imagine being kevin day, son of exy, born and bred to be a cog in the well-oiled machine that is the edgar allan ravens. all you know being the routine of practice and practice and practice and performance and victory alongside those you call brothers.
-and then one day you wake up in your estranged father's apartment between a bottle of painkillers and a bottle of vodka and there is a knot of bandages where your future used to be. you don't wake up at 4am anymore. you sleep until noon and vomit the remainders of life as you knew it into unfamiliar toilets. you watch orange and white clash against each other from sidelines you haven't touched since you started growing facial hair.
your brother doesn't ask you to come home. you would come if he asked. the days are longer here and the food is too rich. the colors are too harsh, the language barrier is too much. you speak and no one understands.
they feel sorry for you, but not for what you have lost, instead for what you have suffered. you try to show them what belonging means, to sever parts of yourself to fit inside a uniform, but they don't understand the necessity of the blade the way your brothers did. they don't understand that suffering feels religious if you do it right.
the therapist tells you it's survivor's guilt but the only survivors you can see are on the court in black and red and they read your eulogy after the game at a press conference. you are not a survivor in any way that matters anymore. how treacherous your heart is for continuing to beat when you can't even hold your lifeline in your hand without dropping it.
you want to go home but your key doesn't open the same door anymore. you want to sit beside your brother but there is no space on his side of the table. you want to be a raven but you are a fox.
you grieve for connection until there is a knife where your neck guard used to sit. you grieve for your life until a boy offers to show you how it feels to survive. you offer to show him how it feels to live. he tells you he won't sever parts of himself to fit the uniform, but there are telltale bloodstains in the fabric from long before you asked.
you wake up at 4am again. you take turns vomiting in the toilet, you when the alcohol level dips too low and him when his smile runs out. he doesn't speak your language but he understands it. he keeps the car running when you visit the therapist. he keeps an eye on your back to watch the 02 on your jersey turn orange. the colors don't seem as harsh anymore.
he offers you safety. he offers you belonging. he offers you the only thing he knows how to give, the only thing you know how to take.
he offers you a lifeline. you pick it up with your right hand.
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Peeta was always endgame no matter how you slice it. Obviously there's the narrative choice, already gone into that, but from a character perspective too.
I mean there's the whole 'gale winds are loud, devastating, and quick to pass' and 'pita (bread) is considered the cornerstone that helped create humanity' thing, there's war vs peace, wrath vs mercy, self vs many, etc etc.
One of them brings destruction (gale is defined by what he kills, be it rabbits or sisters, and the systems he wants to bring down) and the other, creation (peeta is defined by the things he makes - speeches, bread, art).
One of them will end the world, the other will rebuild it from the ashes. Obviously Gale is needed - you can't make omelettes without breaking eggs after all- but he was never a sustainable, long term option.
WHICH THEN BRINGS ME BACK OH SO NICELY to how love IS a central theme of the series, because there HAS to be a 'so after'.
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have you seen the new nightwear groovy? alas, the dream of the animal onesies or the pillow fight groovy are dashed 😞 - i have yet to see the card's story but i assume that yuu is interviewing the boys again this year like the birthday boy cards cause there's no other characters in the card (?)
I too am disappointed that we didn't get a big full-on pillow fight. 😔 but he DOES battle by throwing his pillow, so at least we get some cushion action in there!
it looks like this round of birthday cards aren't going to be interviews/conversations, at least not for most of it -- the first part was Jamil talking to Ortho (who he duos with) about what his dormmates are doing for his birthday (they're setting up a surprise party/parade (because Kalim) but they're doing an extremely bad job of it and he's having to go around making sure that they don't screw it up) (being Jamil is suffering). second part was Jamil talking to his (unvoiced mob) roommate and answering Crowley's School Improvement Survey (he wants bigger bathrooms) (also a fridge in his room) (actually, make that a whole kitchen) (but mostly bigger bathrooms). then third part was his ~morning routine~, aka talking to himself about his hair and makeup, as one does in a visual novel. it's less cohesive than the previous birthday stories, but it's all pretty chill and there's some fun stuff in there! (Najma sent him hair stuff for his birthday that's way too fancy and he can't decide if she did it to annoy him or not. truly, being Jamil is indeed suffering.)
if all the cards are going to be about nightly/morning routine though, we're going to absolutely melt when we get to Vil, brace yourselves
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