#leaving living leaving loathing

[bandsanitizer]

you’re telling me that as one of the people to tell their story of being a fan, they had jungkook share how he’s the original aRMy??? 😭😭😭

[blackbatcass]

this is me and greta @mysterycitrus rn

[even-disco-baby]

DOLORES DEI — “I don’t *understand* you, Harry. You aren’t dying, you’re just sad. Why is everything an apocalypse to you? People don’t die of sadness! I’m… I’m not trying to kill you, Harry…” Her holy gaze falls to her feet. “I never wanted to hurt you at all.”

DRAMA — She speaks the truth, sire. All she ever did was love you.

RHETORIC — No. Don’t let her control the narrative. She’s *wrong.* People die of sadness every day. Sadness the likes of which she has never and will never know. Tell her about the body on the boardwalk, his mouth full of chewing gum to mask the smell of disappointment. Tell her about René’s angry little heart full of barbs and spines that repelled all but one man. Tell her about Cuno’s father, wasting away and leaving nothing but a specter that will dog his son’s footsteps forever. Tell her about Ruby. Tell her about the Bad Day.

“I never wanted to hurt you, either. I just wanted you to understand *my* hurt.”

“Just because you can’t imagine something doesn’t mean that it isn’t real.”

DOLORES DEI — “But that’s not true, is it?” Her beautiful eyes are full of pain. “You *did* want to hurt me. You wanted me to be sad, too. And then you wanted me to leave you and prove that you were right about everything. About me, about life…”

She sighs, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “Well, you got what you wanted. I’m gone and I’m never coming back. Are you happy? Does it feel *good* to be right?”

INLAND EMPIRE — Nothing will ever feel good or right again. You have made certain of that.

RHETORIC — It feels better than the constant dread of being abandoned. It feels like vindication.

“I never wanted to hurt you, either. I just wanted you to understand *my* hurt.”

“Just because you can’t imagine something doesn’t mean that it isn’t real.”

DOLORES DEI — “This again!” She pinches the bridge of her nose, and the gesture makes her look strangely more human. “What do you want me to say? ‘I’m sorry for not being born poor?’ ‘I’m sorry for not being an alcoholic?’ ‘I’m sorry I don’t want to die?’ I’m not going to ruin my life just to understand where you’re coming from, Harry!”

And then, her expression softens. Like light passing through stained glass. “You’re not well, Harry. You don’t need to die. You just need help.”

EMPATHY — She genuinely wants you to be better. And she believes that you can be.

RHETORIC — But she fails to understand the difference between you two. Poverty, addiction, the pain wracking your bodymind… She can leave these realities behind. Go back home to her parents, start a new life on another isola and be a new person. And so she did, and so she is. But you? It’s too late for you. It was too late from the moment you were born, in the death throes of the revolution. It was her people that killed it.

VOLITION — Is any of that her fault? Is it wrong for her to save herself from you, just because you can’t? You can be sad and angry at this wedge the world drove between you, but why did you have to misplace that anger? You took it out on her just because you could. You made it impossible for her to stand by you without getting stabbed in the back. You even became a cop so you could take it out on other people, too. Stop this, Harry. No more cruelty.

“There is no helping me. The world isn’t built to help people like me. I realized that in Martinaise. None of us can just *leave.*”

“Fuck you. You don’t know what I need.”

“I want to get better. Would you love me again if I got better?”

DOLORES DEI — She smiles, and it’s tinged with pity. “Oh, Harry… You are what you are. I’ve already forgiven you for that. And you may not forgive me, but I am what I am.” She closes her eyes, head bowing just slightly, almost like a prayer. “But we cannot *be* together anymore. Don’t you see that? There is nothing good left that can come of it. It would just be… more of this.”

Her Innocence Dolores Dei opens her eyes and looks around her— at this strange set you have constructed to act out a million different conversations that all end the same way. “I can’t live in your nightmares, Harry. And neither can you.”

VOLITION — You don’t have to anymore. Let her go, Harry.

“See you tomorrow.”

“Goodbye, Dora.”

DOLORES DEI — She smiles that pitying smile again. It’s not going to be that simple. “See you around, Harry.”

INLAND EMPIRE — You can try to rid yourself of this place, this feeling… But it will come back to you eventually. What you build at low tide will be swallowed up again someday.

VOLITION — And then you’ll build it again. As long as you live. You can do it.

[faebriel]

hgs brainrot has returned due to tbosas .. speaking of hgs here’s an ask abt the hgs au: if things were totally different, and Wilbur were to be a 12 victor, what do you think a possible mentor-tribute dynamic would look like between him & Niki? I feel like it would be similar to Snow & Lucy in the way that he’s just going out of his way to cheat n help her

anon u have in fact struck jackpot because this is a concept i was spinning some thoughts abt before bee mentioned avoxes and we went OOOOH at that!!! so yes i have considered rainduo as a mentor-tribute dynamic and would love to talk about that concept too :]

so for this concept i think wilbur and niki would be close friends throughout childhood from 12, and then in their teens wilbur is reaped and, well, no one has particularly high hopes (he's a writer and a musician at heart, not a fighter) but through sheer trickery and dumb luck, he makes it to the end of the games. wilbur pulled some pretty fucked up tricks to win - when you can't use brute force, you have to use your brain - and partly due to the trauma of the games, partly due to his shame and survivor's guilt, he sinks into the capitol and relishes a new life there as a socialite. to him, the old wilbur died in the games and the new one has taken his place - to niki, and to his other friends in 12, whatever the games did to him made him into every vapid heartless capitol victor there is.

or. niki has her doubts. they all saw how horrible the games were, but surely there is some part of him left, some part that's hurting, even if it's buried deep?

anyway.

like og spin of the au, niki is reaped and this sucks - this time she does expect wilbur as her mentor on the train, and she expects some kind of warm welcome (maybe even an apology for leaving them so suddenly and silently? an explanation?) but she gets jack shit. wilbur is jaded and cruel and unrecognisable and niki entirely hates it. this is the part where i REALLY WISH we got some time of those two beefing with each other directly in canon (or at least interactions while niki was So Mad at him) but it's okay we fly blind. niki feels abandoned, lonely, thrown off of her kilter - she expected an ally in this place, but she doesn't recognise the person wilbur has become. she doesn't recognise his shallowness (...much), his ruthless advice for the arena, the way he doesn't seem to care for anything. she's scared and now she's lonely and it pisses her off - their mentorship is fraught. here are some thoughts from discord on that:

i tend to think of niki as a bit naïve before l'manberg or even doomsday - i think this is an au where this streak would come out real strong, and niki is stubborn that she can get through the games without losing herself. stubborn that she can stop things, that she can protect people. i don't think wilbur is cold enough (or, really, can bear to say aloud) to say that her odds in the arena are slim enough as it is, but he definitely tells her that she's making enemies and that her odds of survival dwindle with the more trouble she causes.

beyond that... hm. niki's trust in wilbur is almost unshakeable until nov 16, even when she outright says she doesn't recognise him anymore. i think she'd reluctantly listen re: don't burn down any buildings, but she would grow bolder each day she had to stay in the capitol. she gets more honest in front of the cameras. she makes more friends in training, and not the ones wilbur recommends. she throws barbs at him every time he makes one of those callous, cold-hearted comments about other tributes and rankings and odds. and besides, she's going in the arena this time, not him. she needs to practice her bravery.

it's like... she hasn't given up on him. she thinks the old wilbur is in there somewhere. (she is wrong. that is not how trauma works.) but she won't hold her tongue just because she

for extra angst points could definitely play up the whole 'feeling abandoned' angle between them as niki goes into the arena - probably due to how fraught their friendship gets leading up to the games. niki wants to focus on them and their friendship, wilbur has stringently cut off (almost) everything from 12 and refuses to let her in; he tells her to behave for the cameras, she tells him she never will. i think the last point in that screenshot would also make for a super tasty argument where niki feels wilbur has gone astray, that he's abandoned 12, and that he'll probably do nothing but sit on his ass and watch her die and he can't even bring himself to care about her anymore, can he? just more fodder for the arena. and honestly, i think wilbur would passively agree with most of that - he values niki's opinion, after all, even now, and if she says he's rapidly descending into a lost cause then she must be right. and it's niki, so she will be fine, and he goes to his bedroom that night and tries to pretend he is sleeping perfectly fine instead of feeling paralysed with fear.

okay now onto the games - YES HE SO WOULD. or at least i think he would go out of his way to help. as for cheating - he's a recent victor for 12 and i think he would value tommy (no doubt a link to him... i think they'd be in touch in this au also) too much to risk the punishment falling onto him as well. i get the vibes this is a games closer to 74th than 10th, so there are far fewer opportunities to cheat and the consequences of getting caught are higher. but schmoozing up sponsors? making stupid ass radio interviews or whatever to talk up niki's odds? sharing anecdotes from their childhood - some real, some entirely fabricated - across capitol airwaves to stoke their sympathy? 100%. with less to lose in this au, i think niki would be far less inclined to play nice for the cameras - i hope you starve, she spits at one of them, and wilbur appears on a talkshow two days later as she scrambles for survival in the arena to talk up how she always saved loaves from the bakery for the poorest mothers and children in 12. he borrows and begs and swindles to the point where it feels like cheating. but hey, this new wilbur is capitol-branded. he knows how to play the game.

if anything he probably sinks into the game a little too much. self-preservation is not his forte. probably wracks up a few heavy debts and favours to owe, but those are not priority until niki is out of the arena, alive. as long as she wins, and as long as the family he has isn't in danger, he will manage. wow it would suck if at some point those two goals became impossible to co-achieve. anyway

i kind of see niki's victory in the arena being similar to the one in the main au - if only because planning out an entire games is hard for meee >-< . she walks in bolder and braver for sure, and with a less strategic pick of allies, but they all get picked off and she spends a few weeks so terrified she can barely sleep and then she ruptures some fuel line and sets the arena alight with a fire that burns brighter and more ravenously than it should. but she wins, and she's airlifted out of a filthy, muddy creek she had resigned herself to die in, and wilbur barges his way through as many peacekeepers so that he can actually see her with her burnt skin and hair and unfocused eyes and trust that what was on the screens wasn't a fluke, and that they made it. and then it's just a matter of surviving the after.

i'm sure there are some other random quirks or tidbits i can think of re: this take on a c!rainduo hunger games au but these are my base thoughts!!

[silver-queen]

So many people have looked out for me even when it's detrimental to them, so what am i to do than to honor them and do my best to take care of myself?

[cant-get-no-worse]

Your **Battle of Bastards 2.0** comment made me snort my tea.😭😭🤣🤣

Two snakes going at it:

Culers loathing the both of them:

[datastate]

i need to hammer out kai's hostility/admonishment toward keiji in a proper fic but that requires writing keiji :|

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

When I get out, I refuse to sabotage anything anymore. It’s fucking stressful. Instead I will go to the beach on the weekends, in my little mask and wetsuit and look for cool rocks, with a little piña colada on the shore waiting for me. I will not engage in anti-preaching because I will be too busy RELAXING and HAVING FUN to care if people join cults.

[ragnarssons]

lol no Daemon doesn't. He didn't even put up much of a argument when Laena voiced that she knows she wasn't his first choice as a wife. he let laena feel like that

It's ok, one day you won't feel insecure about "your ship" to the point of needing to come into someone else's ask box just to say "prove your point" as biased and just irrelevant it is (pssst spoiler alert, Daemon CHOSE Laena, Daemon CHOSE to go galavant the earth with her, Daemon CHOSE to have these children with her and did in fact think about abandoning everything about his Westerosi family - including Rhaenyra - to give himself and his family a carefree, comfy AND SAFE life in Pentos, Daemon CHOSE to spend 10 years with Laena, Daemon CHOSE not to sacrifice his wife in order to kinda maybe who knows save the baby- hence he wasn't with her by interest of having heirs, especially considering his heirs are two DAUGHTERS). And you know I'll even tell you that in my mind, Daemon grew to love Laena because he loved that aspect of freedom and choice he had with her. See? I am able to see how grounded in parts of self-interest Daemon's love for Laena was/is. Because 1) it's Daemon, 2) it's human beings. No I don't mean Daemon loved Laena in a "they're SOULMAAAATES and they danced on the Titanic song at their wedding, he is the perfect husband and the perfect fAtHer!!", I mean he loved her because he loved life and freedom and careless moments with her. She skinned him of the cunning, ruthless and lonely man he was for a very long time in his life, and gave him the opportunity to rest, to settle down, to be at peace with the life he had with her and their daughters. That's LOVE. And it's all backed up by the sentences said in the very same conversation Daemon and Laena have on the show itself. Yes, ten years later, the marriage is damaged and hurt, and yes, how epic it is that still to this day Daemon longs for Rhaenyra just as he longs for what his life would be had he stayed in Westeros by his brother's side. But it can be BOTH, I know, crazy, we're multi-dimensional beings!

One day y'all will learn the complexity of human feelings and emotions and hurdles of lives: having a first choice some 10+ years ago doesn't prevent you from growing to love someone else. I know, crazy. Just like NO saying Daemon loves Laena, doesn't mean I say that he didn't or doesn't still love Rhaenyra and/or longs or has longed for her for years and all. Hey notice how Laena MOSTLY talks about how Daemon misses HIS BROTHER too, or have you chosen to ignore that canon fact too because in your weird minds, Daemon can love only one person?

You do keep your tunnel vision, tho. Again, let's talk again when Daemon goes not to be the perfect husband to Rhaenyra as y'all think he will be. Spoiler alert, really: Daemon isn't the mushy mushy uwu malewife y'all expect him to be. Really touch some grass before s2 because y'all are in for a doozy.

[septimus-heap]

Literally I think my parents must be a little bit insane to still think they're good parents. They pushed me to the point of being actively suicidal not even 2 years ago like hello????

[bandsanitizer]

wildflower really just… rm… he did that… he said all that… damn

[jus-de-poire]

chase me

dear god, hunt me down.

let your fangs sink in.

i won't wince.

i'd be lying if i said i didn't like the pain.

it grounds me.

it seems like the only thing that tethers me to this vessel anymore:

the hurt.

i yearn to be devoured, i think.

to be dragged back to a lair,

limp,

eyed with hunger and desire.

devour me, please?

i long to feel something other than this hole within.

hurt me so i can know something else;

i'll be the tiger's chew toy.

[luvmelovely]

[buck-yyyy]

trying sooooo hard not to be jealous and resentful of people who i haven’t cared about in years rn 👍

[hagravenholm]

Holy shit!

[torpublishinggroup]

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