Do people genuinely forget that the Traveler had had zero intimate/purely positive interactions with Furina before the whole execution thing? Because I feel like they do. The Traveler became semi-friends / acquaintances with her during her story quest and that became more cemented during the 4.3 event

🐰🌧️

Me reading fics where Tuvok encourages other peoples’ romantic pursuits:

YES YES YES! BULLY HIM! ENOUGH OF HIS BIG BROTHER'S BULLSHIT, BE HORNY

You twos first introduction is one of the funniest things ever. i hope you'll enjoy it anon I know I do. we're starting off strong with the bullying

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

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

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

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

anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I really wasnt expecting that anti-apple post to get notes sgdgdgdg I feel so validated 😭💕

watched queen charlotte yesterday night IM DISTRAUGHT!!!

can i ask you something? what makes this different from s4 with buck and eddie? didn't you say you lost faith after s4, so how was it restored and how did what happen in the s6 finale not make you lose faith in what would have been the series finale, they got buck and eddie together with random women they have no chemistry with?

I feel like I've answered this question a hundred times but, okay, once more with feeling! A one and a two and a three!

My faith was restored with season four after I a) calmed down b) took a step back and had more time to reflect and c) wasn't having a mental breakdown. As I've said before, my personal life was bad at the time, so when my fictional TV show didn't give me what I wanted and it was one of the few things giving me an escape/joy at the time, I didn't handle it well. But when I took a step back, chatted with others, and had some time to reflect, I realized I had been too impatient in my expectations. Season five was fantastic for me re: Eddie's growth and healing, as well as Buck approaching romantic relationships. I was honestly surprised they didn't get together in the season five finale, that was my expectation and it seemed properly built up, but then we had weird pacing in season six in regards to Buck and Eddie especially so I really suspect BTS stuff was going on.

I don't lose faith because I have seen what happens when people rush shit for a finale because they are cancelled or might be cancelled. You do not have to agree with my opinion on this. You are welcome to say, well if this was the finale I'd be pissed! But I, personally, would have been upset if they'd rushed my getting together moment because they were scared they'd get cancelled.

Additionally, again, we do not know what's going on behind the scenes. Clearly stuff was going on during season six. I don't mean to put on a tin hat here, but it's possible Fox said "no." It's possible Tim said "no." It's possible there was other shit going on that I can't even guess on because I'm not involved, that led to a "no" that will become a "yes" now that they've moved to ABC. We do not know.

I have not lost faith because guess what! It was NOT the series finale. I do not care for the "almosts" of other timelines. This is the timeline I'm in, thanks, and what matters to me is not what might have happened or what almost happened but what did happen. In my opinion, the writing team chose to take a risk and not get Buddie together, not compromise their relationship, in the hopes they'd get picked up somewhere else. It's a risky move, but once you get Buddie together you can't take it back, and so I respect that they stuck to their guns.

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO AGREE WITH ME. But this is my opinion of why I'm not upset. As a writer, I respect when someone has the integrity to hold to their vision even if it means taking a risk.

(And frankly I didn't like it for a series finale for any of the characters, not just Buddie! As much as I love all of them. I want to see the Madney wedding, I want Athena to quit her damn job, I want Chim to get a storyline not tied to Maddie... etc.)

As far as where the boys are now, given this was not the series finale:

Back when it looked like Eddie would get with Ana, a lot of us were excited, because we felt it was important Eddie date other people before he dates Buck. Shannon is the only relationship he's ever had and we felt that for his own sake, his confidence, his maturity, he date at least one other person.

But that's not how his relationship with Ana went. He did it to give Chris a parent, he did it before he was ready, he did it because he felt he had to. Whatever sexuality you believe Eddie to have, the entire Ana relationship was steeped in comphet. It didn't give him confidence or help him learn to have an adult relationship. So Eddie needs, in my opinion, to date around a little. For himself, because he wants to. Then he'll have the confidence to be with Buck.

Buck's relationship with Natalia will, I hope, give him the growth I wanted him to have with Taylor. He did a lot of growth regarding his platonic family this season, but it was also made more clear to him than ever that he wants to be a father and a husband. But as we see he once again let someone else pick his couch. This time, Natalia. She seems like the band-aid solution to his post-death trauma, but the audience has already been set up to see that Eddie is what's right for Buck, not her. It's clear to me from the writing that they had to hedge their bets, again for whatever BTS reason, but they are still priming the audience to know Natalia's not right for Buck, Eddie is.

Personally, given Natalia's reaction to Buck's relationship with Kameron and Connor, I think Christopher will be the breaking point. Buck will never, ever choose anyone else over Christopher. And I don't think Natalia, who didn't seem super comfy with kids in the first place, will like that her boyfriend has a parental and unshakable relationship with someone else's kid. And who can blame her? It's hard to build a life with someone when they're co-parenting another kid already. It's kinda the number one concern divorced parents have when dating again - I already have a child, and I share that child with someone else, but I'm not romantically with that someone else, how can a new person accept that? It's hard! It's uncomfy! It's difficult!

Again, we saw Buck fall asleep on Eddie's couch. Eddie is Buck's true partner. Buck is already a father (and possibly will be again, I think it's looking more and more likely that Buck and Eddie will adopt a child once they get together, Buck loves Chris but clearly also wants a baby - c'mon writers give me a safe haven baby), to Christopher.

Just as he realized with his coma dream that Bobby is his true father, the one he already has, and that means he can forgive his parents for his own sake and meet them where they're at, because he knows from where his true support comes (Bobby especially, but the rest of the 118 as well)... so season seven will I think be Buck realizing that Eddie is his true partner and Chris is his true child. And Natalia is not Taylor. Natalia is a good person. She's a selfless person who helps people come to terms with their death and makes such a terrifying experience joyful and loving. Buck needs to reject the "perfect woman" because no matter how "perfect" she might be, she can never be what he wants. No one can, because Eddie and Chris already have his heart.

So that's why I'm excited. I'm excited for Eddie to get confident in his ability to be a romantic partner. I'm excited for Buck to reject the "perfect woman" because he needs to realize he already has what he wants.

I don't think it's like the season four finale. The season four finale they should not have gotten together. It was too soon. It would've been steeped in the trauma they both just experienced (and have yet to talk about heheheheh). I think that season six just gave us what we hoped would happen when Eddie dated Ana and Buck dated Taylor but Eddie especially was acting from a place of comphet and trauma, and Buck LITERALLY DATED TAYLOR BECAUSE EDDIE NEARLY DIED, it was a MASSIVE trauma response and he continued to be with her because she wouldn't leave him, even though he was absolutely miserable with her to the point where the intensely-loyal Buck drunkenly kissed someone else (I think that kiss was equally about Eddie, Eddie didn't show up even though Buck invited him, and Buck clearly is angry and missing him).

Season six finale gave us Eddie learning to ask someone out, Eddie trying to date casually, Eddie learning how to be an adult in adult romantic relationships. And it gave us the "perfect" woman for Buck, while ALSO showing us how she ISN'T what he really needs, to set us up for Buck realizing nobody will ever work out because nobody will be Eddie.

That's why I'm not worried. They're two entirely different scenarios. And while you may not agree with how the writing team chose to handle the possible cancellation and that is allowed, I do not agree with you, I will never agree with you, and people who do not agree with me need to stop dropping into my inbox because they will simply be deleted and also, a little bit, mocked. Privately. In silly voices. To my cats.

(Not saying that's you nonny, but I have had some rather annoying people drop me a line.)

So there you go. I got my faith back with season four because I was impatient and I just needed time to reflect, and I have not lost faith here because I believe they're two different scenarios, I like to give the benefit of the doubt to an excellent writing team because I don't know what BTS bullshit is going on, and I would've done the same damn thing and not compromised my vision of how I wanted Buck and Eddie to get together and taken that risk.

you know how i said in an older post that i probably deleted how it wasn't worth it to feel this amount of stress and anxiety to go to a dinner party where i would probably get ignored the whole night anyway? yeah... i was right. i could have dropped dead at any point and nobody would have noticed. expect my "friend" who kept leaving me her purse. i love being a coat hanger.

(i know shane and ryan are a new company now but idk the name lol so) Buzzfeed Unsolved Reddie AU is so good bc they are both equal parts shane and ryan

Richie is the one making stupid jokes while Eddie is trying to get him to take things very seriously

But Eddie is the one who doesn’t actually think he hears anything on the spirit box and is a total skeptic while Richie screams at every passing shadow and almost passes out when he’s alone for more than 2 minutes

So, like...I have finally reached the point in my Trauma Healing Journey when I'm discovering that while I am still a bit mentally ill and very neurodivergent I'm nowhere near as bad as I was/thought I was.

Turns out a lot of the worst of my mental demons was just bad living situations.

And that is a truly baffling and wonderful discovery at 35 years old. That I'm still mostly okay. The wiring inside will never be normal but I'm mostly okay. And I'm finally in a place where I'm getting better.

god wants me to kill myself sooooo fucking bad lately lol nice try bitch im queer

i think its hilarious bc like. hi. im cheeri. i want to help encourage a sense of community in this isolated behemoth of a fandom by not only joining them but creating them! finding niches and making my own!

practicing kindness and mindfulness, offering people a place in a community where its so easy to get othered.

i was gonna write smth sad actually but now i dont want to. im just in awe of me and the shit ive been through after walking in this fandom a year ago. and im still nice to people. aint that something

i love yall dearly

looks like there’s a new series to add to the growing list of (ex-)miserable wage slave bl

idk it sucks and there’s no way out of it, just waiting till another person is patient enough to love you romantically or be attracted to you in any way. Waiting for people to stop telling you you wouldn’t like to date, you wouldn’t like this, you’re not the type for that. it makes my head hurt. Like ooo lala the developmental trauma and transfagness and my mean little face make me impossible to woo unless I want to bark up the tree of 30 year old men who start off their messages with HEY CROSSDRESSER

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