Iguro was watching the interaction from up a tree, you didn’t know he was there, but you knew he had to be close otherwise the snake would have left after him already.

He was about to leave when Rengoku arrived, his worried expression made him want to stay a little more. In all truth, he was still wishing you would change your mind and go with the fire pillar, but after training you all morning he wasn’t as discouraged to train you anymore, you had more than enough potential to be a pillar and Kaburamaru loved you, it wasn’t easy to find someone so compatible with his own skills, it would honestly be a shame, even if he didn’t want to accept it.

“(Y/N) dear, is your training for the day over? I wanted to have a word with you…” getting up gently, you set the little snake down on a patch of grass before heading your way over to him. “Sure, Kyo-san. What’s up?”

“I…I was wondering why you chose to come to Iguro instead of being with me. We have such an awesome connection, having you teaming with him instead will be devastating for me.” he was more heartbroken than anything else, he couldn’t care less for the missions, he could do it all by himself, he just enjoyed them so much more since you started tagging along, he misses you already.

“We do, yes.. I just…well you know how everyone’s scared of him? I just think he deserves a chance; nobody wants to be his Tsuguko and I think we could potentially get along one day, he’s great with animals, and so am I. Don’t you think I could be a good serpent breathing representative? I don’t think I could do cool things with fire like you do.” your heart was so big, it was one of the things he loved about you, he couldn’t be upset anymore after hearing your reasoning.

“And what about good old Rengoku? He needs a Tsuguko too you know? I will miss you…” his voice dropped along with his hand which now rested on your waist.

“Good old Kyo-san has a cute little brother that will eventually come to be in his care, he doesn’t need me.” your cute giggles were music to his ears, he really did like you, a lot.

Iguro on the other hand felt uncomfortable watching this whole thing. So you felt pity? Was that it? You wanted to be with him so he wouldn’t end up being the only pillar without an apprentice? He didn’t know how to feel about this, it didn’t feel good, but it also made something fuzzy bloom in his chest.

“Oh? So he’s cute, huh? Is he cuter than me? Am in troubles?” a low chuckle rumbled in his chest, his hand tugging you closer to him.

“You might be~” poking your tongue out at him in a teasing manner, you ran away from him and headed inside the serpent state, “Gotta take a bath, see you later Kyo-san!”

Iguro came out of the tree to pick sleeping Kaburamaru up, Rengoku glaring in his direction. “Didn’t peg you as a stalker, Iguro.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but this is my state. Now, I would like to make it clear from the start that I expect you to stop clinging to my Tsuguko. She needs to train hard; distractions are not welcomed.” he didn’t know why he was saying all this, words were just coming out of his mouth on their own.

“Weren’t you into Kanroji? Why does it matter to you if I cling to her or not?” raising one of his intimidating eyebrows up, he scoffed. “I well, what? No, I’m not. But she has nothing to do with this. I just don’t want you parading around my state all day, that’s all.”

“I’m not here to see you, so I don’t see why it bothers you this much. But ok, I will leave my time with her reserved for after training hours, then I get to have her all to myself.” without another word, he headed to his own state, his heart felt a bit lighter now that he cleared things up with you, but he’s never heard Iguro talk this much, it was a bit concerning.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

One thing about Obanai is that he wakes up early every morning, even before the sun’s up.

The reason why being he just didn’t want anybody to get a the slightest glimpse of his unwrapped self as he takes a bath, other members of the corpse share the space and he didn’t want anybody to be even more on edge because of him.

You were the contrary, always late, falling asleep was your worse flaw and he hated it deep down in his guts, but he was glad in a way as he never had to encounter you bright and early when he is most tense.

That was until this day.

You weren’t what you would consider ‘early’ you just didn’t sleep at all, there were a lot of things in your head and coming from a difficult mission with lots of death plaguing it would of course cause you to lose sleep. So you decided to take a bath and start stretching while you waited for your training session to start.

You bumped into him on his way out of the bathing area, making both of your towels fall to the ground. Crouching to pick both up you apologized profusely. “I’m so sorry Iguro-san, I didn’t know there was someone in the bath already!”

He was paralyzed with fear, his face out in the open for everyone to see.

You tried not to stare, but this was your first time seeing his face properly. “Don’t look, I’m hideous…” he tried to cover his face with a bucket nearby, your hand reaching over to stop him from doing so.

“There’s no such thing as a hideous person, Iguro-san. I can understand you being self-conscious about the scar, we all obsess over something in our body, I personally don’t like my thighs, that’s why I cover them, but people say they’re nothing out of the ordinary, even if to me they’re awful.”

Mumbling behind his sleeve, he peeked one eye out to look down to your succulent thighs, “They’re fine…why would you hate them?”

“And why would you hate your beautiful face? Makes no sense to me~” giggling past him, you went inside the bathing area, needing to hurry as your trainer was up already.

“B-beautiful? What-…” scoffing, he headed over to his room, quickly wrapping his face away from the world as he usually does. You were indeed a weird one, always seeing the best out of every situation, it was honestly refreshing, but difficult to handle for someone like him.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Time skip~

You’ve been under Iguro’s care for over a year now. You’ve perfected the first three breathing techniques, surprising him with your progress.

You were good, he was even fearing Kaburamaru would leave him and become your partner full time. Who can blame him though? After all this time seeing you around every day, he gets now what people see in you. Not only were you pretty, but you were strong, considerate, kind, selfless. Definitely a match for Rengoku, not him.

You were now sure of his undying love for Kanroji, she would visit him often, eat lunch together, he even bought stuff for her constantly, it was painstakingly obvious they both liked each other. As it was how much Rengoku liked you.

You on the other hand had mixed feelings.

Of course, Rengoku is lovely, he wanted to pursue you officially, but you had a hard time accepting his feelings. You spend all your day with Iguro, you’ve got to truly see him for what he really is, learned to accept him, entertain him, be in sync with him. You now made a great team. It was him you thought about before going to bed and as soon as you woke up. It was him who you wished to receive praises from, it was him you wanted to make proud.

Even if he was clearly in love with someone else, your feelings shifted his way without anyone’s consent.

The way he would bring you a cup of tea after a harsh training routine, the way he would sit quietly next to you eating sweets peacefully, you’ve seen his face already and wasn’t disgusted by it, he could eat around you comfortably.

The way he would let you hold onto his arm if the missions were tough. The way his eyes soften now in your presence.

You were deep in love with a man who’s heart belonged to someone else…

A mission came around for you two, a particularly tough demon had come out very near a village booming with tourists. It needed to be contained and destroyed as fast as possible.

You’ve seen the way his demeanor towards you had changed every time you talk, you know he didn’t think of you as a nuisance anymore, but you also knew he wouldn’t accept your feelings, and as hard as that might be, you decided to keep your feelings to yourself and treasure the relationship you currently had with him.

The demon was tougher than you two expected, even with a pillar there you were having a hard time killing him. Three women had already lost their life to his rampage, you needed to do something.

Since he seemed to like killing women, you were trying to devise a plan to lure him in and give Iguro time to cut his head off, but your head turned blank when you saw the demon sneaking behind Iguro and about to stab him right through the heart.

Panic surged through your body, inhuman speed possessing you as you rushed to his aid, receiving the blow instead.

Iguro saw it all in slow motion, how you fell to the ground, covered in blood, how the wound had pierced a vital organ dooming your recovery. His rage served as the means necessary to cut the demon’s head and send him to oblivion. But the cut was too deep, he didn’t know how to help you.

You could barely keep your eyes open when he gathered you to his chest, tears unexpectedly coming down his face slowly, one after the other, “(Y/N), no, why? Why?? You’re so stupid, how many times have I told you I’m stronger than you? I can take a blow like that! But you….just look at you….why, just why would you do this…?” your hand reached over to his face wrappings, undoing them so you got to see a glimpse of his face one last time.

“Because I love you. I couldn’t just let you die Iguro-san...” his hand came over to stop yours from fully removing the wraps, his entire being too shaken by the situation to comprehend your words.

“C’mon…let me see your beautiful face one last time…I don’t have much left…” your soft smile and trembling hand made him forgo his stubbornness, letting you remove the wraps.

“Thank you for letting me be your Tusuguko…even when you didn’t like me.” you chuckled slightly, coughing out blood while doing so, alerting Iguro and making him tighten his grip around your faint body. “I know you don’t like your face, but I will always think of it as the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. I hope you felt loved while being around me, even if it was just a little…” he nodded, collapsing to the ground fully with you in his arms. He really liked Mitsuri, everyone knew about this, but you had loved him like no one else had, openly, abundantly, and he couldn’t give you any of it back.

“Would you…remember me…?”

“Of course I will, what are you saying…you’re my only Tsuguko, I will never have another one, the techniques will die with us…” nuzzling his chest, you gave one last shaky breath, “Thank you…Igu-….” Leaving this world in the hands of a loved one has no price, makes time living among others worthwhile.

With a smile on his teary face, he bid goodbye to his only apprentice, the woman that loved him to her own demise.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The serpent state was never to be the same and he made sure of it.

He made everyone leave and remained there on his own, never taking another Tsuguko as he promised he would.

He likes Mitsuri, everybody knows that, even her, and he did till his very last breath, but he always carried with him the load you left him, the unshared feelings, the overwhelming amount of love you had towards him and Kaburamaru and always lived within him, being his companions until his arrival in the afterlife.

▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄

Masterlist

[cer-rata]

A (long) review of the first 5 issues of Wonder Woman (2023) *Full Spoilers*

So I'm a bit of a lapsed comic fan. I grew up on my dad's collection of 90's comics and kept up on and off until the new 52 which did a lot that really put me off. And frankly Marvel wasn't doing much better so I kind of moved onto different fandoms and some smaller runs. Recently however I've decided to try to get back into the hobby more seriously, and while there have been some books that I've really enjoyed, there's been a lot of meh plots and inconsistent characterization pretty much everywhere across the major publishers.

But I was nonetheless excited to see a new Wonder Woman ongoing. Out of the trinity, Diana was always my favorite (a fact that I, as a little closeted boy, kept secret for years. More on that later) and I was aware of some of Tom King's works and was pretty impressed with his "Vision" run, so I was cautiously optimistic about the prospect of a popular modern writer giving Diana some love, and was hoping for a story with some modern nuance and uplifting fun.

The bag has been...mixed at best.

So I'm going to try to be fair about this, because writing genuinely good and transformative comics isn't easy, especially when your editorial is completely unhinged. That being said I do have some serious concerns that I think are really important to talk about.

I'm also lapsed so I haven't read everything religiously the past couple years, so if I get something about canon wrong please correct me in the notes.

I'm going to break this down into a couple of sections to help organize my thoughts. The art is gorgeous generally so I'm not going to spend too much time on that. Let's start with:

Plot

The name of this arc is Wonder Woman: Outlaw, and the first issue is devoted to setting up that premise. The action kicks off when an amazon gets into a bar fight with a group of sexist men, and ends up slaughtering every man in the establishment. The government reacts to this development poorly and ends up ordering the forced deportation of the Amazons that had settled in the states. We're given narration by a mysterious figure, detailing how Diana and her friends lobbied and fought against this obvious injustice but failed, laid over images of an Amazon resisting her deportation with violence, and being gunned down in front of her wife and daughter.

But how, you ask, was the government able to rush through this bizarre reactionary stunt?

Well you see, this is all a part of a scheme by the Sovereign, the CEO of sexism and an American "king" whose family has used the "Lasso of Lies" to control the country for it's entire existence. He showed up in WW #800 with Trinity seeking him out for information, which explains why he's narrating this story. A Wonder Woman book where she isn't the POV character? I'll get more into that later.

Anyway the Sovereign wants to run all of the amazons out of the country or kill them, whatever works, as he believes they're a threat to his rule and masculinity as a whole.

So he's in the background. The foreground antagonist is Sargent Steel, who's been tasked with leading the Amazon deportation and is actively hunting Diana, who he eventually corners as she's paying her respects to the men that the rogue amazon killed. He tries to assassinate her, obviously fails, and Diana extracts some information from him and begins her investigation. See it turns out that after running out of other options, she's trying to hunt down the rogue amazon and figure out what's going on in the hopes that she solve the tensions.

So that's the basic premise of the arc, Diana is trying to solve a murder mystery while being actively hunted by the government. It's not a bad premise on its own honestly, so I was intrigued. The first issue is pretty, well laid out and interesting. The problem is that the following issues don't really deliver on that premise.

Instead of detective!Diana, we spent issue #2 on a (gorgeous) fight with the actual US army, intercut with a flashback of Diana's trial by combat in order to leave Themyscira in the first place. It really is a beautiful issue that really drives home how much of a badass she is, especially since she ends up not killing anyone in the process. Somehow. She did throw tanks at people so...I'm not sure how she...anyway.

Issue #3 is Diana walking into Steel's base, bulldozing through all the security and then bullying him to get some more information about the case, where she finds out that the Amazon is pregnant. Intriguing right? Meanwhile we see the Sovereign showing a young soldier around his house, which is filled with old American historical artifacts. See he wants this kid to push the narrative that Wonder Woman emasculated him and took away his pride, but the soldier doesn't really care? He's actually excited to have fought a superhero and live, and he thinks she's cool. So that won't do, and we're shown the capabilities of the Lasso of Lies, as the Sovereign uses it to implant feelings of discontent and depression into the young soldier, while also ordering him to write a manifesto about Wonder Woman taking his manliness and then to...kill himself. The idea being to create some bad press and push public support away from Diana.

Issue #4 is my favorite in the run so far, devoting most of it's time to watching Diana give a terminally ill kid who idolizes her the best day of his life. I'll get into it when I talk about dialogue later but I think it's the truest depiction of Diana so far, you get to see her kindness, generosity and wisdom. There is a nice moment where she comforts the kid about destiny and soothes his feelings of otherness in the face of the expectation that he should be drawn to a male hero. It's really nice. But also kind of a strange decision in the scope of the plot. As much as I love this moment, I think her taking a day away from her mission of stopping this political disaster and being on the run to just hang out with a kid is...odd from a pacing standpoint. With the lack of effort she's shown so far in dealing with Steel and the machinations of the Sovereign, and the threat to the Amazons happening mostly off screen and with very limited access how Diana's feeling about it all because she's not the narrator, it all wraps up in not feeling very urgent. It's mentioned that she's trying to control her emotions and that makes sense in theory, but with the way she's drawn and written she just seems unbothered.

Meanwhile, Amanda Waller tells Steel that they're just going to throw all of Diana's villains at her and call it a day.

Issue #5 Deals with the Wonder Girls, Cassie, Donna and Yara trying to convince Diana to accept some help. She challenges them to trials where if they can beat her she'll allow them to assist. It's kind of a neat concept, but it highlights a strange piece of this characterization of Wonder Woman: her desire to work alone.

It's...very Batman of her in ways that don't make much sense in the narrative and in the broader scope of her characterization. And it would be more understandable if the conflict was more focused, Diana hunting down Cheetah to try to reform her, a more personal mission. But this literally involves all of her people and could lead to actual war between the states and Themysicra. It seems weirdly shortsighted for her to shun help from adult Women who she's trained and worked with in the past. The rationalization that she doesn't want to endanger them falls completely flat because they're already in danger.

Also what is Yara referring to here? She acts like there's history of them working together and it not working out. Why do they insist on trying to make her a Wonder Girl in the first place?

Anyway they all lose but then ignore the terms of the wager and show up in her apartment in their costumes, not taking no for an answer. And like that they ignored that foolishness, but then I'm bothered that we spent almost an entire issue on this pointless conflict that didn't really teach us anything useful.

But I did say almost, and the rest of the issue is devoted to Steel and the Sovereign convincing some of Diana's greatest foes to join up on a squad to take her down.

Which is...a choice. Don't get me wrong, it's a cool sequence, and It's not an unusual conceit in comics to collect a bunch of villains to take down their nemesis, but as far as I was aware, in this continuity:

Giganta and Silver Swan had buried the hatchet

Circe also helped Diana defeat the upside down man, and seemingly dropped her animosity (and...I...I thought she was trapped in a mirror. How did they get her out?) But regardless, why on earth would Circe agree to work for anyone, especially the US gov?

Grail was never that focused on Diana in the first place, but I could see her wanting to kill her for kicks, but again, why would she agree to work with lesser beings and take orders from mortals?

Angle man is nuts, so, sure

And Dr. Psycho does hate Wonder Woman with a passion so sure.

But this doesn't take into account that if they were to be written correctly, Circe or Grail on their own are justice league threats, and even with the Wonder Girls helping that would be an uphill battle. And then you add all the others, and factor in the dubious choices here in relation to established canon and it leaves me concerned that none of these villains are going to be used properly to their potential, or written in character. The idea that they were convinced to do this in the first place is hand-waved away, likely because there are no real persuasive arguments to get someone like Grail or Circe to job like this.

But enough of that tangent. This upcoming slug fest raises the question: What happened to the investigation into this rogue Amazon? 5 issues in and all we know is her name and that she's pregnant. Diana doesn't even know her name though, because if she did she'd realize that she actually knew the woman. So 5 issues in and the main plot has taken a backseat to watching Wonder Woman be a badass and including a bunch of villains. And don't get me wrong, I love a badass Wonder Woman. I was absolutely thrilled watching her go to work on people. But if you strip away those exciting set pieces and try to follow the plot and themes, there's not much substance there.

And you know, now that we've got an overview of what's happening, let's talk about the greater ideas here.

Themes

So King clearly wants to investigate misogyny in this book, with his villain Johnny Sexism. Uh. I mean, The Sovereign, an old white man who hates women and believes in the divine right of kings and wields the literal Lasso of Lies. And his unwitting sidekick, Military Industrial Complex Man, AKA Sargent Steel.

So it's not inherently bad to personify an social issue. Comics often work in shorthand like that. The issue I have here is that when you have a mastermind character who has manipulated everything behind the scenes, who is ALSO a caricature of a social problem, instead of providing interesting analysis of a systemic problem and its sources and methods, you instead attribute it all to One Evil Man. Which is painfully reductive and misguided. Sexism is complicated, much more complicated that one evil wizard deciding that women are the problem. It's like if you created a vampire slave owner who had been manipulating the country from the shadows and created the system of racism. It's bizarre and not really analysis to suggest that you can just solve social issues by stopping individual bad actors.

The bit with the soldier really crystalized this for me. We are given a kind man who has no misogynistic tendencies, and then the CEO of sexism forcibly implants it into his mind. He's shown personally bullying the president into submission, manipulating Steel, most overt examples of sexism can be tied directly to the Sovereign, which is a bizarre choice that really flattens the narrative weight. Couple that with the fact that the Sovereign is shown to be completely ill-equipped to actually stop Diana. She literally walks through all of his roadblocks, doesn't seem like she's out of control of the situation outside of the opening explanation that she wasn't able to save her sisters. The only real threat so far is the team of villains, and that's framed as Amanda Waller's plan. Why isn't she the villain of this book? And he's the narrator. In a book about sexism, immigration and tribalism, the voice we hear the most is that of the Sovereign. And he doesn't have anything particularity interesting to say. He's not scary, he doesn't seem particularly competent and he provides no interesting analysis so I'm left wondering, why are we centering his perspective over Diana's? In a book lead by a feminist icon, about the evils of sexism, we are completely locked out of her head. She barely gets a chance to speak, and when she does it's clipped and robotic. There's no personality, and certainly no continuity to her popular depictions. I'm all for writers reaching for topics, trying to make social commentary. Some of the best arcs we've ever gotten deal with real issues. But you have to A: Know what you're talking about and B: Actually talk about it. Sexism bad, men bad--it's not enough, it's not analysis, it's not revelatory and by creating such ridiculous caricatures of hyper masculinity, you make it very easy for the average male reader, who I assume you're trying to engage with, to separate themselves from the equation. It's thematic window dressing, and frustrating to see in a Wonder Woman book of all places. I don't think that only woman can write women, that's ridiculous and removes the responsibility to be better from male writers. But, if you're going to talk about social issues that apply to a group you're not a part of, you'd better know what you're talking about. Hell even if you're in that group you still have to know what you're talking about. This is feminism that starts and ends with "Sexism bad" and it's 2024, we have to be smarter about this.

That being said, I think issue #4 has bits of the right idea. Seeing Diana representing something greater than the sexist division that the world perpetuates is great. I felt incredibly seen as a little boy who loved Wonder Woman, and that moment of kindness meant a lot. We're given believable symptoms of sexism, from Jack's dad being uncomfortable with his son idolizing Diana. and Jack having internalized that judgement. It's handled gently and instead of just beating us over the head with obvious allegory, it shows us a taste of what Wonder Woman stands for: a better, more loving world. And it's mostly because it's the most insight that we get from her about how she thinks. The best part of the book about Wonder Woman is, shockingly, the part about Wonder Woman. Why can't we get more of that?

Dialogue

Man it's weird. King is clearly snappy, with a decent sense of humor. There's lots of fun exchanges in this book, particularly the backups, which I'll get to soon. He's pretty good at dialogue, which makes the way he writes Diana so bizarre. Awkward sentence structure, aloof characterization, the grating repeated use of "No thank you" as some sort of catch phrase. What? king has taken the warm beating heart of the trinity and made her distant and robotic. It's kind of impressive. And some of the rationale is that she's in emotional turmoil and trying to maintain appearances. But that's not reflected in the art at all, even when she's alone. We're told that she's conflicted and angry but almost never shown it. She feels like a side character in her own book most of the time. Speaking of side characters:

The Backups

So the running plot here is Damian Wayne and Jon Kent...babysitting? raising? Diana's daughter Lizzie Prince, who is eventually known as the hero Trinity in the future. And it's cute, particularly when they're all younger. King really gets Damian and Jon's characterization and writes some really fun exchanges.

Issue #4 and #5's backups are a little weaker but still really fun.

So my question is...why is the best characterization in this Wonder Woman book the backups starring the Supersons? I love the Supersons! Why are they here? Why would Diana choose them to watch her daughter? Why isn't she on Themyscira or being watched by any of her adult friends, especially those who have actual experience with children? It's fun but feels shoehorned and poorly reasoned. Honestly? I get the feeling that king wants to write this more than he does the main book, and it's mind boggling, because I wouldn't hate him writing supersons, and his version of Jon is the most Jon we've gotten in a while. So why is he writing Wonder Woman?

Conclusion

I think I'll keep reading, mostly to fuel my desire to see what they do with her actual villains, but it's not the smart book I was hoping for. It takes pretty big liberties with characterization and recent canon and there's not much actual commentary to find here. The art and the action are incredible, but the story that should be supporting it is pretty anemic and frustrating, with moments of genuine quality that makes the rest of the book even more disappointing.

Honestly? Just read Amazons Attack instead. Better dialogue, better pacing, better characterization, just more fun.

[judgybitch]

Podcast: Ghost Wax

Episode Count: 49 (45 numbered episodes, 1 episode that's not numbered, 2 episodes that seem to be part of a patreon series, and 2 Q&A's, I have not subscribed to the patreon)

Last update: Season 1 finished on Halloween and the the last Q&A followed soon after. The most recent update to the podcast in general was on December 6th to notify listeners of a kickstarter for a kickstarter from the creator that is unrelated to the podcast.

Brief synopsis taken directly from apple podcasts is: Ghost Wax is a horror fiction podcast following the work of the last "reclaimer", investigating a series of unnatural killings by raising the dead and committing their final statements to wax cylinder. The synopsis from their official squarespace website though is: Ghost Wax is a Fantasy Horror Podcast: Owen Voncid is the last Reclaimer. The last person able to wake the dead and hear their tales. To combat the darkness of the realms beyond, even the black art of necromancy is a line worth crossing.

I'm personally not sure why the synopsis is different across platforms and am unsure if there are any further changes on other locations but this does kind of annoy me. Not enough to change my rating, but enough to make me side eye the creators a bit.

Star Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

TL;DR: Even with the length of the show, I'd love to recommend it to people, but I can't without caveats. And most of those caveats have nothing to do with the script writing, sound design, the voice acting, or even the character design. My worries are for its worldbuilding, which is already at a level where I'm worried about them being able to maintain it as time goes on, and I am deeply concerned that this show isn't exactly accessible. Most don't have trigger warnings which can be okay since it's a horror show so approach with caution, but there's also a severe lack of transcripts available on their website. Less than half have them in fact. So there's a group of people I would recommend this to, but many where I can't.

Full review after read more.

Ghost Wax was another horror podcast that I went into knowing literally nothing about it. The cover art intrigued me, as did the first episode I was recommended by another podcast. And instantly I was intrigued. The idea of creating something that gives the dead a way to tell their last moments isn't new, it's something people have been dreaming up in fiction and searching for in real life for an extremely long time. Some versions of this fictionalized idea can be grotesque, dragging a long suffering soul from a pit of despair just to wring out their last moments for something unseemly, or they can go the Ghost Wax route.

Voncid, despite being a curmudgeonly creature (and I do mean creature in a more literal sense since while I don't fully understand what he is, he's not 'human'), is compassionate to the dead. He cares extremely deeply about the dead's comfort and how they feel. He wants answers about how they died, but he also wants them to know they can tell their story at their own pace. Combine that with a warm old man voice and you've got a recipe for moments that can be achingly beautiful amidst the horrors around them.

And so despite having no skin in the game going in, I ended up feeling extremely excited about the show just within a few episodes. I wanted to know more about Voncid, Luca, Pip, Charlie, and Jinx the cat. I cared about how they were doing and I looked forward to each new story from the deceased. That's not to say every episode was a banger. V.ideo H.orror S.tory has kind of a goofy ending for my taste. Not enough to make it bad, but enough to make it nowhere near my favorite episode. Hilariously enough though, according to the Q&A part 2, an episode a lot of people hated was The Final Countdown. And honestly, I know this is gonna sound ridiculous, but I think the campiness of the episode actually works with the premise of a traveling New Year's party that consumes its guests to be in an eternal party.

The reason I believe the episodes mostly work is a credit to the writers, the soundscaping, and the performers. The writing usually had a good flow to it and when there needed to be strong characterization, there would be. Parts of their personality and aspects of who they are, including their queerness, feel seemlessly woven in instead of an afterthought or a case of tokenism. This is both because of the main writer and the performers (who I believe are either predominantly or entirely queer) treating their characters like avatars that they could fiddle with and make into whole people. Even Jinx the cat feels like it has a tangible personality within the story. We get enough of the characters, actually, that most are going to pick up on Charlie's duplicitous nature at some point before the reveal when he finally turns on the others.

This isn't a failing of the show though. I love the dramatic irony and I love that people had different moments where they realized he was the traitor. My moment was how he treated the more gruesome aspects of the Ardent, as if they were toys he could play with instead of aspects to be treated seriously. Others just thought he was too damn chipper, which is also valid. He was extremely chipper.

The other characters not picking up on it though, despite being shown to the audience in a myriad of ways, doesn't ring false. After all, there's been dozens of murders and their lives have been overturned and they just have their own shit going on. So it's understandable when Voncid and Pip do not pick up on anything beyond 'Charlie's a little weird, oh well, got shit to do today', because really, that's kind of like how most of us are in situations like that. Hindsight and being on the outside looking in are two powerful tools in noticing duplicity.

The soundscape especially adds to all of this to create moments that range from intensely creepy to hilarious to truly fucking heartbreaking. Voncid unleashing untold horror because he doesn't want to let go of his lover's soul, and that lover reminding him that this isn't the way he's supposed to be, did actually make me sob at my desk. I could feel the ache of hundreds of years, that desperation to keep that last bit of someone so precious. I could hear the betrayal in Pip's voice after Charlie takes her eyes. I could feel the cold dread in the soundscaping of In the Snow. These moments all stuck with me and I truly adored them.

That being said, I must be honest and say there was exactly 1 moment in the show that has stuck to me as a 'you should have probably redone that', and that's unfortunately in the season finale part 2. In that episode, Charlie has turned on everyone and caused absolute mayhem and destruction in the Ardent. And because of this, we get a lot of named and unnamed characters dying in the episode. Like a lot. A lot. And so we get a lot of screams in the background. Some of those screams are funny. Like as in they come across less 'horrifying death wail' and more 'wilhelm scream'. Also, while I like the episode The Final Countdown and am fine with the voice actress doing an annoying drunk girl voice since she is an annoying drunk girl, it's very obviously not a performance everyone's going to adore.

Having that few negative moments in a 46 episode season with dozens of voiced characters involved though is, in itself, an achievement. I know shows with a small percentage of that and they've failed way more. There were times though, especially when I had to take breaks in listening due to personal issues, that it became hard to differentiate between the the extended cast and to remember who everyone was. It wasn't egregious enough for me to deduct a ton from my rating, but it is something to keep an eye on. An easy way they could have helped this out is transcripts.

There was no commentary on it in either Q&A, so I have no way of knowing but the missing transcripts are something they intend to fix as time goes on or if that's dead in the water, but currently less than half of the episodes have transcripts on their squarespace website. That's a problem for me, both in terms of consistency but also accessibility. I know plenty of people who require transcripts. I myself have trouble with audio sometimes and have to double check what I heard against a written version, which is why subtitles are always on in my household. So right off the back, not doing this means I can't recommend this show to some people I know. There not being trigger warnings consistently on episodes is also an issue, but not nearly as bad as the transcripts is for me. Especially because I think it will hinder them in the future with how big the story is.

This world is huge. The creators themselves have stated both out of character and through Voncid that everything is real in this world. Everything. And while that's fun and it's okay that not everything gets answered in season one since that's typically how season 1 of any show works, I am truly worried about the future. While these writers are good, they are running a real risk of making it both hard to write and hard to follow with how much is in there. Transcripts of every episode would at least help the audience refer back to things a bit easier as well as follow along with the number of characters involved. At the end of the day though, the writers just have to pinky promise me they won't pull a George R R Martin and fall off the face of the earth with their main project because tying together 32893472 loose threads is actually a bitch and a half to do.

I'm giving this show 4 stars out of 5 stars as it currently is. I'm extremely worried about the future of this podcast, but am also excited to see where it goes. Hopefully they get better about making it a little easier to tell extended cast apart, do better about death screams, and are better about accessibility in general. And I really struggled with if those reasons should rank this a 3.5, but at the end of the day, I really loved the characters, the main performances, and the hidden world yet to come. I looked forward to every single episode. And I'm terrified of Dottie Jean Barlowe and her weird taxidermy henchmen. If I don't review season 2, it's because it either never came out or because she thought I was a judgy bitch and killed me for my skin. Both seem like really sad options.

[wool-string]

Your post about feeling awkward starting 2018 after watching Hakaba is very relatable considering that very version of Kitaro is its own thing, separated from others. Yes, the core premise about a yokai boy helping human is the same, but the rest (the setting, his personality, whether they mention his birth and Mizuki etc) always seems to fluctuate. As such, if one version interests you, you can just go in blind without prior knowledge and won't miss much. On the other hand, it is also quite detrimental for newcomers who isn't aware of this. For example, new fans from GeGeGe no Nazo may be a little disappoint they won't get to see Mizuki that much aside from Hakaba Kitaro. Even then that series depicted relationship with Kitaro in a less than ideal, not that loving way. When I started the 2007 anime, it feels pretty jarring seeing how light-hearted it is and a how much better this Kitaro's social life is has compared to Hakaba and 2018. Hakaba in turn is very weird to watch, faithful to the early manga it maybe, but anyone familiar with the modern Kitaro who is a powerful fighter, a hero fighting for human and yokai alike will be put off by how despicable Hakaba boy is in comparison. In the end, it is not a bad thing, it just means it'll take some time to get used the new settings and when you do it become quite fun to compare all the different versions.

Ps: sorry for the long write, it was just very exciting to find somewhere I can talk about Kitaro.

Don’t worry! I’m also glad to talk about Kitaro!! Honestly coming from a different fandom where all their versions (manga anime and live action) were different from one another I don’t really mind it! It gives you a feel of ‘oh hey more content’ and like there isn’t just ‘one canon’ to choose from.

While I do admit Mizuki was the one who pulled me into the fandom (via endless fan art of him through gggnn) I did after all stay for Kitaro! And since my first official watch through was hakaba i guess the feel threw me off when I jumped straight to 2018. But he’s very cute! I’m glad I was convinced to watch it!

[agwic]

ok. it's time. time for me to post my opinions on the svtfoe finale. and svtfoe as a whole but that's kind of a given considering that it's the finale.

so, where to start? I think I'm gonna start by explaining what svtfoe is. it's an animated disney show which parodies both magical girl and disney princess tropes, as well as being a reverse isekai which is always nice. great premise, though its execution in season 1 is meh at best, but honestly that's just personal taste and season 1 does a great job introducing us to the three core characters so I see no reason to complain. really the only reason to point out that season 1 was kinda meh is to counter people implying that the show declined as it went on, when in fact it was always of ultimately very mixed quality, with most of the worst episodes being in the first half of the show, such as banagic incident, lobster claws, and pizza thing.

anyways, for most of season 1, svtfoe was a thoroughly unremarkable kids show, so who cares. however, throughout seasons 1 and 2, a nice little plot about a genuinely threatening gooey man is the real highlight of the show, rather than the supposed premise of the show, which was a parody isekai. this is irrelevant to my analysis of the finale, but I felt it necessary to point out that centaurworld appears to have stolen svtfoe season 1 and 2's premise. anyways, halfway through season 2, the part of the show I like starts, where the show starts parodizing the fantasy genre in its plot, not just in the mediocre one-off episodes which are more of a magical girl parody than a general parody of the fantasy genre.

this shift completes with the show shifting from reverse isekai to regular isekai, with the show's secondary protagonist, "normal" earth "boy", marco diaz, going to the magical kingdom the show's main protagonist, star comes from. many people mark this as when the show starts getting worse, but like, the show was really not good at doing the reverse isekai stuff, and all of its best episodes function as just a normal isekai, so I feel like this was inevitable. however, another reason people say this is when the show gets worse is that it happens a few episodes after genuinely threatening goo man is defeated, and everyone agrees genuinely threatening goo man is the best villain. I agree that he's the most threatening and well-written, but ultimately all he represents is pure evil, which isn't all that exciting from a thematic perspective, so I actually disagree on this point. the next villain after him is the rightful heir of the monarchy which star is the false heir to, as it is revealed in season 3 that a random peasant was actually placed on the throne a few hundred years ago because some deific entities didn't like the rightful heir being half-monster. I think that this is a very interesting villain thematically, and they manage it well, by portraying her as being more a victim of the MHC(aforementioned deific entities) than as a villain in her own right, and she is defeated by making her into a baby again instead of killing her because she was really only a villain because of her fucked up upbringing. solidly good themes going on here. questioning the validity of the monarchy, showing how many problems bigotry causes, showing the MHC to be just as incompetent as the rest of us, it's good.

the last villain is an actual fascist propped up by the MHC. like, I am not exaggerating, her stated goal in the story is genocide. also she was introduced as a gag character in season 1 where she already showed off her insane authoritarian tendencies so overall I think she was set up very well. I will also note that in this final season, with a a bunch of fascists as the main antagonists, the show had a very rushed production schedule. you may be getting SU flashbacks. anyways, this time they solve the fascism by killing the MHC who are responsible for it, and abolishing the monarchy which allowed it to fester, which sounds to me like exactly what fans would want, considering how they reacted to the SU finale. and, to be fair, I liked both this and the SU finale, because SU is a show about redemption so of course the fascists would get redeemed and also the fascists were just a metaphor for other less reprehensible stuff but this is not a post about the SU finale because the SU finale was actually mediocre and I don't care if people hate it. anyways, the response to the svtfoe finale was actually worse than the SU finale. but to explain why, I need to explain several things which were going on in the background of the show, for context.

so, the elephant in the room is the thing svtfoe was most infamous for prior to the finale. the love polyhedron. some people call it marco's harem, but it technically had two focal points in both star and marco, and polyhedron is a funny word, so I call it the love polyhedron. ever since season 1, it was blatantly obvious that the female lead, star, and the "male" lead, marco, would get together by the end of the show, and acting like this was every possible to not happen is wishful thinking, mainly because disney wouldn't allow it. also, unlike most "take the male lead and female lead and push them together" ships, starco appears to have had some actual chemistry(I can't tell, my criterion for shipping things is if it would spite people I dislike), to the point where it was actually one of the more popular ships for the show. however, because this trope is stupid, they obviously can't just have them mutually fall in love early on and then start dating in season 1 and not have any issues for the rest of the show. no, we need rivals! first rival: tom, star's ex, who is flirting with marco 90% of the time he's on screen and is pretty much the third main character to the show and a romantic rival and potential love interest to both of them. I think this is funny. second rival: jackie, marco's childhood crush who he starts dating, but it doesn't work out and also she is dating a girl in the last season so there are implications there. honestly, I think it was well done, but I do think jackie probably deserved more screen time since she's the most emotionally intelligent character in the show. other rivals: heckapoo, who really isn't treated as a rival and actually belongs in like two other sections of this post so I'll discuss her later. janna, who is also not treated like a rival but she does pretend to have a crush on marco(it actually is canon that her crush on marco is fake) and also flirts with star sometimes so I'm counting her here, and she's not actually that important other than that everyone loves her and is correct to do so. kelly, who marco briefly dates, and also she has an ex of her own and honestly there's not much to say about her other than what the fuck were they thinking when they wrote goblin dogs. I think that's everyone. anyways, the point is, this was stupid.

next elephant in the room is the fact that marco is written with a lot of subtext implying he's trans(which was intentional, one of the storyboards features him wearing a trans flag dress which uh couldn't actually be more intentional). like, he regularly dresses up as a girl, and likes doing so, which means nothing. however, when dressed as a girl, he uses she/her pronouns most of the time, and also refers to himself as a girl, and also, once again, likes doing this. personally I headcanon him has genderfluid, because of the neverzone, a dimension where he is in his 30s and looks like an over-the-top action movie protagonist and is dating hekapoo. like, you could argue that was overcompensating, but he seems genuinely distraught when he loses his abs and genuinely enjoys it whenever he goes to the neverzone so I think he also likes the idea of being a manly man so genderfluid it is. and like, I'm pretty sure they could not have included more subtext implying that he's trans without disney striking it down. like disney would not allow the male lead of one of their shows have his gender transed. so, I count this as a win.

next up, back to the love polyhedron, focusing on the non-stupid parts of it: star, marco, and tom. well also jackie wasn't stupid, but not relevant to this subject. first, let's talk about marco and tom. they're constantly flirting, and their relationship is consistently framed as romantic. I could provide evidence for this, but I don't need to, because if you've watched the show, you know this to be the case. next, let's talk about star and tom. tom is introduced as star's ex, and kind of a jerk. however, for stupid reasons, they start dating again in early season 3. he goes through a character arc, and stops being a jerk, and ultimately his relationship with star is perfectly fine, with him just being a bit clingy at times. when they break up, it's on perfectly amiable terms, and the reason is basically because tom knows that starco is inevitable and star obviously can't have two boyfriends. now I shall present the following screenshot from the show, which takes place while star and tom are dating:

next up, we need to talk about starco. like, there is more to their relationship than "she's a girl, disney is somehow under the impression that he's a boy, so they kinda have to get together". to start off with, the two have really good chemistry in season 1, and do start to develop feelings for each other, and honestly it works perfectly fine. then tom shows up, and tries to use some ancient magic thing to make him and star fated to fall in love, but marco ends up making the magic target him and star instead. this, if never addressed again, would make this ship the stupidest thing imaginable. however, it is addressed again. after three seasons of love polyhedron shenanigans, they finally realize that this whole stupid disaster of a situation is because they're both in love, and in fact that all their previous relationships may have in fact been ruined by that stupid ancient magic making them fated to fall in love. so, naturally, the find a way to undo the magic, and it works. tada! no longer fated to fall in love in-universe. this is actually very good thematically, as it makes clear that being "fated to fall in love", if it were real, would be a bad thing and a very stupid reason to start dating. of course, they still both had mutual feelings for each other, and at this point have already dated and broken up with all other potential partners(well tom's still there but he's chill and breaks up so that star can have her disney-enforced maximum of one boyfriend), so in the finale, star and marco start dating, and it's chill, and everyone liked it.

just kidding, this is probably the most objectional part of the finale! like, people have worse complaints, but this is the worst complaint people have about the finale which actually makes sense, which is why I devoted so much time to it, and also am addressing it first. like yeah, in a perfect world, tom, marco, and star would all be dating, and marco would be even more canonically trans than he already is, but we don't live in a perfect world so unfortunately we're just left with a giant pile of subtext, which we're gonna have to settle with. though honestly, I think that if svtfoe had aired a few years later, stomco would be treated as canon, similar to how sashannarcy is in the amphibia fandom. but alas, the svtfoe finale killed the fandom a couple years too early for polyamorous ships to become mainstream. so, anyways, the point is, sure it was annoying to have canon starco in the finale, but starco was fine, and tom is still there so he can just pop in as soon as canon ends and solve the issue. so, overall, biggest issue with the finale, but not that big of an issue. now let's get into with the issues with the finale which caused the fandom to die, and are all incredibly stupid.

so, I know that implied I wouldn't get into another tangent, but I would like to establish something important before I get into the next part: star's spells don't count as people. because if they did, star would have major moral issues long before the finale. like, at absolute best, star would be doing the moral equivalent of harry potter's house elves, if her spells are people, and I think most people here can agree that is not a morally enviable position. there are two ways to think of the spell episodes then, that are consistent with this premise. the first is that they are non-canon, which is fine, other episodes are also probably non-canon. the second explanation is that the spells are just extensions of star, which also works, considering that she created them, and they all kind of act like her. both of these make significantly more sense than the spells being people who deserve to be treated fairly by star, since she does not ever treat them fairly, and is never implied to have to treat them fairly.

now it's time to get back to the finale, and explain what happened in it, specifically. star destroyed "the magic". this very obviously is not all magic in the multiverse, as pony head is still floating, tom is still a demon, dragoncycles still exist, etc. this refers specifically to the magic of glossaryck, and his creations, the MHC, and the royal magic wand. also, a few horses that were lying around in the realm of magic. anyways, in this show, magic is very clearly a metaphor for authoritarianism. the royal magic wand is the sign of the monarchy, and the MHC prop up a fascist for basically no reason. glossaryck is harder to fit into this metaphor, but he does cooperate with toffee so I don't think it's reasonable to call him morally righteous. so, when star destroys the magic, she kills like half a dozen people, most of whom were actively supporting a genocide, and a few horses. and yet, most fans of svtfoe call this a magic genocide, and cite it as the main reason the finale is awful. they argue that all magical creatures are dead, which is provably false, pony head is alive and well. they argue that star killed the spells, but star was already using the spells as living weapons so if you care about the rights of spells, there were issues before this. the horses dying is sad, but the horses were already dying because the evil horse was killing them, and also I think that we can all agree that killing a few horses to stop a literal genocide is acceptable. and sure, people argue that star could have defeated mina(the fascist propped up the MHC) and her solarian warriors without destroying the magic, but the show does all but say "no, the only way to stop her is to destroy the magic". like, literally the entire supporting cast of the show get an uncurable death curse in an attempt to defeat just one solarian warrior, and mina has hundreds of them. and even if you do think that it would be worth waging a hopeless war to stop them, it wouldn't even stop the genocide, becuase the show went and said "hey, the solarian warriors have all the monsters right here. they are currently pushing them off a cliff. if you do not stop them in the next 10 minutes they are going to commit genocide" which was kind of blunt but apparently necessary since some people still don't get that destroying the magic was clearly set up as the only solution to this.

furthermore, destroying the magic was a thematically appropriate way to resolve an antagonist who represented fascism. like, the alternative would probably have been dealing with all the solarians somehow, and sticking marco and star as king and queen since moon obviously fucked up, or alternatively eclipsa and globgor since they're the rightful rulers and also represent unity between monsters and mewmans, the former of which is obviously stupid, and the latter of which is literally what caused this mess and also it would imply the monarchy is legitimate, which is literally the same argument the solarian warriors were making, and one which has been thoroughly disproven by the show. like, I feel like we can all agree that the solution to fascism is not removing the "bad guys" in charge of the authoritarian system and replacing them with "good guys"(also something refuted by svtfoe with moon, the supposed "good guy" also helping prop up the fascist), it's to dismantle the authoritarian system entirely. and magic is a metaphor for that system in svtfoe. so yeah, svtfoe did good on that front. and some people do argue that moon didn't face enough consequences for her actions, but firstly, she did in fact get deposed from the throne and lost what little respect her daughter had for her, which is solidly something, and secondly, a kids tv show can't have the main character kill her own mother. honestly killing the rest of the MHC, many of whom were likable characters, was already kinda pushing it. oh, and thirdly, retributive justice is bad actually. the MHC had to die because they were actively causing genocide. the genocide attempt has been thwarted now, so no need to kill anyone else. not to mention that moon wasn't really on board with genocide, she just thought the people calling for genocide wouldn't really do genocide, which sounds stupid until you look into literally any real-world politics. many people argue that the show should have actually shown the consequences of all this instead of just showing the fascists running off and then ending the show, but like, that wouldn't be interesting, even if done correctly, and significantly more likely than doing it correctly would be them propping up a consitutional monarchy with star/marco or eclipsa/globgor as the rulers and that would be really stupid.

now, there's one last thing which the svtfoe finale does that people have problems with. you see, svtfoe takes place in a multiverse. and the only way of travelling between dimensions is through dimensional scissors, which work via hekapoo, a member of MHC, and thus would stop working with the destruction of magic. this is an issue for obvious reasons. sure, they could have just said "haha fuck you none of the characters can ever see each other again" like most isekais do when they end, but that sucks, even when thematically appropriate, and this is not a case where that is thematically appropriate. so, there are several solutions to this. one is to just have the scissors keep working. this would have been stupid, as it contradicts pre-established lore, but ultimately would have been fine. another is to have hekapoo live, since she was solidly the most sympathetic member of the MHC, and neverzone-marco's girlfriend. however, that would both contradict the pre-established lore, and also soften the blow of everything, since even if hekapoo may have been the nicest of the MHC, and wasn't fully on board with plan "prop up a fascist for no reason", she also didn't really try to stop that plan, and also she was fully on board with dying, since she was there when star came up with the plan to destroy the magic. however, they instead did a solution I think is actually good. they made it so when magic was destroyed, all the dimensions got cleaved together, merging into one super-dimension. I know WoG says it was just earth and mewni, but the dragoncycles actively disprove this. WoG also says it was the power of love that did this, and it's implied that it was, and honestly that's a fine solution even if the power of love hasn't existed in this magic system thus far since 1. starco's love for each other was pretty well established and 2. there were presumably other people in love who would have been separated across dimensions. like, it's a perfectly workable solution when the magic system dug the show into a corner regarding this. people often are like "oh no but merging all the dimensions would cause so much chaos and so many people would die" but like, once again, there was not a better solution here. and not that many people would die, pretty much all dimensions we've been shown except earth are very used to having contact to other dimensions, and could handle it. as for earth, well, I'm sure they can adapt to the new circumstances. like, yeah, I wish they could have had a nice little epilogue showing society adapting to the new circumstances, but the production of the last season was very rushed, so I'm fine with them leaving that up to audience interpretation, especially since, once again, they would have done that badly considering that disney has opinions on the monarchy. and the only reason leaving what they didn't have time to put in the show to the audience's interpretation didn't work out is because the audience went ahead and assumed the worst at every possible junction.

now, while I am done defending the finale itself, I feel like it would be remiss for me not to use this as an opportunity to express my theory as to how the cosmology of the svtfoe universe works. so, let's circle back to how the power of love was a stupid explanation for the dimensions getting cleaved together. because you see, "cleave" is a funny word. you can cleave something together, but you can also cleave something apart. this is something pointed out by glossaryck, the most powerful character in svtfoe, a while before the events of the finale, which is, by the way, titled "Cleaved". now, glossaryck is implied to have created magic, and canonically stated to have created hekapoo, who allows for travel between dimensions. this means that prior to glossaryck, there was no travel between dimensions. however, as previously mentioned, most dimensions not only are used to multiversal travel, but rely on it. like, quest buy is an entire dimension which is just a store, that obviously can't work unless there's people coming from outside the store to buy stuff. same basic idea for the bounce lounge, and other party dimensions. now, one explanation is obviously that these dimensions were empty, or otherwise had something else in them, until they were made into what they now are after the advent of dimensional scissors, but my theory feels more elegant than that. before I reveal my theory, I would like to give one more piece of evidence. the realm of magic, which was created by glossaryck, seems to have a portal to every dimension. my theory is that when glossaryck created magic, there was only one dimension, which he cleaved apart, creating the realm of magic in the gaps between the dimensions. and thus, of course all the dimensions would be cleaved back together when magic is destroyed.

oh one last thing, shout out to @xidnaf's anarchist reading of the finale, which is what got me to consider that maybe the reddit hivemind was wrong about the finale being bad, and also where I borrowed a lot of my stuff about how destroying magic is cool and good thematically from, and also this one random youtube video which I found on accident which also makes some bad points but it is where I got a lot of stuff on how the show presents destroying magic as being the only solution from.

ok i think that's everything

[thisguyilike]

1.1 Green Bag Guy

Emmy has never experienced a love life. At least in this life. Yet. Hopefully, that will be bound to change as soon as she transfers to her new school. Birk High, famed for its indescribable obsession with perfecting a student's interests and basketball scholarships. The only big difference was the excitement that breathes through the school and the good canteen food. Honestly, it is only because it is fried that it's good. Highly recommend spring rolls. And the curry puffs. Anyway, this would be the supposed school life that would bring the zest and zeal into Emmy's high school musical.

Being a transfer student was supposed to be cool. For the record, only Emmy thought of it as cool. Someone completely new drops into this totally foreign environment where everyone knows one another long enough to have a matching tattoo of each other's favorite Disney movies, how terribly outcasted can you possibly be?

Surprisingly, Emmy fitted in perfectly the moment she stepped into Birk High. At least in this life. For now.

"I wonder if Disney will sue them for having their entire franchise tattooed onto their bodies," she thinks to herself and snickers shamelessly at her own joke. She takes a quick peek out of her window seat as if to mimic a certain romance cliché; maybe she'll fall in love at first sight. Unfortunately, unlike your typical fantastical works of fiction, the view Emmy has from her window seat was just a bunch of withering trees and rotting dead leaves. Dendrophilia isn't really her thing, and she definitely stays out of being attracted to the dead. She appreciates that at the least, the girl that will be sitting next to her is easy on the eyes. 

Despite having wonderfully charming and beautiful friends, there is still something missing. Emmy is straight, like her friend Celeste's hair. Except her natural kinked curls came back last week after having it straightened for barely a day. All of this is unrelated to Emmy's strange passion for watching students enter the school premises. It is a daily habit for her to leave the classroom and to the corridor to stare at random students coming into the school grounds.

"When the hell's he gonna get here," whispers Emmy, her eyes scanning out of the corridor windows. Her gaze lands on the hunched student with his eye-blinding, neon-green bag. "Oh, there he is. How can I ever miss him?"

For the first few weeks of her transfer, she began subconsciously watching the guy. It was too easy to recognize him from the crowd because of his brightly colored bag. She has no idea who he is, and whether he appreciates being stalked every early morning at exactly 8am. Her mind mulls over a series of meandering thoughts. The guy with the green bag never fails to look like his arse is constipated.  He hunches, and he never smiles. His bangs grew so long she could barely make up his face. The way he walks is strangely silly too. Nothing too interesting. Definitely not her taste in guys. 

It is too bad she would never get a chance to speak a word to him. At least at this second. Till the future.

"Hey! What're you doing?" The girl with naturally curly hair pops up beside her. There was barely any need for Emmy to be distracted from her stalking.

"I'm looking at that green guy Celeste," Emmy replies, never taking her eyes off the poor guy.

"You really like looking at that guy, huh?" Celeste sets herself in Emmy's shoes, watching as he once again gets told off by the discipline teacher, Mr. Sowp, for being late again. "He has a name, you know."

"Actually, I don't know," Emmy states in an obvious manner.

"From what I've heard from Hyde, his name is Tea," Celeste says, mentioning that other guy she has been friends with for years. Emmy hears stories about him very often from Celeste. She could almost practically call him her own best friend with how much she knew about his past. "Why don't you talk to him if you're so interested?"

"...probably not," Emmy winces at the thought. She might die of embarrassment he ever found out about her illegal birdwatching, except he is the bird.

"Do you like him then?" Celeste asks. "You kept your distance from Wade when you liked him."

"Don't even mention that name! He's so annoying! I never actually liked him okay?!" Emmy retorts in response to her silly comment. It was the only thing she said that made Emmy turn her head. "I don't actually like Wade, okay? It was a false alarm!! Just like how I don't like this guy! Tea, right?!"

"Hm, touché," Celeste says, puffing one side of her cheek. "By the way, we have tryouts tonight. We promised Ana so, don't forget."

"I won't I won't! She'd have me dead on the stage if I forgot," Emmy gestures her hand for her to leave.

"I'll head back to class then," She turns her heel to leave. "I guess you can have fun staring at him?"

"Thank you for your input Celeste," Emmy slumps her arms grumpily against the windowsill.

A romance story. Emmy had always kept the belief that romance isn't her forte, and especially not for the guy that she's been observing for weeks. He is a wallflower that speaks little to none, while she is someone that chatters at every second she could. He wears a permanent frown like his best pair of jeans while she is always laughter and gags whenever she is with friends. All in all, she's never even met him.

Her thoughts get rudely interrupted by the school bell.

"Well, guess I'll use the BETTER toilet before class starts," Emmy speaks loudly to herself, leaving her post to the restrooms downstairs. It is only her own preference to choose the toilet downstairs. There was also this rumor about ghosts in the female restroom on the first floor, but it was only just a silly rumor. She quickly scurries down the stairs upon being in the vicinity of the sacred non-ghost toilet. Her adrenaline and fear take over her involuntarily, charging into the preferred toilet only to headbutt someone on the way.

And there he was. Her emo green bag guy, right in the flesh. Maybe it's a little creepy claiming another human being like that.

"Um, I'm so sorry, Tea!!" She apologizes nervously. He hardly flinched when she assaulted him with her thick head. He towers over her, barely. Actually, they were almost the same height. It seems Emmy had greatly overestimated his physique. She begins to stare at him rudely, which surprisingly he gives little to no care about.  All she could think about is his ability to look creepy, angry, distant, daunting, and awkward at the same time. Her brain takes no sweat to convince her a quiet, harmless guy like him is obviously a thug. It definitely would have been disastrous if she had caused him to fall on the wet toilet floor. 

"It's okay," He says, attempting to leave the premises. She notices that he took extra caution not to make contact with her upon leaving the narrow walkway. She hates to admit that the supposedly haunted female bathroom was less claustrophobic. Only then did she realize something was certainly wrong.

"By the way," Emmy squints as she starts to speak. "Why are you in the girl's toilet?" 

He halts, turning around to meet her judging eyes.

"Huh, that... explains a lot," He furrows his eyebrows as if she was the one inside the male's restroom instead. He steps aside and towards the door frame. He examines the pink door sign and holds his head with one hand. "Sorry about that, I'll take my leave now. Have a good day. Goodbye."

"Seriously?!" Emmy exclaims. He looks back to her with a dead stare, only for him to just leave the spot and go on his merry way. The guy she has been stalking, the guy she grew comfortable watching, reduced to an exceptionally negligent pervert. No words can describe her indescribable feeling of humiliation. She slaps her cheeks with all her might. "Why the hell are my cheeks so warm?! Stop!"

It seems to her that she has found someone who completely exceeds her expectations, which of course, will be the zest and zeal to her high school spectacle.

[antifa-terra]

Okay if you had to do an unironic all or nothing au for Steph and cass, what would ur hcs be? like how would they meet, what’d be the angstiest thing that could happen in that au, etc

Hmmm... well, college au, by definition. I'm just going to say it's combined liberal arts and performing arts. They're roommates, and Babs is the incredibly tired RA. I'm not sure what Cass is studying-- dance, maybe-- and Steph is studying to become a social worker. They bond over having shitty dads.

Cass is still semiverbal in this -- she was neglected and the only thing her parents really connected with her about was martial arts. Maybe David Cain and Lady Shiva are famous MMA fighters or something. She had a horse girl arc of, "but I don't want to do fighting, I want to do ballet." Steph's family is basically the same as in canon, except Arthur's just a normal criminal, as opposed to a super criminal. Babs is majoring in computer science and she ends up bailing the two out of trouble, because she realizes their parents definitely aren't going to. Harley (dual major in clowning and psychology), Ivy (botany), and Selina (sociology with Steph), also college students in this, are sharing a room across the way. Slice of life shenanigans, involving at least one prank war that escalated faster than anyone could've guessed. Several Teen Titans, including Rose Wilson, are here too because I really like them and I think Steph should get to be one.

Cass gets a girlfriend. I'm not sure who.

Parents weekend rolls around and hostilities amongst the dormmates immediately cease, to be resumed once the unspoken goal of absolutely annihilate their asses. David Cain and Arthur Brown leave, begging the courts for a restraining order against the united college students.

[lgbtqlegends]

something makes the legends hallucinate with their biggest fears, sara’s is ava dying - because she killed her. + aftermath

oh wow lmao this is Almost Exactly like the premise of a fic that mod choco and i are working on in which the legends are put into a nightmare scape type thing. so uh,, im probably mostly gonna focus on the aftermath for this ask, but i will Try to briefly touch upon what i think each of the legend's biggest fears would be. thanks for the ask n hope you enjoy!!

-sara's, like you said, would be ava dying, maybe not Necessarily bc she killed her, but the fear would definitely be in a scenario where sara was somehow the Cause of it. also, to go a step further, obviously ava dying would be a big fear for her, but honestly i think her Biggest fear would be ava And the team dying, especially if she was somehow the cause and if there was nothing she could do. ava's biggest fear is pretty similar; sara (+ the rest of the team) dying, bc then she would've lost the only family she's ever really known

-okay listen i said i would try to come up with something for each of the legends' biggest fears but i'm exhausted and my brain just isn't gonna pull anything out for anyone else, so,, sara n ava's biggest fears is the best you're gonna get so,, i'm gonna get on with the aftermath part now:

-they're all pretty shaken, and they all kinda retreat into themselves while they try to deal with everything

-most of them try to help each other out and be there for each other, but most of them also generally refuse the help bc they're all kinda stuck in their own heads

-any of the couples (ex: sara n ava) would probably try to spend as much alone time together as possible bc they find comfort and solace in each other, n that's something they desperately need after hallucinating with their biggest fears

-eventually they all kinda stop retreating into themselves. it takes longer for some than others, but eventually they all get there. once that happens, they all come together n just spend a lot of time together for the comfort that being found family n everything brings them

i wish i could've done a bit more with this ask bc its really good but i am just,,, too exhausted and stressed about life right now. but like i said, our nightmare scape fic is really similar n were super excited abt that so,,, and hey maybe once I'm less exhausted and stressed, maybe i'll write an avalance angst oneshot with this specific idea, who knows.

[noahstayed]

Sorry if you've already answered these questions but I still want to ask them so...

1) Are you going to make another book after Earthshine?

(If the answer is yes; (and you don't have to answer this one,) Are you going to do a time skip or will you go the 'the condom broke'?)

2) Will Edward have a mate (If yes; will you create an OC or simply pluck a character from the twilight saga archives are revamp them?)

3) If you do make a version of Breaking Dawn, will it have the same premise (Ie. Wedding, Honeymoon, (I typed hUMANmoon and then corrected it, don't know why my fingers went there.) surprise pregnancy (or not? Because Carlisle is a DOCTOR) turning, then the Volturi going all "We must kill the child!"?)

4) With regards to question three, in the (honestly, and sadly, unlikely) ( completely forgot what word I was going to type, and It as too much trouble to type that so I'm just going to use another word that won't flow as well) situation (I'm so unhappy with this word, my stomach is turning something fierce, man.) that you DO go the standard "with the other book as a very, very, loose guideline) Would you go the route of OYH or would make an entirely new plot?

Also, if you do go with the same general outline, (which is unlikely since Irina isn't with Laurant in newmoon but with Charlie, so there's no bitter feelings and she won't immediately go to the kings before she's heard Carlisle's explanation.) How would you make that work?

5) I know you said that if you do make a fourth book you would just use the dhampire from OYH, Elisha, does that still reign true? Or are you planning to make a new character entirely?

6) If you do make a fourth, and go the OYH route, would you still make Elisha Emse's mate, like in OYH? Or will you go with Garette?

7) Also, since you have previously made an ff about Garette and Bella having a brother-sister type friendship would we see that and get to see Garette claim her as his sister and charlie as his father, and everyone goes along with it? (Honestly, I REALLY want this to happen, especially since I've spent the last hour scrolling through your tumbler and stumbled upon the 'I'm older than my father' post.)

8) Really, all these questions border on the main one of "is there going to be a breaking dawn/part 4-5 (depending) in your rewrite?" but if you do, would Carlisle buy Isle Bella as a honeymoon present of would that be in the oneshots book (that you'll hopefully be writing after this is over) as like a "Have fifteenth anniversary" thing?

9) Are you going to write a book full of random one-shots you couldn't fit into your story? I REALLY HOPE SO.

enthusiastically hope so. :) (that's really a tense smile with eyes SHINING with hope. Just informing you that you'll be crushing my heart. Brutally. With a stake. No pressure :) )

10) If you don't write the fourth book will we get an epilogue with the wedding five years later? Like, with Bella being SUPER nervous?

And finally, 11) (I really want a war to showcase Bella's awesome vampire powers (because you've stated (in a previous Tumblr post) that you'd give Bella her BAMF!Bella OYH powers)) So if there's a part four, even though the Volturi is "lawful" and like, has a brain, in your series, can they like have a brain fart where they go. "He's making an army," Or just straight up CANNON!Aro with his need for power be like "It's an immortal child, and it needs to be destroyed." But really be thinking, "They're growing too large, already their numbers rival our own, they must be put down! This is the perfect time!" Like the (cowardly) power-hungry and villainess we all know and love. Kinda.

I have other questions but those can really wait lol.

I basically want breaking dawn and the third (Do you count Charlie's book as part of Bella's story or as a stand-alone since you weren't really progressing the plot very much (also a very good way to have a time skip in your main)?) isn't even done yet.

I don't know if you can tell, but I've been reading this series for three days straight (new fan!) and just started your OYH series and I'm just filled with a desire right now. Like, I typically hate sex scenes in a twilight book (but that's because I was a child when these movies came out (saw them all in theatre!) and still was when I read the books, so Bella is SACRED lol, and It just makes me uncomfortable to imagine her in those positions (it's like a trauma okay?) but I really enjoyed your stories (even if I basically glossed over your sex scenes and read through them quickly) and could actually sit through your sex scenes (mostly, because it wasn't INTENSE! Like, a lot of rewrites turn breaking dawn into literal Porn and sully the books for me because they basically remove a lot of plot to make room for Bella's sudden appetite, and while, yes, you gave her an appetite and... I am just really enjoying your stories and how you write so Thank You.

Okay, I've let you know your appreciated and put out my question into the tumblr universe so now I just have to wait for you to see this and maybe respond.

I hate waiting.

I haven't gotten an ask in a while and AJKHFJKHD Listen!! THE FACE I MADE AT HOW LONG THIS IS??? Superb!! I'm honored you've taken the time to write this all out so I'm gonna try to answer you as best as I can!!

Right now I'm 100% sure that there will be a couple of Novellas/Novelettes directly after Earthshine. The Renee Story, the Charlie Story, and the Roommate Story which all will get maybe 40k and mini plots that are far more focused than Charlie's first story. Charlie's new story will be focused on his relationship with Carlisle too, so that should be fun!

Edward having a Mate is still up in the air at the moment. Since he is still very young, I don't see the need to really give him someone so quick when other characters have waited WAAAY longer. As for who it might be, that's also still up in the air in case I want to do a short story with him that's a part of a series of Novellas after the main books

If I do make a BD rewrite IT WILL have wedding/honeymoon/surprise pregnancy then it will PRETTY MUCH go off the rails from there because the Pregnancy will be VASTLY different. Carlisle is a Doctor and Bella isn't an idiot. They won't be in Washington either.

Again. The first half will be loosely based on the book and then just go completely off the rails because, Like you said, the Volturi have brains and I LOATHE an 'idiot' plot where people are required to suddenly become stupid for the story to work. As for the OYH route, I will be borrowing a couple elements from OYH but the conflict will be very different.

Elisha is baby and there's no way I could make another Dhampir at this point. Not with how much I love him.

The aging process will work differently in this fic for Dhampirs, so this question is irrelevant since Elisha will be a child for the entire fourth book. As for when he's older, Its still up in the air for this series. He deserves to be baby and I very much dislike the trope of age faster = mentally develop faster because that's BS.

We'll see, I love Bella and Garrett, but there's A LOT I'll have to cram into the last book so we'll just see.

As much as I'd love to answer this, I'm covering the honeymoon in the fourth book so you'll see what happens in there ; )

I HAVE PLANS for random one shots. I REALLY DO. I just has so little time to work on the main story so I might write some when Earthshine is done! I have a name for the one-shot collection already too and some Ideas!

I very much plan to write the fourth book you'll be fine. Bella will not be nervous, she'll be WAY more anxious about it going right. Mostly her nerves will be from anticipation and excitement because she'll be 23 and be very secure in her forever with Carlisle.

There will be a fight in book four that will not have the Volturi turning stupid. Don't worry about how.

Charlies little story is a Novella so I don't count it as a book.... GOD hearing you plowed through the series in so short a time is MIND boggling. I get people telling me this occasionally and I NEVER stop being amazed by it!

As for the sex scenes, yeah, I didn't want this to be erotic literature. I frequently scream that 'THIS ISN'T A SMUT BOOK' because them having sex is just a normal healthy thing that happens in relationships and wanted to show that. The sex scenes I write tend to be glossed over anyways so I'm glad it was readable for you. I get feeling frustrated and wanting more plot, but there are plenty of people who prefer the very explicit smut.

If sex scenes aren't your cup of tea, that's fine. I don't view Bella as pure and innocent though. It teeters dangerously on the Madonna/Whore dichotomy to act like she is. I get wanting to preserve the innocence of your childhood through her. That's not me though. Bella/Carlisle's relationship is highly sexual in nature within SoG and that's ALRIGHT too!

Thanks for the super long ask!!! it was great to read and fun to respond to!

[anonymousdandelion]

for the (new) writer ask game: 4, 5, 6 and 7? (I couldn't choose less I am very curious xD)

Hi, Juli! Ooh, good questions.

4. What piece of writing are you most proud of?

Hm. You know, this question is very similar to the "favorite fic" question from the other ask list... but being proud of something isn't quite the same thing as liking it best. So, I'm going to give a different answer this time, and say that the piece of writing I'm proudest of is Thoughts that Breathe and Words that Burn, the origin story for the Poet!Crowley Antonio Penn-verse.

I enjoy the premise of the fic, and I'm happy enough with my writing of it overall. But the thing I'm really proud of with this particular work is that it helped build the Penn-verse sandbox, and to inspire an astounding number of other people (you obviously among them, Juli! :D) to take part and create their own wonderful stories and poems based on it.

First in the Ace Omens Discord community where the idea first took shape. And then even reaching and inspiring some people outside of the server! I'm still absolutely blown away by the fact that The Collected Works of Antonio Penn now contains literal dozens (and counting) of works. Getting to be a part of this collective creativity explosion has been such a joy... and I'm definitely proud of the story that played a role in spawning it.

5. What have you improved on most this year?

Short-form writing, no question. Trimming word count for maximum economical effect. Packing a scene or a story, complete with description and emotion, into just a few words. This was a challenge I originally started trying to tackle towards the very end of 2020, when I first started writing prompt fill drabbles and ficlets with self-imposed word limits, but I really got into the swing of it in Spring 2021, I think, when I wrote a series of 100-word Ineffable Drabbles for @kedreeva​’s March Flash Fiction prompts.

And then, over the course of the rest of the year, not only did I put in much more short-form practice and become way  more comfortable with that writing style, somehow it seems to have become... almost my trademark, or... something like that? Idk, but I do know I’ve had multiple people tell me they seek out my fic (a notion which leaves me very 🥰😭🥰😭 every time) when they want something short to read. And my DandelionDrabbles pseud now has 130+ ficlets posted in its name, the vast majority of which I wrote in 2021. So, well... regardless of quality, I’d certainly say I’ve improved at short-form stuff at least in terms of quantity. XD

Oh, and I’ve also gotten much better at writing absolutely sickening levels of softness without feeling too self-conscious about it. Much to the detriment of the poor victims who keep reporting me to the soft authorities in the Ace Omens server, of course!

6. What parts of your writing do you want to improve next year?

You know, I honestly haven’t really given this too much thought. I definitely hope that my work will improve in general, and I could easily point out a good many areas of writing that I’d like to get better at... but I don’t have one or a few specific goals at this point. Right now, I’m at a place where I think my main goal needs to just be to try to keep writing something that I do for fun, not out of a sense of stress or obligation.

(In the context of fanfiction, anyway; I have enough requisite writing-related things to do for various things IRL whether I like it or not, that — even though they’re all obviously still writing — I try to keep these categories as separate in my mind as possible.)

Hopefully I will improve, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if as 2022 unfolds I find myself working on something specific. But I’ll have to see where the year takes me.

7. What's the story or fic that you're most excited to work on or share next year?

Returning to the Penn-verse, I am definitely looking forward to finishing up and then posting the fluffy reveal sequel I’ve been working on.I’ve been telling people since October that the sequel is almost done — and I mean it, and it is almost done! it's just that it hasn’t gotten any closer to being done recently :P — I just need to a) figure out how I want to wrap it up and b) get myself to actually write it. So that should be fun, when its time comes. Which will be sooner rather than later, I hope.

Another story I’m excited to share soon, which I actually wrote a few months ago but still haven’t gotten around to posting, is a Lesley/Maud ficlet. It was my first time attempting to write their characters, but I’m quite pleased with how it turned out — and eager to add to the small pool of fics about this lovely couple of characters who get so comparatively little screen time.

~

Thanks so much for the ask! Questions drawn from this list, in case anyone wants to join in. :D (A different list of questions than the one I reblogged before!)

[the-anime-manga-reviews-for-blog]

First and Double Review. Episode 122 of Dragon Ball Super and Episode 38 Boruto.

Spoilers ahead.

I will be talking about DBS first then I'll be talking about Boruto next, so if you are interested in Boruto more than DBS then go ahead and skip below.

DBS Ep. 122 was one of my favorite episodes so far.

Let me say this episode was really something. While it might not have been one of the best episodes of DBS. It is certainly up there in my books. This episode has everything you could have asked for. Good animation, solid fights, lots of Saiyan screaming, Saiyan pride. The whole shibang. While there where a few spots where characters were drawn somewhat strangely due to the fact that they switch artist every episode or few scenes. It wasn't bad. Plus the best thing about this episode was Vegeta's moments to shine. You don't know how long I have been waiting for this moment. Vegeta has been needing his own moments for a while. And now that they are hyping up the fact that he can actually go somewhat toe to toe with Jiren and go further beyond a Super Saiyan Blue, which is something Goku hasn't even some yet is amazing. I'll be very excited for the best episode to see what happens.

Boruto Ep. 38 Is it catering to the fans too much?

Honestly. I'm not all that caught up on Boruto. I have watched episodes however and I was a huge fan or Shipudden and the first Naruto series. Boruto isn't really giving me the same reasons to love it as I did the first two Naruto series. And this episode shows the exact reason why. This episode over all just tries to rake in the old fans such as myself who grew up with Naruto, but it tries so desperately to pull the nostalgia strings that it makes me take a few steps back. So here is what the episode entails. It has Boruto and Sarada kissing in the classroom in accident (Well if you know anything about OG Naruto you can already tell what this is referencing), of course Sarada, Boruto, and Test Tube Baby (Mitsuki) all in a team. Suprise actually that they aren't orginally team 7, but instead team 3. I say Orginally because the basic premise of the entire episode is that Sarada wants to get switch to a new team, but she has to go to Naruto about it with the request. Boruto goes with her and they can't see him because he's off training other Shinobi to protect the Konoha. Well they have to fight some Shinobi. (Mainly just Asuma's daughter. ) On a bridge. Well after a mostly lacking fight, while Mistuki hold the bridge with his gIANT SNAKE ARMS. They eventually win with Boruto throwing Asuma's daughter off the bridge, with the other Shinobi calling the right quits so they can go talk to Naruto. But here is my main problem. It seems like Sarada just had a major change of heart and decided to not only stay, but change the number for Team 3 to Team 7. And Naruto is like "Fuck it why not Lol." And boom end of episode.

I am not trying to sound like I hate Boruto, but it serves its purpose as a kid's anime right next to DBS. Which I'm assuming that they both come on Saturday mornings in Japan Back to back. And that is where I feel that both of these Anime are being held back. Boruto much more than DBS by a long shot. But tell me what you all think.

See you in the next Review.