#with the tunnel also symbolizing that she is not part of The Three

[ryefield]

Hollyleaf! She really should’ve been leader

[bookqueenrules]

Tunnels, Hallucinations, and the Yellow Door: A Convergence of Signs in DD 2 Episode Six

Hallucinations, tunnels, and the color yellow have all been used to symbolize reunions in the TWDU.  According to leaked script pages if you haven’t seen them here is a post with the name of the poster who originally posted the pages. In episode 6 of DD2, Daryl, Carol, Codron, and a couple named Angus and Fiona are in the Hoverport Tunnel which connects France and Great Britain. There is a toxin in the tunnel which soon has them hallucinating.

I believe this shot is of the glowing walkers in that tunnel and you can see the yellow door just off to the right.  

Codron hallucinates his dead brother, Michael. Carol hallucinates Sophia, and Daryl hallucinates Isabelle. The common denominator symbolically with all three are people they couldn't save. For the FIRST TIME since her “death” in Season 5, Daryl will say Beth’s name in that tunnel. Yes, it will be with Merle’s and Glen’s, but he has mentioned both of their names since their deaths.  He has never said Beth’s. The fact that he says her name again for the FIRST time in a decade, in a tunnel with prominent yellow doors, while in the midst of a hallucination is a TRIFECTA of reunion symbolism.

I am sure that many other of the brilliant TD theorists have written about these over the years. I just want to bring up some examples of hallucinations, tunnels, and the color yellow, symbolizing reunion in light of the episode 6 spoilers. I believe that anything that happens with one of Gimple' s "super couples" is especially significant, so Maggie/Glen and Rick/Michonne reunions will especially foreshadow the Daryl/Beth reunion.

Daryl’s hallucination in the tunnel parallels Michonne’s hallucinations in “What We Become”. JUST before discovering evidence that Rick is alive, Virgil gives Michonne a hallucinogenic tea. Michonne doesn’t hallucinate Rick or even about Rick but rather what would have happened to her if she had not found Team Family.

Daryl hallucinating Isabelle in episode 6 seems to be about the people whose loss haunts him the most. He tells Isabelle, “If you see Merle, or Beth, or Glen, tell them I tried.” To me this implies that he has been trying to honor their memories. In Merle’s case, he tries to honor the sacrifice he made for Team Family.  

Another example of a hallucination preceding finding someone once thought to be dead, is in “On the Inside” when Connie hallucinates due to lack of sleep just before she is found by Kelly and Carol. Carol finding Connie before Daryl will, I believe, parallel her encountering Beth first just like Grady.

The fact that Daryl is hallucinating in a TUNNEL is also significant as a precursor to a reunion. In Season 4, after being separated during the fall of the prison, Maggie and Glen are reunited in a TUNNEL. 

Daryl’s reunion with Leah(the anti-Beth) is another example. Daryl comes out of the D.C. Metro, an underground tunnel, and soon after sees Leah again for the first time in years. 

.

If the convergence of those two signs weren’t enough, we have a third. This yellow door below is part of the tunnel set as seen above, but this BTS pic shows more detail.

The yellow jeep was seen multiple times and places on the DDS2 set.  In trailers we see Genet in it, but it could be used by Daryl/Carol at other points in the season. Since the jeep first appears before Daryl and Carol reunite, it could symbolize Daryl and Carol’s reunion. However, all of the episode 6 symbolism indicates another reunion soon to happen.  In TOWL episode four, the song "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" by Tony Orlando and Dawn is playing. Traditionally, a yellow ribbon is tied to a tree in front of someone's home as a visual reminder of a loved one who is gone(not dead) that you would like to remember(usually someone serving overseas in a war). Once Michonne and Rick reunite emotionally, they leave together in a yellow truck intent on reuniting with their children.

Of course, yellow is strongly associated with Beth because of her polo shirt and the sunshine drawings all around the prison which were featured prominently in the WHWGO the episode after Coda.

****New spoiler ish stuff: According to Sarah Rowan on X, the first sets in Spain are being designed to look like England. So, if accurate, it would seem that Daryl and Carol walk through the tunnel and end up in Great Britain.  Season 3 may start in “England”, but quickly move to Spain. Zabel said in an interview that Daryl and Carol wind up in Spain due to some “cool and compelling” reasons. Regardless, based on the symbolism, whatever happens on the other side of that tunnel will lead Daryl to his reunion with Beth.

On a side note, I’ve seen some in the fandom worried that Emily is not in Spain right now.  Remember that she spent months in Europe this Spring.  I speculate that she was filming some for season 3. I wouldn’t expect her in Spain until about 4-6 weeks into filming, and even then, I am sure they will try to hide her.  It takes roughly 3 weeks to film an episode, and I am sure that much of episode 1 will be Daryl and Carol and how they get to Spain. 

[frangipanilove]

Sirius symbolism in DDTBOC 2x6?

I’m late to the party on this because I’ve been trapped in a dystopian, never-ending decluttering/organizing-my-house project this week, but I peeked into Tumblr tonight and caught @bookqueenrules’s excellent post on the leaked pages of the script for the DDTBOC season finale.

Spoilers under the cut, proceed with caution!

I probably shouldn’t get too excited over a scene I haven’t even seen yet and won’t get to see for weeks and months, but what the hell, here’s a small analysis outlining the parts I’m particularly excited about.

So, it’s a scene where people are hallucinating dead family members and loved ones. That in itself is significant. In hallucinations, the dead become alive. Make no mistake, there’s “resurrection” symbolism in that. It also happens in a tunnel, which really reinforces the “underworld” theme. I’ve often written about scenes where the veil between the “realm of the living” and the “realm of the dead” seems particularly thin. This strikes me as exactly that type of scene.

So apparently, Isabel has died?

I don’t know if we know for sure that she’s dead, or if it’s a death fake-out situation. It doesn’t even matter, because the symbolism of it is excellent either way.

Daryl is hallucinating Isabel, who he believes is dead (correctly or not). She offers some words of encouragement in the situation he’s currently in (having people actively trying to kill him and fighting the urge to give up). She instructs him to have hope, before she turns and disappears into a swarm of fireflies!

(The screenshots are from marysuewho’s post on tumblr, I don’t want to tag them in case they’d rather be left out of TD stuff and thangs)

Guys, the "fire" in "fireflies" is Sirius symbolism. I’ve written many posts on what that entails before, here’s one example. Fire = Sirius = resurrection/rebirth. It’s inextricably linked to Beth through the one-eyed dog from TWD 4X13 Alone.

And just to really underscore the Sirius symbolism, there’s a reference to Daryl’s grandfather’s DOG tags. Dog tags on a dead character temporarily “resurrected” for hallucination and symbolism purposes!

And this specific exemple of Sirius symbolism could hypothetically be about anyone’s “resurrection” except for one thing, Daryl specifically mentions three names in this very scene; Merle, Beth and Glenn!!!

Two of these are definitely dead, nobody disputes that. The third one is Beth.

IF it turns out that Isabel isn’t really dead after all, the Sirius symbolism could be about her in this scene, she could possibly “resurrect” at a later stage. Which would prove (again) that the Sirius symbolism that we constantly see around Beth is real. And if she really is dead for realz, well then there’s the monumental detail of Daryl literally saying Beth’s name out loud for the first time since he lost her, in a scene that’s packed with Sirius/resurrection symbolism! The Sirius/resurrection symbolism could be about Isabel, or Beth, or both. It's excellent either way.

The fireflies are Sirius symbolism (Sirius = fire because "Sirius" literally means scorching/glowing), which indicates “resurrection” symbolism. This is great, because it’s yet another confirmation of what we already know. If Isabel is not "dead", but rather “dead, soon to be resurrected” the fireflies (Sirius symbolism) indicates her impending resurrection, but if she’s really dead, the fireflies indicate Beth’s “resurrection” and that’s why it’s especially significant that he ACTUALLY SAID HER NAME IN THAT VERY SCENE 😱🔥😱🔥😱🔥

And if we were to really read into the symbolism, one could also argue that the "flies" in "fireflies" could easily be a nod to the "bird" symbolism that I've also written extensively about in the past (because what do birds do? They fly!).

So that's my little contribution. Whatever this ends up meaning, I'm exited for it and can't wait!

[talonabraxas]

The Spiritual Meaning of the Easter Season

“Regardless of what traditions you follow, the spiritual meaning of Easter is a new light after sacrifice or tribulation.”

As we move into the early spring season and start seeing chocolate eggs and pastel colors in store windows, we know Easter must be on the way. Whether or not we are practicing Christians, Easter is a big holiday. But what is the spiritual meaning of Easter, exactly?

From a Christian perspective, Easter Monday is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ after he died on the cross and then rose again three days later. It comes after the somewhat more somber observance of Good Friday, the day Jesus died on the cross for his people’s sins.

This holiday weekend is actually embedded in a much longer Christian mythology. The rituals start on Shrove Tuesday in March, also known as Pancake Tuesday. This is traditionally the day to eat up all the sugar and butter in your house in advance of Lent, a 40-day period of sacrifice meant to commemorate the 40 days Jesus spent wandering in the desert. The long journey through Lent ends in Easter, which is usually celebrated with food and family.

Like many Christian holidays, however, this one is connected to older mythologies still. You can tell this by the fact that Easter is a movable feast: The date changes each year because it is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox. Easter is also the holiday of the pagan Germanic goddess Eostre, the goddess of the dawn. She is celebrated at springtime, when the light begins to return in the Northern Hemisphere to warm up the earth, bringing with it food, flowers, and the promise of a new season. The eggs and bunnies so often seen around Easter are actually symbols of the Goddess’ fertility.

Easter also tends to coincide pretty closely with the Jewish Passover celebration, which is also a movable feast defined by the lunar calendar. Like Lent, Passover takes place over a number of days and involves some restriction—specifically that leavened bread must not be eaten. This holiday commemorates the liberation of the Israelites from Egypt, including the miraculous moment when God parted the red seas to allow his people to cross. On the other side, the Hebrews wandered for 40 years in the desert before finding their ancestral home, now known as Israel.

The number 40 comes up often in the Bible, and is also a common amount of time used in yoga and other spiritual traditions. You’ll often see 40-day challenges for yoga practices or meditations, and it’s also common time window for healing after childbirth in many cultures. It is also about the amount of time it takes to learn a new habit, heal from an intense experience, or make a change in our lives.

Regardless of what traditions you follow, the spiritual meaning of Easter is a new light after sacrifice or tribulation. We might not be quite through the suffering yet, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

So perhaps this is a time to share food and stories with friends and family (in person or online!), and it might also be a time to go outside and bask in the early spring sunlight (or snow, or rain, or whatever is available at the time), light a candle, write in your journal, or take a bath with floral scented soaps. Paint an egg for the goddess. Take a bite of a chocolate bunny. However you choose to do it, now is the time to honor the spiritual meaning of the season by welcoming the light and hope that come with the spring.

[cyberdragoninfinity]

so in case anyone was curious, this illustration is largely based on several stained glass portraits of St. Michael the Archangel slaying Lucifer (in kickass dragon form,) but especially this one (a 19th century window from Calvados, France)

A.) i Love angels in stained glass especially when the colors go crazy, this isnt the first time I've invoked them with art of Aporia and the Three Nobles, but more important B.) one day I will go off more about Aporia's angel symbolism in general but for now I gotta talk about Primo's, I gotta.

His Archangel Michael parallels make my brain spin around So fast--the Nobels are definitely supposed to effectively be robotic angels, messengers of the Apocalypse and God's (Z-one's) plan to fix the future. Primo sees himself as a loyal extension of Z-one's will, an agent of vicious justice, the 'commander' of his Ghost army. He's the android gijinka of Aporia's young adult war trauma. He's uhhh technically not alive! Meanwhile, Michael the angel is the leader of God's holy army, a military commander... and in Catholicism he's also the patron saint of death and soldiers. :^) (and. cops. cringe.) (though the Three Nobles were the heads of Sector Security for a While, huh.....) (it goes so deep it doesnt stop)

And there's the sword, of course, Michael is The angel most often depicted with a sword (sometimes a 'normal' blade, sometimes on fire, sometimes it's a spear, etc etc,) it's a spiritual weapon associated with him, created by God. And oh hey Primo what's that you got there....

Haha Ok Cool Man 👍 Sick Godsword

In the Bible it's Michael who leads the charge against Lucifer and his army of fallen angels in the battle of heaven and hell, and it's very specifically mentioned Lucifer takes on the form of a dragon during this epic clash. *the dog is, in fact, taking out the Book of Revelations*

so DEEPEST APOLOGIES TO STARDUST MY FRIEND STARDUST DRAGON for making her representative of the Literal Devil in that illustration; though, from Iliaster's point of view, perhaps of course Stardust WOULD be their draconic devil stand-in, the ace monster of Yusei, the dominant roadblock to their plans, the (you could perhaps argue) counterpart of their God's image. To Primo especially he has it Aggressively out for Stardust throughout his entire psychological obsession with Yusei. He Wants to Slay That Dragon So Bad, He Wants It as a Trophy On His Wall.

Michael also gets described and depicted very knight like in religious art and discussions, he is frequently armored; Primo also has a lot of knightly vibes imo, design and narrative wise. (And of course so does Sherry...interestingly, Sherry actually ALSO has a lot of parallels with St. Michael, including the fact she takes part in the fight against Primo's duel bot army (y'know...the Diablo :^) and a lot of her Joan of Arc invocations as a character) (that's a story for another post though) (Trey from Zexal ALSO has St. Michael parallels too imo) (but again, that's it's whole other post.) (yugioh LOVES religious symbolism like a bear loves salmon.)

it's just a very neat motif weaved throughout Primo's character!! His attitude is notoriously pretty shitty and difficult to put up with, but at his core he seems himself as a defender of sorts. God's sword. This is the path that will save the future. Tangentially, take this Alleluia verse about St. Michael:

"dreadful judgement," huh? Like... a Judgement Day? A world in peril and needing saving? Wonder who else has something to say about that and is very tunnel-vision obsessed with the notion of being the one alone to grant this safeguard...

ah :)

[amplifyme]

New episodes, new thoughts!

Loved these two so much I rewatched both to bask in their greatness.

Arabesque: What a spectacular episode. Lisa in all her dimensions and escapism; Vincent avoiding the truth, little Vincent and Father then and now; and Cathy and that conflicting dynamic and kissing his hands in the end. Marvelous work. Cathy having to kill for the first time? and how she was able to move on rather quickly (which explains her disconnect from Vincent's disgust at his own actions); Lisa wanting to be adored before she even watched her first ballet performance (asking Vincent if he likes her new dress) and using "the music" to perpetuate her "womanly mystery"/escapism as she runs from her failure into the arms of the nearest admirer (from Dallas to Taggert, from New York to Vincent, from Below to Buenos Aires.) I loved her final interactions with Cathy-- (loosely quoted) "You're not trying to be unkind, are you?"-- and that she faced the music with Cathy's support at the end. Stunning work by both of Lisa's actresses. The final scene... perfect.

When the Blue Birds Sings: Kristopher! Wow, you're kind of creepy but in a strictly artistic, "won't give up" sense (and, of course, Cathy will be won over by anyone who tries hard enough.) The picture! Her friend is back! Joe! GEORGE R. R. MARTIN??? (lowkey the best part of the episode.) Smyth(e?) being so blase about his ghost friend (as in: "yeah, he does that to all the girls")-- hilarious. Vincent's dreams and being spotted by Kristopher while reading outside the Tunnels and his convo with Father (that pressure cooker going up a few, unnoticeable notches), his interactions with Mouse and Narcissa, finding Kristopher, avoiding looking at one of the ghost's paintings, talking with Cathy at the end. This is definitely comfort rewatch material~.

BATB seems to be a series exploring the types of people who want to run from the world, seeing sanctuary in the world Below but also using it as a crutch. Father, Cathy, the other Tunnel members, and even Michael are dependent on it; whereas Vincent, Laura, Devin, and Diana are not. Vincent specifically: as much as he loves it there, he can wander Above without fear or trembling, a respite from being "imprisoned" Below for survival. Cathy talks about "do you think we'll ever be truly together?" without realizing that she cannot expect him to magically join her Above or for her to thrive practically Below. Diana (I assume) is more independent, having space in her life for Vincent if he wants it, willing to jigsaw him into the bigger picture rather than changing the puzzle altogether.

SPEAKING OF, I noticed another parallel between Lisa and Cathy and even Lena: For Lisa, Below is/was the fodder of her aspirations to be beloved and adored always; for Cathy, it is Vincent's home (though she learned to not hide away Below... I hope); and for Lena, it is a place to start over, a built-in heaven. The parallels between Lisa, Cathy, and Lena are striking: all three have fantasies of their own they build; and that fantasy draws in Vincent, who interprets the "pureness" of their emotion as something aspirational. Lisa escapes from her reality through dancing and captivating and entrancing, using him as her prop in AWTN or as her captivated audience in this ep.; Cathy escapes from the sordid, gory, or grinding reality Above with her flights of romantic fancy with Vincent; and Lena pins all her obsessive fantasies of a better life onto him, the symbol of the entire community's hope. Whereas Cathy was willing (but inadequate) to heal the damage life inflicted on Vincent, Lisa did not want him to be anything other than a living memory and Lena didn't want him to change at all from her unrealistic reality. His "moments" with Lisa and his "moment" with Lena are also fascinating mirrors of each other. In Lisa's case, he didn't want to be "abandoned", which snapped her out of her play and into reality (and why she became afraid and wanted to get away); for Cathy, he was/is afraid of inflicting that harm on her (who is not afraid of him but does not understand his fears of himself); and for Lena, he was her own version of a new normal.

I'm sure I'll be back sometime soon~. ;)))))

Ah, two of my favorites of S2. Discussion below.

Arabesque. So many things to love with only one drawback, IMO. I think the part of present day Lisa was miscast. The actress is beautiful, but I don't think she really had the chops to stand toe to toe with Perlman. Not to mention zero chemistry between them. Again, just my opinion.

I loved, loved, loved Father's expressions when Lisa was holding court in his study. Man, if looks could kill. 🤣

I have mixed feelings about the end scene. I really do love Cathy's gesture and her proclamation naming his hands as beautiful and as belonging to her. But she doesn't have to live with what those hands have done, the way Vincent does. His shame is so palpable and speaks so deeply to the fears that keep holding him back from (literally) grasping what he wants, and what he knows Cathy wants.

Make note of this exchange between V and Lisa when he's walking her to the guest chamber, because that time he speaks of is touched on in more detail in The Rest is Silence.

V: Lisa, there are things you don��t know. L: Please, Vincent. V: A time in my life after you left.

When the Bluebird Sings!! Wasn't it lovely? And you spotted GRRM in the coffee shop? There's an interesting story behind this script. Robert John Guttke is actually a friend of GRRM's, and an artist in real life. In fact, everything about Kristopher: what he says, how he dresses, the way he acts, is based on Guttke himself. He pitched the story to GRRM, who pitched it to Koslow, who said no. He didn't want to do any stories involving ghosts or anything else mystical or paranormal because he wanted Vincent to be the only element in the overall series with any mystical qualities. I guess he didn't consider Narcissa when he made that edict. So Guttke and GRRM did rewrite after rewrite until they had Kristopher's "ghostness" ambiguous enough to get it past Koslow.

You said this about Vincent: avoiding looking at one of the ghost's paintings. He wasn't avoiding looking at them. He was looking around for Kristopher because his sense of him was suddenly gone. He was trying to figure out where to and how he'd disappeared on them.

BATB seems to be a series exploring the types of people who want to run from the world, seeing sanctuary in the world Below but also using it as a crutch.

Yes. 😊

Vincent specifically: as much as he loves it there, he can wander Above without fear or trembling, a respite from being "imprisoned" Below for survival.

This is interesting because in one of the stories in AWTN (can't remember which right off hand) Nan writes Narcissa saying to Vincent: "Remember, you were born Above." It's one of those seeds she planted that's stayed with me all these years later. I wish I'd thought to ask her to expand on it for me when she was still with us, because it's intriguing as hell. And you're right that Vincent is pretty fearless about being Above when it's safest for him to do so. There's a line of his from The Hollow Men that speaks to his fearlessness: "I know the darkness; I am its friend."

Diana (I assume) is more independent, having space in her life for Vincent if he wants it, willing to jigsaw him into the bigger picture rather than changing the puzzle altogether.

That's certainly the vibe she gives off on the show and one that many of us who write 4th Season fanfic picked up on and ran with.

The parallels between Lisa, Cathy, and Lena are striking: all three have fantasies of their own they build; and that fantasy draws in Vincent, who interprets the "pureness" of their emotion as something aspirational.

He certainly does have a type when it comes to the women he's attracted to, doesn't he? A little fragile, a little delicate, a little flighty and moody. Very girly. I don't think before the events of S3 that he would be drawn to someone like Diana, who is the polar opposite of these three women. It's not until he goes through such drastic changes during the S2 trilogy and its aftermath in S3 that he becomes the kind of man who can appreciate what Diana can offer him. Lucky for him, because she is exactly what he needs; his perfect reflection.

I probably won't have much to say about A Distant Shore and Trial. They're okay, with some nice moments, but nothing really unforgettable. The Watcher is very good though, and everything after Trial is a stomach-clenching rollercoaster ride. I can't wait till you hit the trilogy! I could go on for days...

[theressomethinghappeninginparis]

I have some more photos of the Louvre and then I'm done with that, for now. I hope I won't have to seet a foot in there ever again, I just at every sound. All people I found were unconscious on the floor so I could just rush by, but trust me, there are more pleasant things than forcing your eyes shut and keep on walking.

Transcript of the first page: So: I didn't make it to the big door I have mentioned earlier, it would have required me to do some climbing and I don't think I'm able to do that (and live). What I saw from afar was this thing - a switch- on top of the door and lots of symbols. I assume someone used the correct ones already or they're still pondering over that, I couldn't see a place it leads to. Suggestion: it's Brother Obscura's tomb. He is indeed buried in Paris even though he was Spanish. So if that's him, someone wanted to make sure it stayed sealed. If this really is his tomb and the LV had ties to him, did they perhaps also hide the paintings there? I can only throw in tinfoils. The yellow paper is a page I found on one of the tables showing two correct symbols already. It shows this weird door and some text concearning the opening.

Transcript of the second page: Here's two pictures: the first one is a photo of what I found under a rock scanner, among other stuff in the mineral block like bones, rubble and probably rubbish, too. The second shows one of the containers next to the excavation. On the screens were articles talking about Nephilim and that they could shape-shift (wth), and the last one was speculated to have been found in Turkey, from the Jurhum tribe.

Transcript of the third and fourth page: I forgot to add this to the collection of pictures I have legally taken from Carvier's office. It is maybe the most information on the paintings I have collected so far. So, the paintings were indeed painted by Pieter van Eckhardt! Overpainted later by Brother Obscura for showing pure evil. He did it in the 1300s or 1400s and would hide the Sanglyph in them, probably in 5 pieces and that spread onto 5 paintings. I made this into a chart on the next page since it's so much I need to take into consideration now. My idea so far: 1. Eckhardt is super evil and has a pact with the Nephilim who make him immortal so he can live long enough to resurrect them and rebreed their race 2. He created the paintings and hides the five parts in them for some reason 3. The Lux Veritatis are having none of that and steal the paintings, let Obscura paint over them and hide them afterwards 4. Something happens, Eckhardt is silent for 500 years, I suspect they really tied him up in the castle Bouzor and he starts missing his art 5. For some reason, the engravings resurface from the monastery in Spain. Eckhardt hears this and wants them back. The LV will want to stop him, but he's on the run now as far as the monstrum kilings tell us. So how do you kill an immortal?

Transcript of the fifth page: Fayolah answered me. Finally. Bless this woman. She might be the key I needed and now everything I know has an almost solid base. Next to the mail I also put up a scan from the library, more on that later. Here's her mail first. She says she'll tell me anything she can about the Lux Veritatis. Mainly she works in Turkey, Cappadocia (where the remains of the stone in the Louvre come from) and there have been churches carved into rocks for Christians to hide in. They also had a tunnel system like Paris has today. A colleague of hers also stepped in to add the LV were part of the Templars, dissolved or not no one knows, and they also used weapons that referred to theri name: splinters of a talisman were used, blessed by the monks, named Periapt Shards. I have confirmation on what I know so far. In addition, he mentioned the looksd of them: the handle shows a lion, probably the Golden Lion mentioned in Nephilim prophecy, and the shards were given from one conqueror to the other. Three of them are mentioned, and the bible always uses numbers like 3 as lucky ones. Also, remember the depiction of the figure with the three knives around it in Fayolah's first mail? I think that's them. And they were inherited from father to son, I wonder if there's a son left today?

Transcript of the sixth page: Here's a picture of a sketch of a shard. I can't read whatever is supposedly written there but it fits the description of the look: an angry head, a splinter of a rock or gem, and the fanciness in general. The idea is that the LV needed a tool to destroy black magic and thus made the Shards. These go from father-son within the LV, material is unknown, it shows the Golden Lion for some reason, three shards are needed to kill evil OR are shared evenly within the Lux Veritatis every now and then to equip everyone with it, and they are splitters of some talisman/shiny rock/whaterever. The LV have wounded Eckhardt but not kill him as he's stilla round. Did they keep him alive on purpose or was it an accident he survived? He couldn't remove them himself I assume, it must haven been to holy to hold, right? Where do you leep a person like this you don't want anyone to see? At your own private party place? Or in the castle that's conceniently owned by your order... Yeah I'm not sure how I can prove that. I must have overlooked something I guess, I'll go through all my notes again. Meanwhile I haven't heard anything on Vasiley. What's he up to?

[angelthefirst1]

The Reset is the Great Tribulation (The great woe and the unveiling) after all...this is a show about the end (Coda) of the world 🌎

Part 2

When Daryl gets out of the tunnel in Acheron 2, he comes across a $100 note with a message on it from a lost child to their father, saying they waited 3 weeks before leaving, they have to go, but they will turn the Radio (Sirius/Beth) on everyday at 10. And, that they will see each other soon.

Daryl finding this note here (in the underground tunnels that represent the French class struggle) is a hint to him finding Beth in France but is also yet another woe he is relieving about the three weeks after losing Beth (Sirius)

Side note: @frangipanilove deserves huge accolades for her finds on the Sirus and radio symbolism, it is, in my opinion, one of the biggest finds (along with the biblical links) to Beth, we have had this past decade, helping to unlock so many other meanings, so...👏 👏 👏

At the same time Daryl is in the tunnels, Eugene is telling the Commonwealth that while travelling with his companions (which will be replicated by Daryl in France) he found a working radio he used every night, hoping someone would answer back, and that one night Stephanie did.

Eugene was desperate to meet her, thinking she was the love of his life, and that she might make a man of him.

During this exchange Eugene is very much stepping into Daryl's character in terms of his own love life...he is not very experienced with the fairer sex, and with Daryl we have still yet to see him kiss another female. And yes...while they alluded to Leah and Daryl, it's very interesting they showed nothing intimate on-screen between them.

Eugene is also extremely nervous to the point he is sweating and his hands are shaking...

Which gives me major throwback vibes to this 👇

The time when Norman tweeted about listening to 'Very nervous and love' during the making of Still. (Eugene is very nervous and looking for love while Daryl is relieving Still in the river of woe)

If they are in part using Eugene to shadow future Daryl story through the radio/sirus love connection, then it makes sense we will see Daryl being very nervous in love, and it will correlate with another version of the class struggle we see represented in the tunnels and the Commonwealth.

1102 is a template for Daryl in France, both him in the tunnels and Eugene with the Commonwealth. Eugene gets taken to the Commonwealth like this...

In a horse and cart and when he gets inside he meets Stephanie, a fake version of Eugene's true love.

This is important because Daryl has already told the story of his fake love with Leah, and meeting Leah again is the next thing that happens chronologically, when the whole Reapers group are introduced in the following few episodes.

Not long after Eugene is "very nervous and in love", and being questioned by the Commonwealth, we see Maggie's group again, first we see Gabriel with the Sirius one eye look up to the starry night.

While Daryl looks at Dog (Sirius)

Maggie then asks Daryl what he found in the tunnels (France) and he talks about the $100 note with the radio/sirus 3 week reference. Beth...

This next part is important, as it's another one of Daryl's woes...

Maggie talks about taking a detour to a hidden supply depo, that her and Georgie set up all over...when they were looking for survivors. For Daryl it's a reminder of the funeral home being someone's supply depo.

He is extremely thoughtful when she mentions this...

This is his next woe about Beth...

Continued in part 3 😁

[being-of-rain]

Thoughts from my Classic Who watch, the first half of season 19.

I’ve seen Castrovalva a few times before, but for some reason I really didn’t remember much of it at all after part one. I enjoyed it. It does suffer a bit of the same lack of emotional depth for the companions as the previous story, with Tegan and Nyssa still not really reacting to their losses or acknowledging that they’ve got a new life now. I couldn’t believe that when the two of them were about to go on a trek through the forest carrying the Doctor, Nyssa offered Tegan the opportunity to change out of her job uniform in the Tardis but Tegan declined! Perhaps that’s her repressing her emotions with focus on her future job. And her current job too actually- it’s very interesting that one of the Doctor’s first acts of clarity after regenerating is to assign his companions actual crew roles (Tegan: coordinator, Nyssa: technician?, Adric: navigator, which I suppose leaves the Doctor as captain/pilot). I wonder if he meant those roles just for the immediate issue of landing the Tardis without the Doctor, or as a description of how the team is to work together going forward? Probably not the second one, since none of the other writers of the series seem to pay it much mind, but it’d be interesting looking at the team through that lens. Anyway, what else about Castrovalva? The Tardis giving the Doctor meds and a wheelchair is cute, as is Tegan and Nyssa going for a hike together. My brother pointed out that Nyssa lost her crown on some low hanging branches. It’s hard not to see that as a bit heart-breakingly symbolic. The mysteries of Castrovalva are rather satisfying to watch unravel I think, helped no doubt by them only having to fill two episodes. I especially like the old books that chronicle the history of Castrovalva, I clearly wasn’t paying as much attention as the Doctor because I didn’t spot that clue! The part three cliffhanger is always a bit worse than I remember it though; the old special effects in Classic Who don’t usually bother me, but it’s such a shame that they couldn’t pull off such a great cliffhanger concept. Shardovan was framed as the villain really well, down to the black clothes, but when the Master does reveal himself he really goes full ham. I remembered him yelling “MY WEB!” but I didn’t remember how kind of horrific it was when all the Castrovalvans were pulling him back into the cave tunnel to trap him there, yowza.

For me, the fifth Doctor’s era is a bit like the third Doctor’s era: it was one of the Who eras I was the least interested in, and I was curious how this watchthrough was going to change that. I think Logopolis and Castrovalva were two of the stories I’d seen the most with Adric, Tegan, and Nyssa, so perhaps that’s why I got the impression that the characters were a bit stale on TV. Watching Four to Doomsday changed that a bit. I mean it wasn’t a lot, but I know that 80s Dr Who isn’t the height of emotional storytelling and realistic character arcs, so I’ll take what I can get. Tegan mentions how she’s upset that her aunt was killed, which is nice to hear after forgetting her for most of the last half a dozen episodes. However, it does make the rest of the Tardis team look a little like assholes for ignoring it and just having a space adventure. Tegan has a breakdown later in the serial and tries to just leave in the Tardis, and frankly I don’t blame her! ...I wrote out all the things that happened to her in just the last day or two, but it was Such a long sentence. Give this woman a break! Adric is the biggest asshole in this one, but it kind of makes sense for his character, as a teenager who grew up in the elite and who suddenly finds himself sharing with two sisters the attentions of his much blander dad. It also makes sense that he’d fall for a smooth-talking villain and try to win his favour, although I see that in my notes I’ve written ‘bootlicker Adric’. The flaws were made satisfying when he got chewed out a bit later by the Doctor... and I can’t pretend I didn’t laugh extra hard at the scene where Tegan accidentally knocks him out with a brutal blow to the head on a piece of scenery. Nyssa... exists. The pattern throughout all of season 19 is that the Doctor, Tegan, and Adric have some character conflicts and the hints of development, but Nyssa just doesn’t. Maybe a hot take here, but I think the best four-strong Tardis team on TV Who is One, Ian, Barbara, and Vicki, and every other attempt has a weak link in the writing, and in s19 that’s Nyssa. She also might be the weak link in the acting too, although Adric’s not fantastic either. I feel a bit guilty saying that because I know how amazing all the actors are as adults in Big Finish audios, but there you are. So I guess I enjoyed Four to Doomsday mostly for how it let the Tardis team (or 3/4s of it) grow. What other thoughts? Five being excited by scientific devices at the start is adorable, apparently they filmed this story first so Davison could practice playing the Doctor before tackling Castrovalva, but he comes in so strong that they probably needn’t have bothered. The Doctor being disapproving of punks wearing safety pins is hilarious, your First Doctor is showing. Tegan’s an amazingly good fashion artist. And it actually makes sense that she’s wearing her work outfit in a lot of this season since she keeps expecting to land back home or continuing on from a previous adventure, but boy I still hope she washes them between stories, or maybe the Tardis automatically cleans them. Monarch’s actor is very very good, and so are the human performances put on for entertainment.

God, Kinda is so so good. It’s just a level above most of the Who stories of the time. When I searched it on tumblr I saw people saying it was some of their least favourite Dr Who, and I can’t relate at all but I think I can understand having that point of view if you went to it for mindless action and everything to be explained (I remember hating new Who’s Midnight when I was young for similar reasons). But I just adore it. It touches on so many topics in thought-provoking ways. This watch-through I was really intrigued by what it had to say about colonialism. I should put my thoughts on that together as its own post. One of my notes for this one reads ‘Bootlicker Adric redemption arc’ jsdklfj. That ties into my thoughts on colonialism though. Adric is actively conscious of the military situation he inserts himself into this time, but he’s a young boy looking for stability, and he still strikes one of the only physical attacks in the story thanks to the military tech he uses, which the Doctor chides him for. Actually, now that I think about it, this might be one of Adric’s best stories, alongside perhaps Earthshock. Janet Fielding’s Evil Tegan is fantastic, as is the surreal visit to Tegan’s mind. It’s a bit of a shame that Tegan isn’t in more of the story, which is a similar complaint to one I have with the sequel Snakedance. These are often cited as important stories for Tegan, but she’s not in much of them. Scientist Todd makes for an excellent stand-in companion though, obviously. The Doctor is such a dad in this one, it’s hilarious how hard he works to keep Adric in check at the start. And the Doctor challenges the gender binary in this too! The writer of Kinda was so ahead of his time it’s ridiculous.

All in all I’m definitely enjoying watching all of this Tardis team’s episodes in order. It’s a shame they don’t start out with much emotional depth, because when you do start seeing hints of it they really start working for me.

[brutalmasks]

🐷 +🐉?

hello, helloooo, my friend @divingdownthehole! thank you so much for the ask!! i really appreciate all of y'alls continued support of this account, honestly, and answering these always makes me happy. but i'm going to stop gushing now and start talking about the prompts you sent me LOL so, let's talk about what bunny mask's favorite animal is first. it may seem like it's cats because of just how much i talk about them on this account but i have to say... bunny mask's favorite animal actually is in her namesake, which would be the rabbit, or bunny. this is mostly due to them being a symbol of rebirth and good luck, as well as resourcefulness. though perhaps the most important meaning out of all three of those for bunny mask is rebirth. because they are often thought of to be symbolic of the moon, which was once thought to govern the cycles of life and death, they have a rather deep spiritual significance in some cultures; and bunny mask thinks it's important to be kind to yourself by giving yourself the opportunity for a new beginning if you feel alone, and / or lost, which kind of ties back into the rabbit being a symbol of rebirth.

especially considering that she was in that spot once herself where everything felt wrong and bunny mask felt as if, because she was stuck in the past of when man wasn't even roaming the earth, that she didn't belong among humans whatsoever. but she soon realized that the concept of ' deserving ' something was one that was only bringing her sorrow; so, she shed the belief that she is less worthy to walk the earth than everyone else, and allowed new people into her life as well as entirely new concepts of human culture which actually enriched her experience here far more than she ever could've guessed it would. and so... bunny mask believes that a lot about humanity is beautiful, along with it's world ( the earth ), and she wants to convince everyone she can that might be struggling that there is light at the end of the tunnel + you can start anew despite how intimidating it may seem at first.

now, as for her favorite mythical creature, i have to say that it's probably going to have to be the firebird. this is a creature in russian mythology that, like it's name suggests, looks like it consists of flames as it's feathers shimmer and glow like them. and because the firebird is regarded as a creature who may look intimidating at first, but is actually gentle and benevolent, since it often uses its powers to help those in need — bunny mask feels somewhat of a connection to it as a concept as she has been considered to be frightening by some people because of her claw-like fingers and her overall otherworldly aura, + her propensity to use violence as a way to enact justice on human's oppressors. but all she really wants to do is help people. though, it may or may not be in the best way. and due to the fact that is is a benevolent creature, it brings hope to humanity as a whole. which is exactly something that bunny mask wants to do.

and honestly, just the fact that it's a fiercely independent but also simultaneously good creature is so cool to bunny mask. plus, it is a very interesting part of russian folklore, in her opinion. it can also serve as a cautionary tale about the dangers of greed after all and how you should be content with what you have... as those who have captured the firebird in the stories usually have a rather terrible fate befall them physically, as well as even morally sometimes. but anyhow, i think that about wraps up my answer to your questions for now. i hope you liked it and that you have a good rest of your day as well!

[phoenixmaiden-gaming]

Stray part 5

Back at it again and this time I explored the rest of Antvillage and talked to everyone now that B-12 was translating again. I even found a person with a request and I got a nice shiny badge for my trouble. Then I moved on and made it to Midtown where I explored around a bit and finally met Clementine. Below is what I did.

Starting out, the first thing I did was get the Steam Achievement by jumping up on the table where two robots were playing chess. They were angry that I had interrupted their game, but I got the achievement.

I also went to the memory spot I had seen earlier. It was on a graffiti wall and B-12 said it had the robots language on it. The Companions created it themselves, he had seen it happening while he was in the network. These symbols of communication suddenly changed to this. And since he had been stuck in the network for so long so he translated the new language until he could understand everything. So now he could understand them. (Antvillage Memory #1)

I went up a bit further and found a gardening robot called Malo. She said that Clementine was the one who taught them how to grow plants that could live without sunlight. She had a huge collection but was missing some colors and asked me if I could find a yellow, red, and purple plant.

I found the purple plant no problem it was out on a branch on the way up to Zbaltazar. The red one I saw from above on the ground floor so I had to find a way down using a bucket and go over to the tree to grab it. The yellow one I struggled to find and found it  when I was going down the back way and finding a school it was right on the side. Now I had all 3.

I went back to Malo and gave her all three of the plants and in return, she gave me a bright red Plant Badge. Nice!

I got up to Zbaltazar and was going to talk to him, but when I went behind him I could rub up against him. He really liked that, look at those hearts.

Now that I was done with everything in Antvillage, I made my way to the top and into a new tunnel were I found an old Subway. B-12 remembered that the Subway was the way people went to work and traveled all over the city. He used to take it too. He used to take it every morning after saying goodbye to his family. He remembered that he was doing all this for his family, but they were gone now. They had wanted to see the Outside, but does that even matter any more? Poor B-12...he then said that we should go find Clementine. We have her picture so we can ask the Companions in Midtown. (Main Memory #4)

I found a way out of the Subway and was at a entrance to Midtown. There was a little place on the corner with books and a robot wrapped in a blanket. B-12 had a memory here. He noticed all the books here and said that he recognized some of them and wondered if he had a library. He remembered that there was nothing like the smell of books and the turn of a page. (Midtown Memory #1) I feel you B-12.

I continued further in and came across a Wanted sign for Clementine who was wanted for being rebellious and a troublemaker. That’s not good.

I caught a robot being held up by a Peacemaker robot, who I guess is like the police. They were looking for Clementine and questioning everyone.

I went to the left and got up on a building where I could look out over the city and you could see what I think is the Slums from here.

I then went past the Peacemaker and officially made it into Midtown. It was unlike any of the other places. It had lots of lights so it was bright. A lot of robots were milling around and there were shops everywhere. It’s exactly what a town should be, but of course there’s a dark secret below of the Slums. Not that any of these robots think about it.

I wandered around Midtown talking to all the robots and one of them talked about Neco Corp. The robots like him work all day to collect the trash and send it downstairs to be recycled and repurposed...I have a feeling they don’t know that it’s just tossed down to the Slums.

I went into one of the stores through a window and on the wall found a code that was backwards. In the same area I found a safe up on a shelf that asked for the password, it was 8542. It opened and I found the Cat Badge inside! Cool. Another to add to my collection.

Wandering a bit more and I found a small alcove with some pillows and a memory. B-12 said that he wished he could feel the softness of a pillow or the taste of a cold drink. He missed having his own body. (Midtown Memory #2)

I found the Residential area and found some robots in the courtyard area. One of them was gesturing to the cameras that were around the place. The peacemakers had apparently put them up and they couldn’t play their music anymore. I spoke to the one sitting on the bench and Simon said that he would give me one of their cassette tapes if I get rid of the 3 security cameras.

So I went around the three floors and basically sat on all the cameras so that they would break. Once I got all three, I went to speak to Simon and he gave me one of their mix tapes. Don’t know what to use it for, but I’ll figure it out.

I went up to the third floor and found a boarded up apartment with a hole in the wall. I went through it and was almost attacked by a robot that turned out to be Clementine. She had thought I was a sentinel and asked what I wanted. I showed her the picture that Zbaltazar gave me and she said that he must have sent me as a new recruit. I must have been very resourceful if I was able to get through the sewers.

Clementine said that she had been trying to find a way to the Outside since she got to Midtown, but the Sentinels are always watching. But now that I was here, I could help.

We went to another room and Clementine showed me some plans she had on the wall. She said she was planning to use the Old Subway as a way to get out, she has the keys but still needs an Atomic Battery. 

Neco Corporation has one in their factory and she has a contact who can help them infiltrate. She didn’t know his name, only that they have a bomber jacket and a gold chain. She told me to find him and get inside the factory. I was small and swift enough to sneak in. I just had to be careful of the sentinels.

I left Clementine’s place and continued to explore around and found a robot on a couch that I could sleep on. He liked it.

I continued on and went into the a shop where there was a hole in the ceiling. In the corner I found a memory. B-12 said it was interesting that robots were mimicking human work and behavior, like this shop that sold food. He remembered his favorite place to eat when he was human, but he couldn’t remember the name. It was a small and welcoming place that started with M. (Midtown Memory #4) lol. I wonder if it was McDonalds.

I reached one of the end of Midtown and it was being blocked. A tram was trying to get through but was stopped by a Peacemaker saying that access to the outside was restricted and the elevator was disabled. It was unsafe out there.

Down another area I could see another blocked area but it had some flying robots. I think those are the sentinels Clementine was talking about. 

In front of the hat store I found a robot that was waiting for someone called Stuplachee to come help him restock the hats and that he was probably slacking off at the bar. At the entrance to the hat store there was another robot but he wouldn’t let me in while they were restocking. So I guess I will have to get the other guy to come back.

But that will have to wait until later. I had already been playing for a while and I still have much to explore. I have to help Clementine and find her contact to get into Neco Corp. I’ve seen gameplay of this and I know I am going to die so much. I’ll try not to though. I’ll worry about it when I get there. Until next time. Happy Gaming!

[imfluentinfangirlandgay]

Another one I liked from that post, lmao strap in gang, it's gonna be a bumpy ride

I'll admit I don't love this one but I also didn't edit it very much soooo

Emmet nodded with what the HR manager was saying, not really listening. It had been a long day, longer than most. All Emmet wanted to do was curl up in his bed and sleep, but he still had a few things left to do before closing up the Subway for the night. Passengers and patrons had all left (finally), leaving only him and a few of the other employees he’d hired after Ingo-

After Ingo had gone on vacation. For three years. Without telling anyone. Emmet shook his head violently to clear his thoughts. He could drown in them later. Whoever had been talking to him must have stopped, because the room was silent again.

“Boss? You okay?” Emmet glanced up at the woman in front of him, her eyes alight with concern. She knew what day it was and thankfully, had not mentioned it to him. Emmet nodded, pasting his worn smile back into his face.

“Just need to refuel and get my systems maintained. You head home. I can close up tonight.”

“Are- are you sure? You don’t seem fine-”

“I said I’m okay, please just go,” he ground out much more forcefully than he intended to. The others looked at each other and began to hurriedly pack up their things, ready to get out of Emmet’s way. He was just glad no one had said those two accursed words to him, the same ones that had dug at him like needles ever since Ingo hadn’t been around. He didn’t need the reminder. It didn’t even count because Ingo wasn’t here! It couldn’t! He wasn’t getting older, and neither was Ingo!

There was a deafening crack from somewhere underground. The whole office they stood in shook with the noise, coming to a halt just as soon as it had started. Emmet jolted, entire body tensed as the whole office sat in silence. Everyone’s eyes swept to him, looking to him for orders. He reached down and grabbed out a Pokeball with shaking hands. “May, Ingrid, and Scott, with me. The rest of you, get out of here. Don’t come back unless I send a ticket stating otherwise.” He never got this serious anymore, and that had an effect. The three people he singled out flocked to his side, everyone else in the room practically bolting out of the Subway. Emmet lowered his cap, shading his eyes. “Stay behind me. At the first sign of danger, leave. I’ll be fine.” Someone began to protest but he held up his hand in their general direction. Nothing else was said as he strode out of the office, tossing two Pokeballs into the air.

Elecktross and Crustle sprung to life at his sides. “Something happened in the Subway. Crustle, tell me if you find any fault lines. Elecktross, be ready to battle.” Both Pokemon nodded, flanking him as they made their way down the hallway and into the main platform.

The lights had shuddered off, leaving only the ugly yellow emergency backup lights. Whatever it was must have caused a power surge. Great. He’d need to get Galvantula to round up the Joltik again for a reboot. There was nothing outwardly wrong in the main platform, so he hopped down into the main tunnel and shined a flashlight. Nothing suspicious yet. He strode down the tunnel, keeping a mental note of where they were. He heard the footsteps of the others behind him. Maybe he should have allowed them to leave too, if something happened down here, he would be directly responsible for it. He was about to tell them to leave when he spotted something.

Getting closer, he found a young girl. She had long, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, covered in a bright yellow bandana. Her clothes were… odd. It was a deep blue tunic with some strange symbol on it that Emmet didn’t recognize. Her shoes were just ugly, the same yellow as her bandana. She had a red scarf that covered part of her face. Emmet shined his light on her, watching her form. She exhaled.

Emmet knelt next to her, prodding her. Her eyelids fluttered open. Her deep gray eyes were out of focus. She lifted her head, wobbling as she sat up. She looked absolutely exhausted, Emmet noted. She had small scratches and scrapes along her face, her clothing was scuffed too, now that Emmet was close enough to see it. She fixed him with an uncertain gaze that Emmet did not recognize.

“Ingo?” Her eyebrows knitted as she studied him, then her face relaxed. “Oh, no, not him. Sorry, you just look like a friend of mine.” She hadn’t noticed how every person in the group had frozen at the mention of that name. She began to topple over, but Emmet grabbed her arm, maybe a little too forcefully.

She looked back at him, frowning. “Wait,” he begged, “Please, tell me where you’ve seen my brother.” Her eyes widened as she took him in, sweeping down his figure. The silence was too long for Emmet, they were wasting time, was Ingo here? They had to find him!

“You’re the man in white… that he talked about…” Her head lolled for a second. Someone came up from behind him and grabbed her so she wouldn’t fall. “Alpha Pokemon chased us. He came through the portal, but he ran off… that way, I think…” She gazed in the opposite direction from whence the group had come. “I don’t know if it came through too… I fainted…” She shuddered, huffing for a moment as she went limp in the person’s arms. Emmet watched them check for a pulse.

“She’s alive, she just passed out,” came Ingrid’s voice. “We need to get her to a hospital- Boss, wait where are you-?!” But Emmet didn’t hear her as he sprinted down the tunnel with wild abandon. Ingo could be here, he had to be here. As he ran, he tossed out Chandelure. She floated beside him, worriedly lighting up her flames in an attempt to ask what was wrong. Elecktross and Crustle were keeping pace with Emmet, chittering and clicking to Chandelure. It seemed to understand the urgency. It used Flash, illuminating the dark space. It sent out a psychic pulse, too. Emmet assumed she was looking for Ingo.

The tunnel split and immediately, Chandelure swung to the left opening, shrieking. Emmet followed, hot on her trail. As he ran, he became aware of some crashing and banging happening deeper in this tunnel. It rumbled under his feet. He prayed Ingo was okay. Chandelure burst into a slightly more open cave, still shrieking. She illuminated the cave in a singular large flash, allowing every detail to be seen easily for a fraction of a second.

An absolutely massive Electivire. It could easily touch the top of the cavern they resided in. It’s eyes glowed red and it moved with a surprising agility that Emmet had never seen from an Electivire before. Its roar shook the tunnel. Other Pokemon lay on the ground behind it, fainted. A Gliscor, a Tangrowth, a Machamp… Next to it was a small figure, dwarfed by its sheer might. It was focused on them, raising one wire-covered arm. They wore a tattered old coat and hat that were all-too familiar to Emmet, silver hair and piercing gray eyes-

He got the sudden urge to say those two words again, the ones he had been dreading for the past three years on this exact date.

“Yah! Come get me then! Prepare for departure!" Emmet’s eyes did not have time to adjust to the dark, but that was quickly fixed by the burst of electricity given off by the massive creature. It illuminated the area, allowing Emmet to see the figure roll away from the thing as it smashed its arm into the floor. The figure stood, light and agile on his feet, as he began calling at the Electivire again. Emmet set his jaw.

“Crustle, Earthquake, now!” It was a risky maneuver in a tunnel underground, but it was the first thing Emmet thought of. Crustle immediately sent out a wave of earth at the Electivire, making the ground bend and crack under it. It did not turn around fast enough to fend off its attacker, falling into the earth and getting its legs stuck as the ground zipped itself back together. It flailed, unsuccessfully trying to see what had caused this. “Chandelure, Protect Ingo! Crustle, Stone Edge, as hard as you can!” Chandelure zoomed to Ingo, barreling into him and throwing up a shield of light as Crustle moved the tunnel’s structure around, throwing up large, jagged spikes of rock into the Electivire’s side. It screeched, throwing a Static Ball at Crustle, but it shook it off. Electric-type moves didn’t affect it. Crustle pummeled the Electivire with stone until it shuddered, allowing Emmet to throw a Dusk Ball at it. The ball shook once, twice, three times-

It snapped shut. The damned thing was caught.

It was completely silent in the tunnel now. Emmet must have lost his flashlight, because it was pitch-black, too. Chandelure trilled softly from her position by Ingo, illuminating the area with her ghostly flames once again. Ingo laid on the ground, stunned by the impact of the fire/ghost on his chest. She floated up and spun around happily, nudging at Ingo. Emmet picked up the Pokeball and immediately ran to his brother.

Ingo had just stood up, beginning to open his mouth to say something when yet another solid body slammed into him. Emmet felt tears leaking from his eyes. “That was a huge safety violation! Never derail like that again!” he scolded, though there wasn’t much bite behind it. Ingo paused, then Emmet felt his hands press lightly against his back. “I lost you once, I am not losing you again, Ingo. Please.” He pulled back, seeing shocked tears falling from Ingo’s face as well. “Don’t derail again.”

Ingo nodded slowly, something coming into his piercing gaze. “...We are a two-car train. Ingo and…”

“Emmet! I am Emmet!”

“Yes… And I am Ingo.” Emmet smiled more than he had in years, burying himself into his brother’s shoulder. “Where is Akari?”

Emmet pulled away again, wiping his eyes. He cocked his head, confusion knitting his brows. “Who?”

“Akari, the girl who was with me. She was injured by the Alpha Electivire, she needs help!” Emmet took his brother’s hand (it was so calloused and cold, why was he so cold, was that snow on his coat, it was summer right now).

“Did she have a tunic on? She’s with the others, they are helping her get to a hospital.” Ingo visibly relaxed and nodded. He squeezed Emmet’s hand.

“We should investigate any damages, check for safety issues caused by the creature’s rampage-” Emmet cut him off with another hug. He just wanted to hold his brother. That’s it. Ingo sighed contentedly. “-later. Safety checks… can wait for now.” They clung to each other, not knowing what the future holds, but knowing that they were together again, and things would be alright.

Emmet smiled against his brother, holding him in his arms, as he finally decided to repeat that awful, wonderful phrase.

"Happy birthday, Ingo."

(tags again hi @joyfulness03 @gingericywolf @professor-mist @zestofthedepths)

[redorich]

In the HermitCanyon au, How is my favorite Bee armored Admin doing? How long does it take for Xisuma to become.. aware of what is happening? For the first few sections it seemed like he was in a coma/unconscious. In the most recent bit Impulse tells Etho to get Xisuma, so at least theoretically he can now move, but how long has it taken him to get there, and where is he on the scale to full recovery? Are the other hermits keeping him safe with rabbit stew? (if they have rabbits that is...)

Part 2 of this.

Etho comes back twenty minutes later with a solemn look on his face. (At least, Puffy assumes. She can't actually see most of his face because of that mask of his.)

"X is in a bad way today," he says quietly. "I can take Puffy to him if you guys would like to stay here with Zedaph."

Impulse and Tango look nervously at each other. On one hand, they very much would like to stay with Zedaph, who is mostly healed but still very loopy and probably should not be moved. On the other hand, allowing Puffy deep into the Hermits' inner sanctum is a risk in and of itself, let alone with only one Hermit with her. Etho's a good fighter and a wily bastard, but Puffy is most certainly no slouch.

In the end, it comes down to trust. How much can they show Puffy before they can no longer trust that she won't snitch? How sure are they that she won't try to kill them all and steal their stuff?

"Tell Xisuma I said hi," Zedaph warbles from the bed in the corner of the room, out of any window's line of sight.

As Etho presses a button which removes a panel of the wall in a whir of piston noises, Puffy snorts out a little laugh. "I'll be sure to do that."

Tango nods subtly to Impulse. If Puffy brought Zedaph back to the canyon, saved him from a painful respawn, and didn't once ask for anything in return, then the Hermits can trust her at least this much.

Etho leads Puffy through a short hallway into a large circular room with a domed ceiling. The room is mostly quartz, though the walls are lined with sea lanterns and oak leaves. It’s beautiful. This place has been hiding under her feet this whole time?

“This is the Atrium,” Etho says, “or at least the main one. Come on, getting a mule will be more trouble than it’s worth if you’re not carrying anything.”

Puffy is speechless, utterly and profoundly, when Etho takes her through a tunnel on the opposite side of where she entered. It almost looks as though the tunnel here was carved by hand, then completely redone in dirt and grass and vines to give it a secretive, high fantasy look.

“Hey, Etho!” says a dark-haired man with a big smile as he comes trotting out of a branching hallway to the left. “Hey--” He catches sight of Puffy and his smile dissipates into panic. He shouts incoherently and dives back into the hallway he just exited.

“Hey Bdubs,” Etho greets impishly, then turns to Puffy. “Man, it’s like he saw a ghost or something. Maybe Mothman.”

Puffy bleats out a surprised laugh. Up ahead, she spots another Hermit lurking around the corner of the archway Etho is leading her toward.

“Etho,” says a tall blonde woman. “Cleo wants to talk to you about, er...” The blonde woman glances at Puffy. “Her thing,” she finishes lamely.

“Well, as you can see, I’m a bit busy at the moment. Would you mind telling Cleo so she doesn’t skin me alive?” Etho says sweetly.

The blonde woman snorts. “Face the music, Mothman. I’ll take care of Puffy from here. I assume you’re taking her to Xisuma?”

Etho wilts. Clearly, whoever this Cleo person is, she’s not someone to piss off. Puffy wonders what Etho did.

“See ya around,” Etho waves, somehow both cheery and morose at the same time, like a funeral for someone nobody liked. Puffy and the blonde woman watch him go.

“My name’s False, by the way,” the blonde woman says. “Thanks for the bandanna. Normally I’d be wearing it, but I just got back from beating up Iskall.”

The woman-- False-- laughs. Puffy is once again taken aback by the idea that the Hermits actually use the items that she makes for them. 

False takes off in a brisk walk toward the archway she’d come out of. Jumping a little bit at being torn from her thoughts, Puffy hurries to follow. It’s hard to keep up, since all Puffy wants to do is stare. She must be in the living quarters-- they let her in the living quarters?! Each door matches the high fantasy, underground sort of aesthetic, but a few doors are left open and each one is remarkably different on the inside. One room is built entirely out of red and white concrete, whereas another is Nether-themed with actual fire, and the room down the hall is entirely underwater!

One door is different. It’s got blue-purple banners along the frame, and when False opens the door for Puffy, she can see that the room is made of blackstone bricks. Maps of the Dream SMP line the wall, and in the center of the room there is a mildly ornate table made of warped wood.

At the end of the table in the back of the room, opposite the door, sits a trio. To the left, there is a plain-looking man with a beard and an “at” symbol on his shirt. He speaks in a Southern accent to a man on the right side of the table, who wears a red sweater and twirls a feather between his fingers like the cat that got the canary.

In between the two, at the head of the table, rests someone very unique. He’s obviously tall, that much is obvious even when he’s sitting down. He’s also got mesmerizing purple eyes which glow faintly against the dark of the blackstone. Puffy doesn’t know why, but she gets the feeling that they’re supposed to be glowing much brighter.

As taken by the man’s eyes as she is, Puffy doesn’t notice the non-invasive breathing tube the man also has (a cannula? She doesn’t know what it’s called, but that sounds right) until the man’s gaze falls upon her, still standing in the doorway next to False.

“Oh,” the man says. “You’re not supposed to be here. Welcome.”

False steps forward, breaking Puffy from her trance. “Puffy, this is Xisuma, Joe, and Grian. I’d introduce you to them as well, but... you know.”

“I don’t know-- oh,” Puffy says awkwardly, catching sight of the massive crochet blanket she’d made for the Hermit months ago, draped across Xisuma’s shoulders.

“Why are you here?” Grian asks with a tilted head. “No offense or anything, but I just lost a bet. I had three diamonds on Cub bringing you in here eventually-- he’s the one you usually meet at the barrel, you know.”

False interjects, “I didn’t bring her down here, it was Etho!”

“Shoot,” Joe says. “Cleo wins yet again.”

“It was Zedaph, actually,” Puffy says. All eyes turn to her. “I found him on the surface. He was really injured, so I brought him back here. Impulse and-- Tango? Yeah, Tango-- told Etho to take me down here.”

Puffy uncharacteristically twiddles her fingers a little bit, feeling in over her head. “Uh, you know I’m not gonna tell or anything, so... Why am I here?”

The full weight of Xisuma’s piercing stare falls upon her. Even as fragile as he looks, even as strong as Puffy is, she feels a jolt of apprehension.

“You’d know more about the red vines than we do,” he begins. “Etho mentioned that they’re what hurt Zedaph; he’s mentioned them on multiple occasions, and never in a good way. How long do you think it would take for those vines to reach our village, and what do you think would happen once they do?”

“As far as we’re aware, there are several players who are proponents of the vines, and claim they originate from some sort of egg?” Joe adds. “I’ve had a hard time calculating how big of a mushroom we’d need to make an omelet out of the egg, but apparently most of my fellow Hermits do not in fact want evil eggs on their omelets.”

“And how come the End is inaccessible?” Grian cuts in with a whine. “I want my elytra.”

Xisuma huffs a laugh into the cannula. “As you can see, we have many questions which only a native Dream SMP player like yourself can answer. In the interest of keeping ourselves safe--” he trails off into a coughing fit.

Puffy bites her lip, feeling as though she really shouldn’t be seeing this. Joe rests his hand on Xisuma’s back.

“You give us answers, and we’ll give you diamonds, netherite, whatever you want. And when we move out-- well, it wasn’t much of a secret anyway-- we’ll offer you a safe place with us,” Grian speaks up on Xisuma’s behalf.

A thousand thoughts spin inside Puffy’s head. She feels like Dorothy in that tornado, and Grian’s offer is the Wicked Witch. “Did you guys really save Tommy’s life?” she finds herself asking.

The Hermits seem taken aback.

“The blond kid?” False asks. “Yeah, but he was unconscious the whole time. I think Scar told the kid to keep us a secret, but... I don’t think any of us expected that to actually work.”

Puffy laughs disbelievingly. “He’s the one person on the entire server who keeps insisting that you guys aren’t real.”

“That’s good to hear,” Xisuma says quietly. “Do you have an answer for us, or would you like some time to consider?”

There are a thousand and one variables Puffy needs to think about. What is Dream’s stance on the Hermits? Who will she be setting herself against by allying with the Hermits? What will Puffy have to expect, from both underground and surface-dwelling players alike? Which players can she take in a fight?

Fuck it, she thinks. “You’ve got yourselves a deal.”

Xisuma smiles. Despite his ill condition, she gets the feeling that this nice, mild-mannered man is far more dangerous than she could ever hope to be.

“I’m glad to have you on our side, Puffy,” he says. “Thank you for your help.”

[powdermelonkeg]

My BO2W Wishlist

There's a lot of hopes that I have for the new BO2W game, and a lot of things I'm excited for. Some are a lot more ambitious than others, so I've taken the time to put together a list, half so I can get my thoughts out on paper, and half so that when some of them DO happen, I can run circles in my room screaming with happiness.

So without further ado, let's get right into it.

Pettable dogs. This is by far the LEAST ambitious of all of them, since Nintendo's basically confirmed it themselves. But it would still be nice to have Link interact with animals more, and give him a bit more personality.

Cooking mechanics expanded. I am a SUCKER for cooking mechanics in video games, not for their complexity, but because it feels like I'm actually making something cool in game. It's one of the biggest draws for me for Genshin Impact, where you can make all kinds of dishes with specific ingredients and buffs. My hope is that, in BO2W, we get new ingredients, new recipes, and maybe even learn some ancient Zonai or Skyloftian foods from old texts or new characters.

Worldbuilding. I'm an author. Worldbuilding is my JAM. Anything new to the game that shows sign of culture--alphabets, food, architecture, clothing, historical events--is going to make my gay little heart happy.

A new house. In the original BOTW, you have the option to buy and fix up a house. It's a small place, but it's pretty, so I like it on a surface level. But the stable at the side of it is purely decorative, the house doesn't have any storage functionality besides weapons display, and the two construction guys camp out in my front lawn. I want a bigger house. I want it to be able to do things, like store cooking ingredients or let me hang pictures of myself or take a bath, and I want it to be AWAY from people. Ideally, in the sky isles

Loftwings. This is one of those ones that's more far out there, and I'd be very surprised if it came true. But Loftwings are BEAUTIFUL creatures, and given that we get sky isles, I'd love the option to be able to fly on one whenever I like, even as a later-game mount. And the idea of being able to sneak up on wild Loftwings like you do horses in BOTW, maybe with a little minigame for hanging on while they try to throw you off in the air, gives my the happy chills.

Playable Zelda. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, because it's about half of the fandom's wildest hopes. I would LOVE to be able to play as Zelda for different segments of the game. Maybe she has a subterranian adventure while Link's up in the sky, and the two of them have to activate different parts of Zonai tech to advance the plot. And maybe when she cooks, she gets different buffs than Link does, because she's more of an alchemist than a chef. Do I think it’ll happen? At this point, no. But I can hope.

Ancestry lore. The Zon-eye symbol reminds me of the Sheikah and Yiga, and the architecture reminds me of the Twili, Lanayru Robots, and the Tower of the Gods. I want to know if the Zonai are related to any of the above things--were they the ancestors of the conflicting clans? Are they gone because they were banished for dark magic? Were they around before Skyward Sword? Please link them to established lore, Nintendo, I would die!

Three more levels of Hyrule to explore. I don’t mean dungeons, though I do want those and will get to that. I mean in the sense of exploration; we’ve already got the sky, but I want to be able to explore underwater and underground, too. Tunnels with ruins of old dungeons, underground mushrooms to forage, the Lakebed Temple, things far out in the ocean...I also want the sky isles to be EXPANSIVE. Give me more islands than just the Skyloft cluster.

Dungeons and items. Another popular one by the fanbase, but I want to give my reasoning. I LOVE puzzles. They’re the reason I hold the Zelda franchise so dearly; it feels really cool to manipulate the area around me cleverly enough to discover secrets or progress. We sort of had that with the Shrines; if EVERY Shrine had given you a rune, I wouldn’t be so upset (even though 120 runes is ridiculous, but I was expecting less shrines back when it got announced), but in the game, you get four cool abilities, and then everything feels...same-y. The themes of the shrines didn’t change; we never got a shrine that was overgrown by invading plants, or had lava seeping through cracked walls. It was always “the monk is over here, do mini-puzzle to win.” I want DIFFERENT puzzles. I want THEMED dungeons. I want BIG motivators. Maz Koshia’s shrine was PERFECT. Give me more of that.

Timeshift stones. These were my absolute favorite mechanic in Skyward Sword, and I would pay literal money to have them implemented again. When I was playing Skyward Sword for the first time, they were INCREDIBLE, and I thought we were going to get one as a key item. BRING THAT BACK.

If anyone else has wishes for the game, feel free to shoot me an ask! I’d love to hear about them!

[everlarkficexchange]

Like The Stars Hold The Moon

Written By : @katnissmellarkkkk

Prompt 59 :  "Katniss dad is a victor, he won his hunger games and is a mentor. Peeta is reaped for the games and Katniss begs her dad to help him win the games. [submitted by anonymous]“

Hi! It feels like there’s so much I need to say here and I can’t remember any of it now! This is obviously–if you read the summary, which I assume you did and that’s why you’re here hahaha–an EFE prompt. It was submitted by an anonymous person, so I don’t know specifically if this is what you wanted but I really hope this is good enough that you’ll be fulfilled?

I don’t think there is much more to say? I hope everyone who reads this has a good day! I wrote plenty of this on Easter so I’d like to thank Jesus for rising again. And I feel like the prompt alone is a sufficient summary but just so you know, this heavily features Katniss, Peeta (obvi), Haymitch and Katniss’ father, Hunter (I named him, that’s not canon, I know).

This fic I likely going to be a three-shot with an opportunity for a sequel three-shot. Oh and also, thank you to the anon who sent the prompt!

Oh and this got really long, so I’m just going to submit the first part on here and then I’ll add a link at the bottom to continue reading on AO3. I’ve never done this before so I don’t know if I’m doing it right?

Okay, if you read all my talking, bye now!

Rated T for the canon violence. 

At the reaping for the Forty-Seventh Hunger Games, Matty Knick drew out the names of a ”very special boy“ and ”a very special girl“ from the reaping bowls. She read them off in a bright voice and matched the sentiment with an out of place perky smile. The girl’s name was Heather Branch.

And the boy’s was Hunter Everdeen.

Of course, everyone knows the story of Hunter Everdeen.

/

Year of the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games.

"So Hunter,” Caesar Flickerman leans toward the victor, absolutely electrified, and says, “tell us, tell us. How excited are you for the games this year?”

The camera focuses in on gray eyes, the color of a storm cloud or a cleanly polished knife. Dangerous and hard and cunning.

Or protective and frightful and angry.

Or warm and loving and kind.

“I’m about as excited as I always am, Caesar,” he shoots back, not a trace of even so much as a smirk on his face. Not even so much as a lift from the corner of his mouth.

And still, the crowd of Capitol idiots burst out in laughter, as if they just heard the funniest joke in the world, as if this was Hunter’s desired response to the words.

As if the conversation wasn’t about teenagers—and some as young as twelve—killing other teenagers.

“And what about you, Haymitch?” Caesar asks next, segueing from one aggravated man to another.

“I’m looking forward to the free drinks,” Haymitch says while tipping back dark gold colored liquid into his mouth. Almost as an afterthought, he gestures wide and sloppy to the crowd, igniting cacophonous sounds from the population once more. “And of course, the social interaction with all you lovely people.”

No one in the audience recognizes the insult. No one understands the blatant sarcasm at their expense.

Here in District Twelve though, we do. As exemplified by Peeta’s laugh, vibrating against my back. “Shh,” I hush, laser focused on the enormous television screen before us.

“Daddy’s not speaking anymore,” Prim reminds me from the other room, where she’s currently flipping through a magazine our father sent.

“Well, be quiet before he does,” I snap, elbowing Peeta when he rolls his eyes now. “Stop it, I haven’t seen him in weeks,” I complain, fixing him with a fierce glare.

“I know,” he murmurs agreeably, gently kissing my temple. “But he’ll be home in a few days.”

As if they could hear our exchange from inside the television box, Caesar turns his attention back to my father. “Hunter, how excited are you to get home to District Twelve?”

At that, his eyes genuinely light up with ferocity. “I’m counting the minutes,” he replies, but still manages to keep his tone cool. He adamantly refuses to give away his true emotion to even a single soul in the Capitol. It’s his way of withholding power from their greedy, glitter covered hands.

But I see the change in him. Prim, from her position against the doorframe, sees it. I’m positive my mother, who’s watching with our brother from the comfort of our house sees it as well.

Our father’s eyes are now alive again, the permanent frown his mouth resides in on every televised appearance loosens a bit, his brows aren’t knit so closely together any longer.

Caesar Flickerman sees the change too evidently.

“Look at those silver coins!” He bellows, gesturing for the cameras to put my father in a close up now. “They just lit up like the stars when talking about home. Tell me, Hunter Everdeen, how’s the family back in District Twelve?”

At that, my father makes a considerable effort to transform his entire expression into a mask of indifference. “They’re good,” he states evenly, his tone clipped. Making it blatant to even the airheaded Capitol citizens that he refuses to speak publicly about his family.

“Because you’re not property of the Capitol, baby,” he told me once, while on a walk in the woods. “You’re not anyone’s property.”

“What about you and mommy?”

“You’re our responsibility, but not our property.” He’d knelt down to my height, which happened to be the shortest in my second grade class. “Property implies ownership, Katniss. And no one owns you. No one owns you or your sister. Remember that for me. And never let yourself forget it.”

“You’re daughters are both old enough for the reaping, am I right?” Caesar presses further, and my sister and I automatically sigh. Knowing the response that’s bound to come.

“What’s wrong?” Peeta asks, as he still remains completely clueless. I shake my head instead of offering an explanation though, leaning further into his chest.

Peeta won’t understand. He was raised in town by merchants—the owners of the bakery, to be specific. He’s never understood the fierce protectiveness, the instantaneous fury, the irrational tunnel vision, that appears when a victor’s child is mentioned entering the games.

Peeta’s never even met my father. I’m not impatient by any stretch of the imagination to put the two of them in the same room, to watch my father chew my boyfriend up and devour him alive, to abide by his rules and regulations that will surely come with dating.

He doesn’t know Peeta and I have even so much as shaken hands. I’ve never so much as left him even the slightest hint. Not even when I’ve accompanied him to the bakery for the occasional trade with Peeta’s father, the baker himself.

Like both Prim and I predicted, our father is now on edge, his breathing uneven and his nostrils flaring. “Yes. Both my girls are of age,” he says after a long beat, his tone hard and jagged.

Caesar though is either oblivious or is extraordinarily practiced at appearing obtuse. “Well, wouldn’t it be something if either of them were chosen for the games? Am I right?” He directs his questions to the audience. “Don’t we all love a family story?” His words elicit cheers and hollers and a murderous glint in my father’s silver eyes. The camera only catches it for a moment’s time before quickly flitting away, towards the much more enjoyable image of the Captiolites chattering like chipmunks at the very idea.

And suddenly I feel Peeta’s arm tighten around me, the vision of me—the only person in the world he’s certain that he loves—being taken away from our home here in Twelve and tossed into an arena with kids twice her size, too much for even his naïve mind.

“Don’t we all believe in Mr. Everdeen,” the talk show host continues to push and I feel my typical annoyance with the odd man bleed into anger. “I mean, he brought home Mr. Abernathy here.” And with one single hand gesture from Caesar, the entire interview’s focus re-centers on Haymitch.

And unlike my father, he doesn’t even miss a beat before replying.

“Barely,” he mutters with a last swig of his drink, cleaning the glass. “And he was stingy with the gifts.”

Next to him, my father relaxes a bit. Haymitch always brings out a bit of levity in him, even on his worst days.

After all, in my father’s eyes, the paunchy drunk is a symbol of hope.

Haymitch is the only person my father’s ever brought him. He’s the only other living victor inside the confines of Twelve.

Not to mention his closest friend.

And my surrogate uncle, I note, a bit ironically. Haymitch and I have a far different relationship than he has with anyone else in my family but he’s always been there, has known me since the day I was born, often has dinner at our house, rain or shine, no matter how much he annoys my mother, and he’s an irreplaceable member of my family.

The audience is still riled up from Haymitch and howling with laughter—a bit too much, in my opinion—but my father can’t let the subject of his children go before adding one last sentiment.

“Don’t worry, Caesar. If either of my girls are reaped, trust me,” he states, louder and far more pronounced than anything else he’s said the entire interview. “They will be the victor. There’s not a tribute in the arena that would survive against my girl.”

/

For as long as I can remember, my father had taken me to the woods. He sometimes claims the first time he looked down at me in my mother’s arms, at a mere two days old, he saw a familiar hunger in my eyes.

Not a hunger for food. District Twelve is the smallest and the poorest in the country of Panem, but luckily, my family is one of the richest.

Unlike my schoolmates, I’ve never once had to worry about having enough to eat for lunch. My parents never worried that we’d starve to death or that Prim and I could be taken from their grasp by authorities. They never worried about supplying us with whatever we needed—they gave us more than we ever could have wanted—and they never had to fret that we’d be sent to the mines for work one day.

No, we were far too wealthy and far too famous for any of that.

But my parents had a far different batch of worries to keep them up at night. Not about food or finances or anything remotely common in Twelve.

No, they had to worry about cameras peaking into the privacy of our home and photos being taken without our knowledge and my face or Prim’s face being splashed across every magazine and newspaper in the country.

They worried about the almost insatiable thirst the Capitol seems to have for more family dynamics among the victors.

Especially after the recent back-to-back sibling victories led the hunger games to higher ratings and revenues in the Capitol.

When I was a child, my mother coached me to never go into town without my father by my side. Which sounds easy enough, until my father’s extensive vacations to the Capitol are taken into consideration. For as long as I can remember, my father would leave at random stretches of time, for weeks on end. To go play puppet for a population so dumb, so completely isolated from the rest of the country, that they took his anger for sarcasm. They took his bite as charm. They believed his glare was an act, was part of his appeal, when in reality my father had rebelled against performing for the last twenty-seven years.

When he was gone, our lives became strict. Bedtimes came earlier, curtains remained drawn day in and day out, our mother never wanted to sing or dance or even so much as smile with her husband gone.

But when he was home, sunshine peaked in our windows again. It danced on the floor and it swept us away with its gentle affection.

There was music and laughter and sweets and toys. He never returned from the Capitol empty-handed. He brought back expensive jewels for our mother, he built me and Prim a fancy treehouse in the backyard, put up a large, golden swing-set, went as far as purchasing as many cakes and breads as he could hold from the Mellark Bakery.

Peeta’s parents bakery.

Since I was two, further back than I can even retain, my father would take me out to the woods, would hold my hand and tell me old stories of District Twelve’s past, detail insane urban legends, teach me about plants and berries and trees and the direction of the wind.

And for as long as I can remember, I idolized him. He was so confident and so charismatic and so kind. For as long as I could remember, I wanted to be exactly like him when I grew up. It felt like an honor to me that I received far more his end of the gene line than my mother’s. She was regarded as a beauty in her youth, but he was one of the most magnificent people in the country. Having his coloring and the same silver eyes felt like a special gift, awarded every single time someone marveled at how similar we appear.

But my father was gone often and the unpredictable lengths of his stays in the large, foreign city was one of the only constants my family ever knew. So it really came as no surprise when my mother phoned the cabin only minutes after Caesar’s interview was over.

“I’ll get it,” Prim says flatly after a moment, throwing a sardonic glance at me and Peeta on the couch. Now in a much different entanglement than we had been while watching the talk-show.

“Thanks,” I murmur unintelligibly against Peeta’s mouth, before closing my eyes in pleasure.

“Don’t strain yourselves,” she can’t stop herself from tacking on the end.

“We’ll try not to while you’re still here,” Peeta murmurs cheekily, moving his lips downwards, towards my neck, right onto my pulse point. I let out a somewhat ridiculous squeak in response.

“Hello?” Prim says lightly into the receiver, already knowing it’s our mother. No one else calls this phone, inside this hidden cabin, located in the woods surrounding Twelve.

The woods in which officials fenced off years ago. The woods in which it’s illegal to enter. The woods in which my father has taken me to hunt for families less fortunate than ours since I was a small infant.

It’s not a typical cabin found in the outskirts of Twelve. No, ordinarily a cabin out here—a cabin anywhere in Panem, really—is nothing more than a broken down shack. There’s normally nothing other than an unsteady foundation, a freezing damp floor and an unlit fireplace.

But somewhere along the lines, in the years before I was born, my parents resurrected this place from the depths of despair and expanded it, rebuilt it, refurnished and redecorated and turned it into a vast, warm, safe second home for all of us to run away to when we felt the need.

Prim listens into the receiver for a long moment before she sighs deeply and beckons me. “Katniss, can you?”

Instantly, I break away from Peeta’s embrace, cupping his face and pulling him back from my collarbone.

“What’s wrong?” I ask as I scramble off the couch, my anxiety abruptly spiked. “Did something happen?” I search Prim’s eyes as I take the phone from her but, to my utter relief, all I find there is blatant, unmasked disappointment.

I already know what my mother is going to say before I put the phone to my ear. “Hi?”

“Hi, honey,” she murmurs, her voice both strained and higher than typical. Which indicates she’s trying to put up a front for us right now, when she’d rather be moping in bed. “Your father just called. Evidently Effie Trinket informed him he has more scheduled commitments to fulfill before he can come home.”

I deflate, already prepard, knowing this was coming. Isn’t it always coming inadvertently? My father has never been home when he was scheduled to be in my life. No matter the holiday, the birthday, the emergency or event, the Capitol demands that they comes first to him. Not even my birth could upstage his commitments. He wasn’t allowed to return home to Twelve, to meet his firstborn child, until his press events were done and over with.

It’s no wonder he refuses to put on show for those people.

“Okay,” I mumble after a moment, not even convinced my mother is even still there on the other end.

“It’ll be alright,” she says, as positively as she can. “He’ll be home as soon.”

“Yeah.” I try and fail miserably to match her tone. I inherited my father’s ability to act. Or inability, that is.

There’s the faint sound of crying in the background, and my heart aches a bit. “I’m sorry, honey, I have to go check on Archer,” she apologizes as a way of saying goodbye.

I make my way into the kitchen as soon as we hang up. Prim is standing by the counter, staring at the same magazine our father sent three weeks ago.

Peeta comes up behind me then, his hand rubbing my back in comforting circles. “Your father delayed again?”

I nod silently, as my eyes focused on my little sister now. She’s trying her best to hold back the upset that’s threatening to take over.

And without hesitation, my instincts to protect my family from anything and everything painful kick in. “Prim, it’s okay. It’s probably only going to be another week before he’s back,” I console, stepping closer to her small frame and touching her back.

It’s all the initiation she needs before spinning around into my arms and clinging onto me tight. “He’s never around,” she cries into my neck—I’m not much taller than her—as her shoulders shake with tears.

I feel Peeta’s eyes on me, measuring my reaction to Prim’s words. He’s heard me cry the same thing time and time again, he knows the familiarity of this scene better than anyone should.

“He tries his best, Prim,” I whisper thickly into her long, blonde hair. She’s fair and light, like our mother. Like a merchant or peacekeeper. Looking at my little sister, you’d never consider her to be the daughter of a man from the Seam.

But you’d easily believe that she was a girl raised in Victor’s Village and I suppose that’s what counts. Where we were raised and not where we could have been, if things had gone different.

“He’s never really going to be ours though,” she weeps and I don’t have words to comfort her now. Because she’s right.

Our father will always belong to the Capitol, first and foremost.

And not even his children can upstage that.

/

Prim leaves not long later, to head home to Victor’s Village and more than likely curl up with our mother for the night. They’ve both always been so alike, so much softer and more hopeful than me. I half expect every trip of our father’s to double in time, if not triple. After a lifetime of disappointments, I can’t help but prepare myself.

It’s not that they’re weak for believing. It’s that I have too much Hunter Everdeen in me. I have too much pessimism crawling inside my bones to ever fully trust that he’s really coming home until he’s already stepped off the train in Twelve.

Too many hours of my childhood were spent, wearing fancy stockings and warm, fur-lined coats, standing at the train station, only to welcome a load of cargo and no father in sight. Too many times were phone calls answered in tears. Too many night spent crying, clinging to my father’s hunting jacket, so disoriented by the hazardous schedule in which our lives were ran, waiting for my father to phone, waiting for him to walk through the front door, waiting for him to sneak up on us in the middle of the night or pull us from class on a school day.

That was the true constant in my life. Waiting for my father to finally come home, knowing every moment we shared was on borrowed time. Knowing that he’d never truly belong to us. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting to hear my mother’s bedroom door slam and lock, waiting to hear Prim cry or Archer wail, waiting to see that defeated glint in my father’s slate gaze.

I close the cabin door behind my sister now, knowing with confidence that she’ll make it home alright, even with the sun currently setting in the faded blue sky.

Our father never took Prim hunting like he did me, never brought her out to the woods and taught her to shoot a bow and arrow, never showed her how to trap and kill an animal. But even still, the path from the cabin to our home in Victor’s Village is imprinted in our brains, like a birthmark or tattoo. We’d be able to find our way to and from, even if we were sleepwalking.

As would Peeta. Considering this is the place he spends the majority of his time.

Considering this cabin may as well be his permanent address.

And if it weren’t illegal, it very well might be, I think to myself wryly as I walk over to where he’s leaning against the doorframe now.

“Hello,” I greet again, hopping onto my tiptoes and kissing his lips lightly.

He grasps my hips, smiling against my mouth. “Don’t you have to get home too?” He hesitantly asks, his desire to keep me here bleeding through every caress of his fingers, as they trail underneath my loose shirt, sliding upwards and causing an electric current to ripple through the core of my body.

But I just shake my head at his inquiry, moving my mouth from his to kiss down the side of his face, underneath his jawline.

“Mmm,” he moans after a long moment, before suddenly putting a few more inches between us. “Are you sure your mother won’t miss you?”

Peeta’s always been considerate of my mother. Too considerate sometimes, if I do say so myself. Bordering on obsessive.

He is obsessed with keeping her approval, with never crossing any invisible line, with never even so much as mildly exasperating her.

I suppose it’s only natural though. She is the only parental figure he has in his life.

I’ve never been too enthusiastic to introduce him to my father and he’s never pushed the issue too far. Hunter Everdeen is a practical legend around Twelve—and beloved across the entirety of Panem—but he’s the reason, I’ve always privately felt, that I was isolated from all my classmates.

Sure, I’m already not the most friendly person to start with, in anyone’s book. As Haymitch never hesitates to tell me. But there was already very little chance of me making friends in school anyway. Being the victor of the Forty-Seventh Hunger Games’ child dropped the chances of play-dates or sleepovers drastically. My father trusts no one. Not with his children.

And I didn’t mind for the most part. I’m too like him to enjoy people much anyway. This whole notion was much harder on Prim, who adored her fellow classmates and easily endeared herself to them as well. But no matter how darling my little sister may be, nothing changed our father’s mind and when he was set on something, it was practically written in stone.

I can’t even imagine how Peeta must feel, having to live in fear for the entire last year of our little secret being exposed. I may be nervous about how my father will react, but Peeta has to be outright petrified.

“My mother will be fine,” I murmur, rolling my eyes as I lean back against the wall now. “She’s got Prim and Archie to keep her sane until my father’s home.”

Peeta chuckles at me, a mirthful smile in his eyes. “And you got me,” he teases, tapping my nose with his finger.

I giggle in a way I withheld until Prim left. I wasn’t about to give her ammunition to mock me later on. “All to myself,” I add, matching his expression now. “For unlimited hours of the day.”

“That’s my girl, looking on the bright side.”

I snort. “Yeah, that’s me.” I’m the exact opposite of an optimist. I prefer expecting the worse and setting expectations low. Maybe it’s a learned behavior but, at least that way, I’m not crushed like my mother when things don’t pan out the way I want.

Peeta mistakes the look on my face to be one of hidden disappointment. “You’re father will be home soon, sweetheart. They can’t keep him in the Capitol forever.”

“Can’t they?” I mumble, not expecting an answer. Before he can offer one—because Peeta is nothing if not a fixer—I quickly segue to a new topic. “Where do you think you’ll go when my father does come home?”

He just shrugs the question off though, completely unbothered. “Anywhere but home,” he says simply, his stunning blue eyes clear as the sky they remind me of.

“Anywhere but there,” I agree, my smile twisting into a grimace.

/

A year ago, when I was barely fifteen, President Snow—Panem’s true Gamemaker, my father always said—demanded every victor extend their stay in the Capitol, even after the games ended that year. He gave no outright reason and my father was cagey to speak on the subject, but in the end, the president’s word was law and there was no room for argument. President Snow can demand of us whatever he wishes.

It was a cold, dreary autumn that year, with early snowfall, which was the leading cause to the significant increase in accidents and injuries. My mother, the born healer, had more patients than she could handle, and even while training Prim as her assistant, she required my help. I was to head to town and purchase a list of herbs from the apothecary shop her parents still owned. The people who disowned her, who had little to no interest in her after she married a man from the Seam, victor or not. The people who never cared to meet their own grandchildren, to acknowledge our existence even as we passed right by their shop, in their plain sight.

I was dragging my feet the entire walk there, already with a sour taste in my mouth, when I heard the loudest wail my ears had every registered. When I heard sharp words being screamed out, when the sound of a boy sobbing filled the air.

And my instincts took over, my every sense focused on finding the hurt and helping them, altogether forgoing the trip for my mother’s herbs.

I followed the commotion to the bakery’s backdoor. Right through the open threshold, it was crystal clear, the baker’s wife—the witch, as many of the kids at school referred to her—had beaten her youngest son senselessly.

He’s in my year, I’d realized abruptly, staring with an agape mouth at his bloody face. His eye was swelling and his nose and lip were smeared scarlet and the only thing that crossed my mind at first, was I recognized him as the blonde boy with the colorful notebook, who could never meet my eyes and always wore long sleeves.

Of course, I snapped out of the daze after only a moment. The witch turned and caught sight of me, snapping that no Seam brat was going to get any free handouts from her and to scatter before she called the Peacekeepers.

Something about the unmasked prejudice against the Seam, a place where people in Twelve had next to nothing and were seen as lesser than the merchants, jolted me into action.

“Get your hand off him!” I’d demanded, using my entire body weight, just as my father taught me, to push the door open as she tried to close it in my face. “Let him go or I swear I’ll make you regret it.”

At that, I heard an ugly laugh and the door flew open again, my exerted force throwing it back into the wall.

“I’m serious, child,” she snaps, her blue eyes narrow and her mouth in a snide smirk. “I will call the Peacekeepers to remove you from my shop-”

I didn’t even let her finish. I wasn’t one to be messed with. Not when I just witnessed something awful firsthand, not when I had it in my power to do something.

I knew then I couldn’t bring my father home. He was owned by the president and the Capitol. To an extent, we all were. And I knew I couldn’t stop the games from happening or the possibility of my name being pulled from the reaping bowl. I couldn’t always make my mother come out of her room or even out of her bed, when her illness struck bad. And I couldn’t stop my siblings from crying for our father at night.

But I knew that day in the bakery, I had the power over Mrs. Mellark and I wasn’t going to let her get away with hurting her son anymore.

“Call them,” I dared, not an ounce of insecurity in my voice. “Cray is an old family friend.” He was actually indebted to my father, who’d kept the man’s secrets for too many years to count. But family friend rolled off the tongue more effectively.

“Head Peacekeeper is now making friends in the Seam?” She spat in disbelief. “No wonder this district is so rundown.”

She laughed humorlessly, but my focus was pulled towards the boy. He was covering the left side of his face, as if it hurt too badly to release. As if he was trying to stop his eye from swelling, stop his nose from gushing blood. As if he could hold his now split lip together with nothing more than the palm of his hand.

The sight hurt my heart to see. It burned a fire inside of me that only a true injustice could set alight.

“My father is Hunter Everdeen,” I snapped in the woman’s direction, not even basking in satisfaction when her face drained of all color. The idea that a scrappy little girl with olive skin and dark hair was the child of the most powerful man in all of Twelve struck a cord inside even the witch. “Still wanna make that call?”

The woman’s face was caught between anger and shock when I glanced at her again. And I hated her for it. I hated her and every single person in this district who hurt their kids, who took out their grievances on them, who made them cower and quiver in fear. Who raised them to be afraid of those they loved in a world already so awful.

I know I live a privileged life but, deep in my bones, I know even if things were different, my parents wouldn’t have laid a hand on us. Even if we were so poor I had to take tesserae, even if we were starving to the point of no return, even if we were practically homeless in the Seam, my parents would never hurt us.

“Leave,” the witch spoke then, but her voice was void of all emotion.

“Not without him,” I refused, my eyes planted on the wounded boy in front of me. The boy who was doing everything to avoid looking me in the eye, too busy covering his battered face.

I heard a sound caught between a groan and a shriek, before a cutting board was tossed across the room. “Just go!” She shouted at her son, causing him to flinch severely. “Just go with her!”

On her order, which sounded more distraught than angry, the boy had stormed out the back door and into the chilly evening air, still covering his face desperately, still looking utterly ashamed.

But he waited for me to catch up with him. He waited for me to guide him away from that awful woman he was forced to call his mother.

He didn’t flinch when I touched his arm nor when I took his hand. And when I led him away from the town and towards the village, he followed me without complaint.

Actually, he followed me without a single word.

I realized this just as my house came into view. “You never told me your name?” I whispered, looking up at him gently.

He had tears leaking from his eyes that he was doing his best to ignore, the bleeding on the left side of his face had barely even lightened up, his eye was swelling bigger and bigger, and yet, he chuckled a little at the question. “I’ve been in your class since kindergarten, Katniss.”

I felt my cheeks burn pink, even under the darkening sky. “I know.” But I still peered up at him, curiously waiting for him to tell me.

“It’s Peeta,” he finally answered, maybe a bit satirical.

“Peeta Mellark,” I suddenly recognized.

“Mhmm. Figured you’d pick up the last name.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s printed across the bakery in huge letters?”

“Oh.” He chuckled at my ignorance, causing my blush to deepen.

And I realized immediately how much I liked the sound of his laugh. How I liked being the reason for the sound.

My stomach did a complete flip at the notion and my ears abruptly felt hot, but I tried to push all this away, needing to get him to my mother.

“Wait,” he halted before I could even reached the front door. “Is your mother in there?”

I shot him a confused look. “Yeah, of course? Who else-”

I didn’t even get a chance to finish though. “I really don’t want anyone else to know about this,” he pleads, his eyes looking as frightened as they did with the witch.

“Peeta-” I start, opening my mouth argue, to convince him to go into the house and let my mother treat his injuries. To let me get him help.

But one look inside his desolated, defeated, terrified eyes and I couldn’t make myself do it. I couldn’t put him through any more than he’d already gone through. Not when he’d eventually have to go face the witch again at home.

“Okay,” I whispered, and I felt him squeeze the hand I didn’t realize I was still clutching. “Let me take you somewhere else. And I’ll try to fix you up myself.”

I wasn’t a healer like my mother and Prim. I was a hunter, just like my father, just like his very name, through and through. But I had witnessed enough of what my mother did—my father had forced me to witness enough of what she did, in case I ever needed the knowledge—and I was confident I had the expertise to help him.

My decision was validated by the relief in Peeta’s eyes, by the visible exhale he expelled from inside. He was ashamed, I realized, of his abuse. He was embarrassed to let anyone know what was happening behind closed doors.

I guided him by the hand outside the village, through the Seam—a place in which he’d never been before—and to the fence line.

“Isn’t it electrified?” He asked, his grip on my palm tightening. I liked the sensation for some reason. I liked the way his big hand felt wrapped around my small one. I liked how he wanted to hold onto me in the darkness.

“Nope,” I say, and let out a proud giggle. Or maybe a nervous one. Whenever I think back to this night, I can never tell.

“How do you know?” His blonde eyebrows knit together, still afraid in a way I’d never had to be. My father had taught me everything there was to know about the woods from a young age.

“Listen,” I urge softly, leaning my ear towards the fence.

He cranes forward too, waiting for the buzz of electricity to fill his ears. Only, just as I knew, it never does. Because it never has. The fence’s electricity was shut off long before we were even born.

I watched as his face registered the silence, as he realized and trusted I was right. And I beamed at him, before showing him the way my father slips beyond the fence and guiding him through the trees, towards the cabin, buried deep inside the woods.

It took an hour to find, not because of the blackened sky, but because Peeta’s face hurt so badly that his gait was slowed. But I remained patient, even though that was never my strong suit either. I waited for him to pick up the pace, to be ready to move, to find our way through the tall green trees. I pulled all the branches I could see out of his path, used the moon as our flashlight and didn’t complain once when he stumbled along the way.

By the time we got to the cabin, it had to be past Archer’s bedtime. My mother would be worried sick for me, but I soothed myself that she had plenty on her plate. I’m her firstborn. The child she understands the least, the one who’s like her husband in body and soul. I knew I was probably near the bottom of her worry list.

The very first thing I did when we entered the cabin was order Peeta to sit down in the dining room. I gathered my mother’s first aid kit from the bathroom, wet a rag in cool water and I got to work cleaning the blood from his face.

“This has to be gross for you,” he murmurs after a long stretch of silence. His eyes betrayed how self-conscious he must have felt.

Trying to alleviate his anxiety, I pretended to shrug it off. “My mother cleans wounds all the time. At our kitchen table, no less.”

Peeta made a noise that indicated he didn’t buy my act of ease. “I heard at school that you run from the sick and injured.”

I raised my eyebrows at the comment. No one at school talked about me. No one knew me well enough to. People stopped trying to get close to any of Hunter Everdeen’s kids years ago.

The longer I stared at Peeta in disbelief, the more he seemed to lose confidence in his statement. “Maybe I didn't hear it,” he finally amended. I brought the damp cloth back up to his face again as a reward, tenderly wiping away the blood, before using the clean side to set against his swelling lid, hoping to offer some pain reduction there as well. “Maybe I saw it,” he added sheepishly.

I furrowed my brows, even more perplexed by the elaboration. “Saw it?”

“When Leaf Barker tripped and broke his knee in Physical Education last year? You were almost green when you bolted out of the gymnasium.”

His words conjured up a vague image. Still though, something about this felt odd to me.

“How do you remember that better than I do?”

At that, Peeta shrugged. “I guess, I notice you sometimes?”

“What do you mean, sometimes?” I pressed, none of his words suddenly making a bit of sense.

“Why did you stick up for me tonight?” He abruptly segued, his expression shifting into something of defense, like he’s trying to deflect.

But I’m not one to be deterred. “I wasn’t going to stand there and watch your mother hurt you,” I stated, my voice remaining firm. “Why?”

He continued to walk around my question. “Is tonight the first night you ever noticed me?”

I pulled my hand and the damp cloth away from his wounded face, reaching in the kit to grab a white cream I’d seen my mother and Prim both use on swelling before. “Yes,” I finally replied, because I don’t know what else to say. That I saw him glance at me sometimes and then watched as his eyes flit away? That I noticed how he doodled in math class, because he found the subject boring? That I’d seen him lift a sack easily over his shoulder at the bakery and watched him beat almost every upperclassmen at wrestling, even while three years their junior?

None of that seems even remotely relevant to mention.

“When was the first time you noticed me?” I shot back, still being careful to apply the cream with only the lightest pressure to his battered eye.

“Kindergarten,” he instantly blurted out, his tone simple and bold.

I stared at him in disbelief for a long moment before chuckling, catching the joke. “Funny.”

“I’m serious,” he refuted, peaking his good eye open, the sky meeting a silver dollar as our gaze locked. And I see that he is serious somehow.

“What?”

“The first day of kindergarten,” he continued, after a long beat of me just staring him. His confidence had wavered once again and he was looking a bit regretful that he’d put this out in the open. “You were wearing a red velvet dress and brown stockings. Your hair was in two braids instead of one and your ribbons matched your dress. The teacher asked during music assembly who knew The Valley Song and your hand shot right up. She put you on a stool and you sang it, clear as day, for everyone to hear. Even the birds outside stopped to listen. And from that moment on… I was a goner.”

I just continued to look at him in disbelief, unable to put the pieces of what he’s said together. Finally, I whispered, “you’re telling the truth?”

“I’ve had a crush on you for forever,” he admitted, his singularly open eye giving away his nerves at the admission. “And I know you probably don’t feel the same way. I know you didn’t even know my name until tonight but I just wanted to say, in case we never have the chance to speak again-”

“Stop,” I cut him off, my mind already about to explode. “Stop, um…” I refused to look at him as I spoke, furiously staring down at my lap. “I need more time to… process this.”

He had a crush on me since the first day of kindergarten? He’d heard me sing and from that day forward he held a hidden candle for me?

And he never once worked up the courage to talk to me?

Dozens of moments suddenly race through my mind.

Cerulean blue eyes finding me in a crowd countless times and then pulling away as soon as I meet them. The time I wanted to play a stupid game at recess and a stocky blonde boy volunteered to be team captain, and then picked me first. The stunning drawing I found in my locker last year on Sweetheart’s Day, that I was convinced was put there by mistake, though it bore a striking resemblance to the doodles on Peeta’s notebook.

And before I could stop it, I felt myself begin to shake with nerves.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” he apologized, seeing my frightened reaction. “I didn’t mean to scare you, I just… I didn’t know if I’d ever get the opportunity to tell you again-”

“Shhh,” I hushed, picking up the damp cloth once more. “Let me take care of your face. And then…” I hesitated again, unsure what to say in this situation. I had exactly zero experiences to compare this to. “Tomorrow we can talk more.”

Peeta nodded amicably, staying silent for the reminder of my ministrations. I felt a terrible pang of guilt for not responding the way he’d probably hoped, but there was still a part of me too stunned to even fully register the confession.

I was an outcast. I’d never fit in with the kids at school, neither town or Seam. I don’t look like the merchants and I’m too rich for the Seam folk. I would have been alone all the time at school if it weren’t for Madge Undersee, the mayor’s daughter who sat with me at lunch and partnered with me in class.

How could anyone have even noticed me to be anything other than strange? I barely spoke, even in classes where I knew all the answers. And I hardly participated in games or gossip. I had a father who insisted most days on picking me up himself from school, not allowing me to walk home alone like the other kids.

But the look in Peeta’s eyes was earnest. He wasn’t playing some elaborate trick on me, he wasn’t trying to coerce me into confessing something as well so he could humiliate me. He was being genuine in every way I could tell. And I had my father’s senses.

The same senses that helped him win his hunger games.

A new thought struck me out of the blue. Peeta seemed too kind and too considerate to have a mother who beat him like this. He doesn’t fit the profile of the kids in the community home, brought there by even less abuse than I witnessed firsthand tonight.

The insane urge to get to know him more, to learn more about this complete stranger who I went out on an impulsive limb for suddenly surges through my brain.

It wouldn’t be a good idea, I told myself. He’s a merchant and I’m the daughter of a victor. Two titles that seem not far apart in theory but are miles away from the other in practice. And I’m not experienced with people the way he is. I don’t know how to make friends or how to maintain them. I don’t know what he expects from me but it’s surely more than I know how to give. I don’t know what to say in a situation like this. Haymitch always tells me I’m as romantic as dirt.

But is that what I want to be? I asked myself as I finished fixing Peeta up. Do I want to be romantic? Do I want to be that girl who holds her boyfriend’s hand in the town square and kisses him under the moonlight? Do I want to put an embroidered ribbon in my hair and wear an expensive dress from the Capitol to go to the Sweetheart’s Dance? Do I want to sneak in through my bedroom window at the crack of dawn so my father won’t know I’ve been out all night?

If I could learn to be romantic, would I want to be?

And naturally, the answer I’ve always known automatically seeps through my brain. No. I’m not like my mother and Prim. I’m practical by nature, rather than fanciful. I’ve never truly obsessed about falling in love or fawned over even the most incredible looking men on the television.

But something held me back now. Something inside me said that answer, the truth I’d always known, is suddenly not entirely accurate anymore.

Because I find that I did want those things I just described. I did want to have someone to hold, someone to laugh with, someone who conjured up that same flip in my stomach as Peeta did earlier when he laughed.

I wanted the same kind of love my parents had. The kind of love that brought them both to life, despite the horrible circumstances they’d both separately endured. I wanted the kind of love that they showed me was possible, even in a world as bleak and as inhumane as Panem felt at times.

I only realized how long I’d been silent, contemplating my inner desires, when Peeta offered a minuscule smile and stood up slowly to leave.

I opened my mouth to speak but when his eyes met mine, every thought in my head was magically wiped away. I had nothing to say, nothing that could be of any sort of consequence, that could mean anything in comparison to his confession.

“I should head back to town,” he murmured, trying to appear nonchalant. “Face my mother. Hope she’s in a better mood now-”

But I couldn’t stand the idea of him returning to the witch, the idea of going to school tomorrow and acting like his words weren’t still spinning around my brain, the idea of even sleeping soundly tonight.

“Peeta,” I called just as he was about to reach the front door. “Wait!”

He turned towards me, looking puzzled by my outburst. “What’s wrong?”

And I don’t know what came over me. I still can’t place what made me—a girl who had never been decisive a day in her life—fling myself across the room and smash my lips onto his.

He didn’t respond at first. I caught him too completely by surprise. His lips hung there, frozen, as mine pushed against his, with too much force and an overload of desperation.

But I felt an incredible stirring in my chest, an odd sensation that felt akin to a giggle amplified.

And when he finally recovered from the shock of it all, his hands both came to rest on either side of my hips, his mouth began to move against mine, his knees bent to reach my height with more success, and the stirring turned to a fiery spark. I know he felt it too, as the kiss was swiftly disturbed by his wide grin.

“Don’t go back home tonight,” I gasped out, looking up at him, wide-eyed and breathless.

His gaze melted as he took me in, he head bobbing in agreement without even needing to consider my request.

“Okay,” he’d whispered with a dazed smile, his blue eyes impossibly wild and sleepy at the same time.

His expression, his spirit somehow, was contagious, and I found myself somewhere stuck between a laugh and a blush when I replied.

“Okay.”

/

After that night, Peeta rarely went back home. I had called my mother and let her know I was staying at the cabin, but intentionally eluded telling her that the baker’s son was joining me. We’d spent the entire night talking in front of the fire, making each other laugh. The bashfulness I felt from my unexpected kiss stayed in my gut, causing me to bubble up with embarrassed laughter every so often.

But instead of that making things awkward, it cut the tension pretty smoothly. It was only months later did Peeta confess he’d felt just as nervous and just as shy about spending time with me. He was charismatic, I realize even that first night. Ironically funny. He was nice, in a way I rarely have found anyone to be. And, the more time went on, the more my desire grew to stay close to him. The more often I was around him, the more painfully I missed him when we were apart.

It was only a matter of time until my mother found out—not least of all, because my siblings accidentally caught us kissing in back of the school, a month to the day we first spoke.

I always imagined she’d be strict on me, the firstborn, when it came to dating. Especially in the world we lived in. Especially with my father’s position. I truly thought she’d forbid a relationship until I was of age. Maybe I was wrong about her. Or maybe she just saw how I looked at Peeta and understood that I wasn’t just being careless or rebellious. That whatever magnetic connection I felt towards Peeta wasn’t just an ordinary school-aged fling.

To my surprise as well, my mother seemed to take on a very similar stance to me when it came to Peeta and my father. Keeping the news of this entanglement from her husband’s ears was almost her idea.

“What are you thinking about?” Peeta asks me now, bringing me back to the present moment. His fingers tickle my neck as they brush my hair back behind my ear, touching one of the satin green ribbons weaved throughout my loose braids.

“You,” I reply coyly, shooting him a sly glance as I slip past him to head back towards the kitchen.

“Me?” He calls in mock disbelief. He trails up behind me, catching me by the waist and swinging me into his arms without warning.

“Peeta!” I exclaim, automatically wrapping myself around him as I try to steady my balance midair.

“What, baby?”

“Put me down, baby,” I mock, pressing my nose to his now, rubbing them together.

“I like holding you though,” he whispers, like he’s confessing some huge secret.

“Until your arms gets tired-”

“That was one time, Katniss.”

“I’m just reminding you,” I say with an air of superiority. “You don’t always appreciate holding me.”

At that, his demeanor falls a little. “I do when I realize I won’t be seeing you much in a few days.”

I feel my heart sink now too. As excited as I am at the prospect of my father coming home, after weeks apart, I always have to be a little more careful upon his first days back.

He always likes to spend time at the cabin and go for long walks in the woods upon his return. Spend more time in nature than the indoors, stay far away from people outside our family, sleep under the stars by the lake. The Capitol is apparently luxurious, but in my father’s own words, it is void of any true or natural beauty. Everything is artificial, man-made, concocted and orchestrated. There’s nothing that compares in his mind—or mine either—to a cool breeze on a sunny day spent in the meadow where the dandelions grow tall.

“But I’ll still see you in school?” I say, though my voice comes out as more of a plea. Peeta doesn’t always like to attend school these days, not when he knows his parents can easily track him down there.

His father, the baker himself, took the ambiguous loss of his youngest—his favorite—son particularly hard. It was only a matter of weeks after I intercepted his mother beating him that Peeta definitively decided to sever ties with majority of his family.

I’d like to say he made the choice all on his own but that’d be a lie. I watched as the physical bruises on his skin healed, as he began to peel back emotional layer upon layer to me, as he slowly told me what really had been going on in the Mellark’s family home. And I can’t say that I was impartial to his decision to cut the connection to a mother with a bruising fist and a father who closed his eyes and let it happen.

“Delly’s parents usually make me go to school so…” He shrugs it off, like it’s of no consequence, his arms hoisting me higher against his chest.

But I feel a sudden wave of gratitude towards the Cartwrights. They may be a little too jolly for my liking and their daughter, Delly, maybe can’t take a hint to save her life, but at least they always watch out for Peeta’s well-being. At least they cover for him when his mother come sniffing around and they feed him what they can afford and force him to attend class, where I’ll be able to see him.

“Good,” I murmur, at peace now. My father will be home soon and Peeta will be safely tucked away with his best friend.

I lean down and kiss his nose sweetly, reveling in the tender moment. His lips follow my lead and begin to plant themselves across my chin, underneath my jaw, causing me to squirm and squeal at the sensation.

“So,” he murmurs against my throat. “We have the entire place to ourselves, for the whole night, huh?”

His audacious smile elicits my own. “At least.” My father’s delays usually mean a minimum of two days.

Within a minute, Peeta has me on my back, against the softly quilted bed of my upstairs room. He takes his time helping me out of my clothes before I hurriedly shove his off, impatient and hungry.

He, of course, finds time to crack a joke. “Good thing Archie is too young to come here unchaperoned. Or else we’d never get the chance to do this.”

I roll my eyes and shove his mouth off my collarbone, utterly disgusted now. “Talking about my baby brother is one sure way to turn me off, Peeta.”

Archer, my three-old-brother, was an unexpected surprise, to put it lightly. My parents were done with two girls. My father joked him and my mother were both already set with one clone each, but alas, the year of the Seventieth Hunger Games was a year full of shocks.

A few months before the games that year, the coal mines—the industry Twelve is known for—exploded. Right in the middle of the afternoon, as everyone was obliviously going about their day.

It was a close call for many and one more reason my father is beloved around these parts. If he hadn’t been at the right place, at the right time, if he hadn’t volunteered to go with Prim and her class on a field trip down to the mines that day, there was a chance that no one would have noticed the gas leak.

It was too late to do anything by the time my father pointed it out, but his warning and the fact that people in Twelve take his word very seriously, managed to save the lives the inevitable explosion would have otherwise cost.

Through the outpouring of gratitude, and the overwhelming media coverage my whole family was abruptly bombarded with, my parents made the decision to pull me and Prim from school for a while, to hole up in the remodeled cabin, where no one could find us because of its illegal location.

I’ve never ask and I don't ever want to know when my parents conceived Archer. But about nine months after the vacation from the world, my mother gave birth to a little boy who looked identical to me and my father.

“Sorry,” Peeta whispers with a chuckle, collapsing beside me. “I’ll make it up to you.”

He moves to kiss my stomach, to trace circles on my hips like he always does. But I shake my head, a different request—or more like it, demand—on my mind.

“Tell me the story of how you first fell in love with me?”

Peeta rolls his eyes. Very dramatically. “You mean a year ago?”

“I mean in kindergarten,” I say with a smirk and then let out a shriek of surprise when he pounces on me, his lips attacking my neck.

“Aren’t you tired of that story yet?” He asks, his voice edging on exasperated.

“You never tire of a classic.” I give him a pout, knowing he never refuses me anything when I pull that trick.

I’m right, as per usual. “Fine,” he relents, but his eyes tell me that he enjoys telling this tale more than he leads on. “Come here.” He holds open his arms and waits for me to crawl into them, to settle against his chest.

I lay there for a long moment, my pointer finger running up and down the center of his bicep, as my ear rests against his heartbeat, patiently waiting for him to begin.

“It was the very first day of school. You were wearing a red, velvet dress…”

/

Read the rest on AO3 

[queridopascal]

The new job (Din Djarin x F!Reader)

Part 1 of the “Ad Astra” series

Summary: as your eyes scanned the page, the words “spatial coordinates” and the phrase “writings and symbols no one has been able to decipher” made your eyes widen and your interest spike... (word count: 1.7k)

Warning: mention of food and drinks

A/N: my first ever Mando fic/series (even though we don't get to meet him in this first chapter)! Huge thanks to @hnt-escape for beta reading, and I hope you guys enjoy it ✨

Reblogs and comments are highly appreciated ❤️

NEXT | SERIES MASTERLIST

Sitting alone in your home office with a mug of coffee in your hand, you shuffled through the heap of unopened mail you found upon your return from your last expedition: advertising brochures, leaflets, bills and, at the bottom of the stack, a cream-coloured paper envelope with slightly torn edges.

Prompted by curiosity, you put down the mug and opened the letter with an old knife you kept in the first drawer: it was typewritten, dated 25th of September and signed at the bottom by a certain Elizabeth Williams.

As your eyes scanned the page, the words “spatial coordinates” and the phrase “writings and symbols no one has been able to decipher” made your eyes widen and your interest spike. Your work as an archaeologist had given you the opportunity to travel the world, discover different types of artifacts and ruins, get closer to cultures and their ancient origins; but something inside of you, a feeling in your gut, was telling you that what was described in the letter was unique and, possibly, something you had never seen before.

Without giving it a second thought, you dialed the phone number scribbled underneath the signature and waited with bated breath as you began fidgeting with a pen, clicking it open with every beeping sound coming from the other side.

“Hello?” a calm tone greeted you.

“Mrs. Williams?” you asked, clearing your throat.

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Hi, I’m-”

“I know who you are, I’ve been waiting for your call.” the woman said with a smile in her voice.

“Oh,” you gasped, “I... received your letter and I would love to hear more about this artifact you mention.”

“Great. I’ll have someone pick you up tomorrow morning at 9 sharp.”

“Thanks, Mrs Williams,” you nodded, “do I… have to bring anything?”

“Your knowledge will be sufficient, my dear.”

Once you both ended the call, you took a deep breath and closed your eyes, feeling anxious and impatient for what was about to come and reliving the exact same sensations you had experienced the day of your very first excavation.

After a sleepless night, you were awakened by the furious pitter patter of heavy rain against the windows. The dark grey of the sky made every room of your house incredibly cold and humid, and you put on your favorite cardigan as you dragged your feet into the kitchen to prepare something for breakfast.

When you finished eating, you took a quick shower and got dressed in your favorite black pencil skirt and a white blouse, a matching blazer and a pair of heels completed the look. You took a seat on the couch in your living room and waited for the driver.

At 9AM there was a knock at your front door, and you immediately grabbed your blazer and your purse and walked over to it.

“Good morning, Miss,” the driver bowed his head a little and extended his gloved hand to you while opening a black umbrella with the other. “Please, follow me. Mrs. Williams and her colleagues are waiting for you.”

You put your hand in his as he walked you over to the sedan; he opened the car door and waited for you to get in, shutting it swiftly once you got comfortable in the cream leather back seat.

After a two hours drive, the car stopped in front of a wired mesh and barbed wire fence, lined with several “Military Zone” signs. A couple of seconds later, the guarded gates opened with a screech, letting the car enter what looked like a tunnel carved inside of a mountain.

The driver pulled up in front of a large white door with soldiers on either side, where an elderly woman waited with crossed arms.

“Goodmorning my dear,” the woman stepped towards you. “I’m Elizabeth. Welcome to the Falls Hill military installation.”

She hugged you tightly and you stiffened at first, looking at the two soldiers, whose eyes were fixed on a point in front of them.

“Come, I’ll show you around.”

One of the guards stepped to the side and held the door open for you and Mrs. Williams. The large corridor that extended in front of you reminded you of a war bunker: it was grey and cold, illuminated by pale neon lights, and it had the same distinctive smell you would find in the subway.

You followed her obediently, and when she reached the end of the corridor, she slowly opened a set of double doors bearing an "Authorized Personnel Only" sign; taking a step forward, your mouth dropped open in wonder as soon as you laid eyes on what looked like a giant stone ring covered with strange inscriptions.

“I've never seen anything like this,” you gulped, keeping your eyes fixed on the object.

Mrs. Williams chuckled, pleased at your reaction. “No one has, my dear.”

“Can I…?” you asked in a trembling voice as you pointed at the artifact.

Elizabeth nodded and you walked over to it, placing your hand on the rough surface of the stone to feel the engraved characters under your fingers.

“These inscriptions,” you started, turning to her, “might be hieratic or maybe cuneiform, I think I've seen some of those symbols before.”

“Perhaps you could help us with the interpretation?” she moved to stand beside you and tilted her head to the side, looking at you expectantly.

“Yeah, of course. I'll get to work right away.”

The hours passed quickly, and between one cup of coffee and another, it was already evening. The succession of symbols and characters engraved in the stone kept repeating in your mind, a mix of infinite combinations and interpretations, from the most logical to the least plausible.

Wrinkling your eyes for tiredness, you looked up from all your papers and notes, finding a new possible interpretation of the second row that made your heart race.

“Mrs. Williams, was anything else found in the proximity of this object?”

“I was hoping you'd ask me,” she smiled and motioned you to follow her.

Elizabeth led you through a hallway and stopped in front of another door, resting both hands on the opening handle.

“You are not to speak of this to anyone, understand?”

You simply nodded, your breath catching in your throat at her request.

“Mrs. Williams, I haven't issued any new authorization papers for this lady.” a baritone voice captured your attention, and you turned around only to find a soldier in uniform staring back at you.

“Colonel Shaw, it's nice to see you again,” Elizabeth greeted him with a gentle smile, but the man looked at her with a serious and impenetrable gaze.

“Mrs. Williams, I don't think I'll have to remind you that what's inside this room is classified.” he walked over to the both of you, his expression unfazed.

“She's the new addition to my team, Colonel,” she said, looking him straight into his icy blue eyes, “a world-renowned archaeologist who is going to help us decipher the inscriptions on the stone ring.”

“Exactly. Then why are you here?” he glanced at you out of the corner of his eye.

“Because,” you cleared your throat “the second row of inscriptions refers to another object, described as the portal.”

The Colonel raised an eyebrow at you and sighed, then looked at Elizabeth.

“Permission denied.”

“Excuse me, Colonel Shaw. I was told you would have given me carte blanche, especially since the government authorized this project,” she stepped towards him with her usual calm tone.

“Not for long,” he retorted, “you have one more week Mrs. Williams, the clock is ticking. And since she doesn't have any authorization at the moment, I won't grant her access into this room.”

“Then I guess I'll have to ask Captain Gallo,” she crossed her arms. “See, he was the one who helped us get started with this project and I'm sure he would authorize this young lady in a heartbeat.”

The Colonel exhaled angrily, his jaw was clenched in frustration and you smiled to yourself.

“Fine,” he said through gritted teeth “You have my permission.”

6 days later

Staring at the portal, the inscripted characters on dark metal and stone looked so similar to something you had seen before, but also so different. You felt intimidated by that object, almost in awe, it was as if it gave off vibrations within the room, as if it wanted to give you clues to solve that riddle that had been keeping you and the rest of the team awake for days.

“Morning guys,” Elizabeth walked into the research lab with a box of donuts, “I brought something to eat.”

“Thanks,” you beamed at her as you took a glazed donut from the container. “I really needed something with sugar.”

“How is the research going?”

“Bad,” Linda, one of the members of the team, shook her head, “no matches whatsoever.”

“Is that so?” Elizabeth turned to you, her expression somber.

“Yeah,” you sighed, “even if the inscriptions look familiar to us, when comparing them to all the material we have available, we found no similarities. We’re missing something and tomorrow is the last day.”

“I’m gonna ask for a permit extension, I'm sure they'll grant it to me,” she stroked your back, comforting you.

“I found another reference!” Linda squealed with excitement “Shall we start with the comparison?”

“Absolutely,” you rushed to her side and took a seat on the corner of her desk, looking at the monitor of her computer.

The documents she had just found showed incredible similarities, and referred to an engraved metal fragment found a few months earlier in the Atacama Desert.

“These three symbols are exactly the same ones of the central row!” you exclaimed, not believing your eyes.

Linda nodded, then gulped, “They also say here that they found out some symbols represent a stylized version of constellations, and that this type of metal is not…”

“Terrestrial,” you added as you kept on reading the description under one of the pictures.

Mrs. Williams looked at the both of you with a proud smile, then she walked over to the other desk and dialed a number on the phone.

“Captain, we finally found a match for the inscriptions.”

PERMANENT TAGLIST: @withakindheartx @katiebits1 @evelynseventyr @derretendotoda @darnitdraco @janebby @mswarriorbabe80 @audreyispunk @agingerindenial @jediknight122 @princess76179 @elegantduckturtle @t3rradactyl @cheekygeek05 @serini-ty @tobealostwanderer @tothejedi @castleamcc @thatgirlselectryc @rosie-posie08 @snow30285 @radiowallet @heythere-mel @hnt-escape @kestrelmando @greeneyedblondie44 @carstwirs @hb8301 @sara-alonso @pedrostories @phoenixhalliwell @wild-at-heart-kept-in-cage @sleep-tight1 @jennacide02 @aana4664 @jasterslegacy @almaeunice @hexedeslichts @midwesternwitchery @what-iwish-you-knew @littlemisspascal @ew-erin