#lorata
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A View from the Victors Lounge
For @lorata because I am completely obsessed with her District 2 multiverse and because the disparity between Victor Alec's experience and how the world might see him has been stuck in my head for years. Everything comes from her sandbox so probably won't make any sense to anyone who hasn't read that first.
Every outlier hates careers.
It’s one of the things that binds every victor sitting in the lounge, watching with resignation and simmering rage as another one of Panem’s proudest psychopaths gets pulled out of the arena, hands still covered in the blood of eighteen children who didn’t choose to be there.
Every outlier hates careers, but there are some they hate more than others and in that respect, everyone’s preferences are different. Whenever the topic comes up, as it inevitably does when Two takes the crown, there’s a debate over which type is worst.
Callista is always a popular choice, especially among the Tens, who take her title as something of an insult to their district’s profession.
‘They say she misses the blood,’ Angus will snarl into his seventh glass of some backwater moonshine he insists on bringing with him to the Capitol, ‘They’re all psychopaths but at least some of them leave that behind. She’d climb back into the arena tomorrow if it would give her the chance to torture another kid.’
‘At least she was born that way,’ Cora from Nine will counter; her own preference is drugs that make the world hazy but there’s a sharpness about her which never quite vanishes, a gleam in her eyes that makes Chaff sure she see the strings controlling them better than most, ‘It’s the ones that think it’s an honour or a duty that sicken me. They tell themselves they’re morally superior because they don’t enjoy it but really they’re worse than any of ones in it for the blood. Callista might be a true born psycho but she doesn’t think that everything she did was good or moral or forgivable just because she gave a clean kill to some twelve year old kid.’
(Cora had tried to attack Devon the first time he’d made some quip about how great tesserae was. Burt and Angus had had to drag her out of the Victor’s Lounge, frothing at the mouth and screaming threats she could never deliver on)
Chaff never participates in the debates; he’s never really cared whether they’re born that way or trained, not when they’re out there killing kids and laughing about it. Haymitch might get all philosophical, spouting all sorts of rubbish about them just being pawns in the game the Capitol plays but Chaff has never bought that. There’s always a choice and the careers, whether they were born wanting it or brainwashed into it, have never hesitated to make it.
Chaff has always hated them all equally until the latest one raises his spear in triumph. For the first time since his own arena, he feels the pull of that bitter hatred that allowed him to cross the line from boy to killer.
He hates this one most; District Two’s newest murderer, who stepped onto the stage and announced to the world that he was thrilled to be following in his brother’s footsteps. Who watched his brother die an agonising death in the arena and still wanted to kill kids so much that even his brother’s death didn't make him pause. Who sat in his interview talking about honour and his brother’s spirit cheering him on as though any of it was something to be proud of.
Chaff watches him get bundled into the hovercraft and the rage builds up inside him, just like it did in the arena except this time there’s nothing he can do about it. He reaches for Teff’s bottle of rotgut and takes a long swig.
‘His daddy must be proud,’ he sneers, ‘Only took two sons to get them the victor they wanted.’
‘A family like that,’ Teff scoffs, ‘They’re probably gutted he didn’t follow in his brother’s footsteps and die for his country like a good little loyalist should. It’s the greatest honour after all,’ he raises his glass in a mock toast.
Diana lets out a bitter laugh but Chaff doesn’t join in. He drinks and drinks and his anger stays at the surface, where it’s sat ever since last year’s victor gave that interview about playing tributes in the woods and dreaming of when they’d be able to live out those fantasies for real.
‘Looks like he’s gonna sacrifice something,’ Angus slurs, as the feed switches over to footage from the Hospital, ‘No way they’re gonna keep the arm if it’s not better by interview. It’ll be just like it was with you.’
‘It’s nothing like me,’ says Chaff, his lips twisting into something ugly, ‘He’s a career; he deserves it.’
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Exit Interview: Artemisia
For her exit interview Artemisia's prep team curled her hair and pinned tiny daggers to dangle between the ringlets, but Callista's left it loose, wavy and a little bit wild. She looks -- normal, happy, and even better she actually looks eighteen, not like a kid sexed up far beyond her age so the Capitol audience won't feel guilty drooling over her. For the first time since the Reaping, her clothes don't look like they're just waiting for an artistic spray of someone else's blood.
Anyways, I reread Nobody Decent by @lorata for the hundredth time probably and was completely possessed. Happy New Year everyone, may this little Misha bring you good luck!!
#the hunger games#we must be killers: tales from district two#my art#thg#lorata#artemisia jacobs#wmbk#district two
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This is some ramblings about a sort of oc, for the missing mid 30s district 2 victor for @lorata 's We Must Be Killers universe. It's not all coherent and there's a lot of run on sentences here, but it's all just thoughts currently.
First off, introducing Knox! 2m, victor of the 35th Annual Hunger Games.
Merchant class, not quarry or offering, kinda in the middle just like he's in the middle of the shift from the elite to the modern way the center changed. His childhood was honestly pretty neglectful emotionally by his parents. They already had two other children, one to carry on the business, one to become a peacekeeper. Knox was an accident, an afterthought. They put him in the program to give him something to do, and somewhere to put him and forget about him for a while. Perhaps he'd come out with a good reference. Perhaps he'd become a peacekeeper like his brother. Perhaps he'd die in the arena. It didn't really matter - he was away and easily forgotten about in residential from 13, and they got a tidy stipend.
He was 18 in 35, so was 13 in 30. which means he was one of the new residential kids who were there when it all went down with I think he was called James? But with Joseph and all that. That's fun! (not)
He's like the opposite of Lyme when it comes to kids. The younger the better, he'd be great as a trainer of the 7-9s honestly. Babies, young kids, he loves them, gets on great with them. But the closer they get to residential age... nah.
It's partly due to the 30th and what happened, partly due to how his year group were just a bit wild. They did some shit, saw some shit, took it too far a lot of the time. Wanted to prove themselves and got too cocky when they knew that they wouldn't act like James had. The trainer's would put a stop to stuff, sure, but alot of it was psyching them all up. Getting them stronger, more confident (too confident, even when they were wiped the floor with by the older trainees.) No-one in this year would fail at volunteering and getting far. Both the kids and the trainers, as well as the trainers' treatment and reaction to the kids made sure of it. The arena wiped some of that out of Knox, but it was a recovery process, definitely. He later met up with some of his year mates and they'd had a tough time in detox. It wasn't just the events, of course, but it definitely had an impact, with the actions of the trainees and the trainers, as well as how they acted in the mock arena and who was selected down to the final few at the end.
Knox wasn't the craziest out there by far, in fact he was probably the least out of all of them. He knew how to put it on though, but was wary of his year mates. He got the highest scores in his year, which is why he was chosen, not because of his persona or personality. While they needed someone who was desperate to do the task, they also needed someone noble enough for the five year mark.
He's a bit dramatic honestly, but has definitely calmed down by the time canon rolls around. He's nearly 60 then, afterall. His dramatics have definitely changed over the years. From the petty, huffy, why aren't you __ at me?! phase several graduates go through, to an "oh god I'm an old man." he's thought himself as one of the old squad for a long time. Even when he was in his thirties, and with Adessa who thinks Odin (4 years older than Knox) is a baby, I wonder what she'd think of him lmao. He's quite a hypochondriac, and I'm not sure who the village go to for a doctor when not in the capitol but I'm sure they're busy with him. I feel like he'd go to Emory a lot trying to get her to teach him how to make all her quarry natural remedies and such.
While he doesn't really like teenagers and generally up until they're 21, he's got a soft spot for the volunteers and young victors. He remembers what it fealt like, how much the arena changed and took from you and how hard it was. He mentors a lot of the "lost causes." Like when it's been a massive string of careers in a row, or there's a major rumour that the arena is made for an outlier win, or in the 2nd quarter quell, or two has just got a double victor (43) so they aren't going to have a third straight after.
He also mentors those who think they are a lost cause. When it's been a tough time, and they want to win! and they'll do their duty! but they're starting to give up hope, Knox likes to come in and beat that out of them (litterally, as well as metaphorically). Unfortunately, since he never got a victor, due to choosing those who weren't likely, it hasn't impacted well for his second type, those who don't think they are likely but still have just the same chance as always, if they just get in the right headspace.
He mentored on and off for a long time, I think his last would have been the 63rd. Which is longer than the normal, but he had heart and wanted the best for those he believed had it in them.
Since then he'd settled down into his "old age" even though he's not even 60 and still spars and keeps as active as the other older twos. His talent has something with acting, privately I mean. I think his public might be a bit similar, something that he still enjoys like poetry reading because he can be dramatic with it and hide jibes amongst the metaphors against the Capitolites he's reading it too. The capitol may take his talent in the way they always do, but he can poke fun at them while they do it.
He's got a garden, and he likes walking on the mountain trail. One of the things that he got built as a new victor was actually in the forest behind, a stone, old fancy amphitheatre like the ancient ones. He likes doing soliloquies and monologues and one man shows out there, but if he can drag anyone else out to join in he's as pleased as a punch.
#district two#d2#hunger games#the hunger games#HG#thg#lorata#we must be killers#hc oc#oc#original character
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"Hard-Knock Eyes and a Fuck-You Smile"
Imagine just trying to read a fanfic, and then your brain goes "no you gotta cosplay her now."
Anyways, Artemisia from @lorata 's fanfics We Must Be Killers.
I entirely used @cherrypigeon 's design because I'm Obsessed with that shirt.
Replica of Ash's drawing:
Embroidery (which is, of course, a mess on the back.)
Fighting:
Yelling at her alliance in the Arena:
Admiring The Sword:
Posing with The Sword:
Fighting 2.0:
I have a behind the scenes video of me slicing a melon with the sword that I'll post after this.
#WMBK#we must be killers#lorata#cosplay#artemisia#artemisia jacobs#is that her name?#i think thats her name right
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going FULL self indulgent (home with a muscle sprain) and asking Creed Seward for the song association meme <3
omg creed my beloved I'm going to have to go with welcome to the black parade (MCR)
I'm just a man, I'm not a hero / I'm just a boy who had to sing this song / I'm just a man, I'm not a hero / I don't care / we'll carry on
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Ooh what WMBK character's do you have sketches of? Sincerely, interested and excited anon.
I draw a lot of Callista and Misha (am currently drawing a scene, but my god it’s making me lose my mind, proportion and scale is just…no). I have I think two of Lyme? And I sketch Petra and Selene a lot, but mostly on paper so I’ll have to do more digital! I’m afraid drawing men is my Achilles heel, so none of the boys yet :(
Have a Callista!
@lorata since these are her characters :)
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for wip word game: serious
I got 2 for you!
From one of my KinnPorsche wips:
Khun grasps Kim’s arm, an unusually serious look in his eyes. It puts Kim instantly on alert. “Be careful nong.”
From what was the original draft of my Yuletide 2022 fic:
It starts, like most bad luck in Benvolio’s life, with Rosalind Capulet.
She catches him at the end of the school day as his last class lets out, an unusually serious look on her face.
“Rosalind?” he calls as he approaches her. She looks up when she sees him and shakes her head, her face still frozen in its strange seriousness. Benvolio can’t recall in his memory a time he ever saw Rosalind without a mischievous grin or her eyes creasing in laughter. It renders her near unrecognizable.
Thanks for the ask friend <3
Fanfiction Work-In-Progress Guessing Game
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CONGRATULATIONS on another successful trip around the sun!!!! I hope you get to do something nice for yourself <3
thank you!! 🥰
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I reread your fic where Misha and Devon mess with Claudius with the whole respect your victor sibling thing, and I ended up on a runaway thought train over what jokes they'd play on Other victors. Somehow this led to the idea of them having Alec on about it being a village thing that you wear your mentor's clothes as a sign of respect! It's a tradition! They take time to point out that Devon Is wearing Brutus' sweater at the time.
Of course, this is in the injured Creed au and Callista's outfits are. Those.
oh don't worry i had an INSTANT response to this
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“Bonding,” Alec says, instead of the word that immediately comes to mind, which is: Bullshit.
Artemisia and Devon aren’t bad liars, is the thing. Both of them won their Games through manipulation as much as martial prowess, and they’ve turned their skills up to full power for this little prank. They’re holding back the glee, they’re not overselling or going overboard with the sincerity, the delivery really is impeccable.
And, of course, as any trainer would tell you, all good lies contain a hint of truth. Alec has seen half the Village traipsing around in shirts too large for them. Most likely Victors do borrow their mentors’ clothing all the time as unconscious comfort objects, creating the kind of bonding element that the two in front of him are attempting to convince him is part of a formalized ritual.
It’s not their fault Alec was essentially raised in a nonstop bullshit-detection bootcamp since the day Selene learned to speak in sentences.
He could tell them, of course, say Ha ha, nice try and send them off, but then again … what’s the fun in that? They did go to all this trouble. “So what’s the best way to show respect?” Alec says.
“You have to steal it,” Devon says. “That’s part of the ritual. Then when they see you in it they know you went to the trouble to get it.”
That’s probably not the lie, Alec decides once they’re gone. Brutus grouses about Devon nicking his sweaters all the time in a way that’s clearly performative, if he hasn’t asked him to knock it off after over a decade he can’t actually hate it. Village rituals are complex and arcane, and the newbies have to be initiated somehow but they’re definitely hazing him, so the trick is figuring out what part of this is real and what’s meant to be the joke.
Years of dealing with Selene have made Alec eminently practical. He could spend hours trying to puzzle it out, or —
He lets himself into Callista’s and sits on the rug, cross-legged so that the cats can pool into his lap. “Why are Artemisia and Devon trying to trick me into stealing your clothes?”
Callista’s sharp bark of laughter startles Bartleby, who leaps off her shoulders with a disgruntled backwards glance.
“Ohhh,” Alec says, staring at the mind-searing array of outfits in Callista’s walk-in. The organizational arrangement defies description but appears to fall along a vague theme continuum of ‘dancing animals’ to ‘hardcore BDSM’. “I get it now.”
“You cannot convince me these are comfortable,” Alec grumbles as Callista adjusts the last buckle.
“My clothing does not promise comfort, it promises impact,” Callista says, beatific. “Although it should never hurt, darling, let me know right away if anything pinches.”
Alec will cherish several moments in his life — Aunt Julia’s hands patching up his wounds, that night on the roof before Creed entered Residential, seeing his name on the Volunteer list, the clear ring of the victory trumpets — but the absolute dead hush of conversation like an entire plate of cutlery falling to the floor at his entrance to the monthly signing party might top the list, at least right now.
“Hello,” he calls out cheerfully. He saunters over and drops next to Devon and Artemisia, Claudius scrambling away from him as though he’s on fire. “Did I miss anything?”
Petra has a face like she swallowed something sour, her eyes darting back and away from him like she can’t stop staring even though she’d really rather not. “What the fuck are you wearing. Did you lose a bet?”
Alec only smiles wider. “A bet? No. I’m bonding with my mentor just like everyone else. A normal part of Village life. Isn’t that right, mentor?”
Callista, settling down like a gentle cloud next to a delicately and professionally aggrieved Adessa, says, “But of course. I, for one, have never felt closer.”
“You knew,” Artemisia manages finally, accusing.
“Did I?” Alec reaches out and snags a chocolate from the box in front of her. “Did you want me to do something else?”
(Claudius, in a frantic whisper: “What the fuck is happening?”
Brutus: “Don’t encourage them.”)
Artemisia narrows her eyes, but finally points a finger at his face. “You know what? Well played, rookie. But I’ll get you.”
He gives her a Selene smile, sharp with challenge. “Go ahead and try.”
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ok actually little info dump on annabeth’s thg verse … she knew from a very young age she wasn’t wanted, and did what most kids in d2 do when they want to be wanted — she goes to the centre. she’s quickly a favorite, perfect soldier made for battle with less of the anger issues they try to avoid. had she not been chosen for the games she probably would have been a peacekeeper. she volunteers for the 72nd hunger games at age 16 (going on seventeen), where she’s mentored by lyme i think (begging on my knees for someone to play her). usually this is where divergences happen; if i’m not rping with a luke in this verse then he’s her district partner and it ends up being them two in the final battle. i see him having some kind of cato moment where he realizes the games are rigged completely against them and the districts and obviously the capitol doesn’t like that, so she wins, but she’ll forever be wracked with guilt and the belief that he let her. as a victor she’s still very much in the capitol and snow’s pocket for a long time, seen as their sort of “golden girl”. percy is the one who finally radicalizes her to turn to the side of the rebellion and the rest is history (literally in a panem history book at some point probably).
#as always so much of my d2 lore comes from @/lorata#* bambi speaking.#just talked birdie’s ear off ab this#* character study.
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in district two, there’s a village right outside of the victor’s village where many of the victor’s families (who choose to come with them) live. in my mind it’s very homey and warm, primarily because the families that live there know they can now do so safely. it’s like a tiny town, full of restaurants and lights and music sometimes when night falls. it represents the community and community loyalty of district two and is generally an important place for victors to go to after their win as it represents their healing 🫶
#worldbuilding.#thg.#once again so many of these ideas r based off of one-off lines from lorata fics#i love queue!
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Oh my brain is kind of everywhere rn. THG worldbuilding was fucken epic
#'oooh its unrealistic why would you have districts specialize in one economic export' shut up idc#it does its purpose also the. victors. the position they occupy in society and their personal trauma and they way each individual forges#ahead in their situation#also lorata's district 2 headcanons. stream we must be killers ✌️
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Emory Nonsense, for @lorata
So, long story short, I thought I’d be normal this week and then Emory waltzed into my brain and took root and now I have over 6k of baby!Emory just sort of existing and I have a feeling this is only going to spiral worse? Also, no clue where I got the idea that Emory’s parents were lesbians. I could have sworn I’d read it somewhere but I went to look for it and tumblr did a “search function, what do you mean? Our search doesn’t function!” so I guess I made that up.
Without further ado: I give you part 1/me losing my mind.
Click for baby!Emory:
There’s a pond near their house. It’s out past the back door, behind the quarry and it’s mines, after a massive drop-down cliff, with tumbling weeds and rockslides and a million trip-hazards. It’s Emory’s favourite place in the whole district.
Sometimes, when the weather’s nice, her parents will let her wander over and she’ll sit on the rocks scalding hot from the heat, and dip her legs in the water up to her knees. It’s the sensations that she likes, really. The warm breeze which swoops down into the valley, the water brushing up against her, the sand beneath her feet. Even the sounds and smells are nice; wildflowers and crickets chirping and the faint hiss of humidity which reminds her of solstice nights in summer.
There’s a lot to be found out here, and Ma says that it’s important to take what they can get; to stretch it as far as they can because no one gets hand-outs in the quarries. Emory’s not entirely sure what ‘hand-outs’ are, but she does know that Ma’s right about using what they have. It’s no good to be wasteful, she says, and Emory knows that it’s good of her to help where she can.
That’s how she finds herself in the quarries each morning; with a bucket under her arm to hold whatever she finds. There’s a trail through the brush, a winding path dug out of the grass, marked by grey rocks and rubble and she knows if she follows it, she’ll find the area of the quarry that’s far enough from the mines that animals and plants are undisturbed. She hums as she walks, kicking up the pebbles on the path with her feet as she goes. The sound will scare off the animals, but that’s okay. She didn’t want to kill them anyways, not if she can help it. Mama knows how to skin them and use the hide, and she taught Emory how when she asked, but they’re all sorted for meat and materials at the moment, so Emory is looking for greenery today.
There’s a blackberry bush hidden beneath a copse of low-crawling vines, and if she’s very careful she can hold as many as she can in the bucket and in her hands and take them home to be made into a jam. It’s this bush that she’s looking for, but because summer is approaching, there might be strawberries lining the fence. There’ll definitely be dandelions, which even Emory knows how to make into a salad and she can’t even reach the kitchen bench without a stool. She ducks beneath a tree branch, hand scraping against the rough bark, and steps out into the meadow. It’s a nice day, she decides, breathing deeply and stumbling out into the clearing as she twirls in circles. She giggles breathlessly when she finds the strawberries and plops down onto the ground to start plucking them. For each strawberry, she plucks them off the bush, removes the stem with her teeth, and places them gently in her bucket. One by one, over and over. Rhythmic. She’ll have to be fast, because she can feel the day creep along into night as she works.
Once the strawberry bush has been sufficiently scoured, she crawls out into the dirt to pick dandelions for dinner. Handfuls and handfuls make their way into the bucket before she decides there’s enough. She wipes dirt of her hands onto her pants, and frowns slightly at the dirt scrapes and grass stains on her knees.
“Damn,” she whispers, borrowing the word she heard Ma swear the other day after dropping a bowl. Her and Mama will have to clean her clothes when she gets home. The normal procedure is to wash them in the left over water after a bath, which works out. By the sweat and dirt in her hair after today, Emory figures she’s about due to bathe anyways. She grabs her bucket and stands. It’s overflowing, but not so badly that she’ll have to hold anything. That’s good, since it means she’ll be able to make her way back up the hill much easier than usual, as she’ll have both hands to pull herself up. She plots the trip home in her mind as she walks. Her memory’s pretty good, but she doesn’t know how to read the signs yet, so relying on memory alone is as good as she’s got. By the time she’s home, the sun has begun to set and she can feel the evening breeze sift through the air. She clicks open the back gate and swings open the fly screen door, making sure that she grabs the spare key from under the garden bench to lock the door behind her. She has to stand on her tiptoes to reach though, because even though she’s hit her growth spurt before everyone else on her class, she’s still not tall enough to reach unassisted.
She places the bucket on the table, and creeps into the kitchen, where she spies her Ma setting up the tumbler.
“I brought dandelions,” she tells her. Ma smiles, kind, eyes crinkling.
“Thanks, sweetheart. Do you want to help me make the salad?” Emory grins, and runs up to her.
“Yeah,” she says. “I’ll go grab the bucket.” She dashes back with the dandelions to the sound of her Ma’s laughter. It’s a good night.
——
Most people, Emory learns, do not have guns in their house. Emory’s Mama keeps her rifle and shotguns on the top shelf of her wardrobe, where Emory can’t reach, even with a stool. She says that she has to have guns because she’s a peacekeeper. The peacekeepers protect the people of district two, she explained once, but sometimes that means protecting them from other people as well, or wild animals. That’s what the guns are for.
When Mama’s peacekeeper friends go out hunting, they sometimes take Emory with them. They don’t go to the quarry, but they do go out into the woods. Emory has to catch the train there with her Mama, because most of the peacekeepers don’t live in the quarry towns like they do and so the woods where they meet up is out past Peacekeeper HQ. The first time she went with them, Emory wasn’t allowed to shoot anything. She hadn’t minded, though, because it was exciting just to be out with the adults. She’d liked the woods too. They’d smelt like smoke and honey and sap, and when she took her shoes off, she could dig her toes into the dirt and play with the bugs.
While she was playing with the dirt - trying to build a sandcastle out of dirt when there was no water wasn’t very easy, she was rapidly discovering — a loud bang had blasted, and she’d nearly fallen over out of shock.
When they’d gotten home, Mama had cooed and said she looked to be in a right state. Having looked in the bathroom mirror, Emory had to agree. Her hair was blown askew and her eyes were still wide and alarmed. Mama had gotten the brush out of the bathroom drawers, and sat Emory on the floor between her legs. Brush, brush, brush, until her hair was smooth again. She’d plaited it for bed, too. One strand over the other, over the other. Emory had watched her do it in the mirror until her heart stopped beating so fast. Mama had tucked her hair into place with a tie, and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“If you don’t want to come with us again, that’s okay,” she’d said. “I know it can be scary the first few times.” Emory had frowned then. She hadn’t been scared, just alarmed. No one had told her how loud it would be.
“I wasn’t scared,” she had said. “Next time, will you teach me?” Mama had smiled.
“Of course.”
The next time had been easier. Her Mama had brought a smaller shotgun with her. Not a rifle because that would have been too big for Emory to use. She’d placed it over Emory’s shoulder, and held her small hands in her larger ones. Positioning them delicately over the handle and it’s trigger, she’d whispered directions in her ear. Quiet, so as not to disturb their target. The squirrel had been nibbling at something up high in the trees. Emory had knocked the gun into aim with her mother’s guidance, squinted until she could see her path clearer. Her Mama had told her when to shoot, and she’d fired the gun with a quick squeeze of the trigger.
She hadn’t been prepared for the recoil, which sent shocks down her arms and sent her sprawling back into her Mama, sat behind her. Mama had laughed and held her arms still, and told her to go get what she’d caught. Emory had grinned, thrilled with adrenaline. The squirrel had fallen some metres away, and when Emory had gone to pick it up, she’d been alarmed to find it blown through the stomach. The sight had sent a swoop through her stomach, but she knew she wasn’t meant to cry. Ma always says that there is no use in wasting your tears on things that can’t be fixed, and Ma is always right. Emory had stepped over a twig, weary of her Mama’s watchful eyes, and bent down to pick up the squirrel. It was bloody and leaking insides, and when she’d held it, she’d felt the snap of small bones. She’d bitten down onto her tongue to stop herself from crying out and slowly walked back to Mama with the squirrel cradled gently in her hands.
“Decent shot,” Mama had appraised, turning the quarrel over. “Next time, aim for the eyes. It’s quicker and it means we can use more of its body afterwards.” Emory had nodded, not sure that she wanted a next time. The sight of splintered bones had stuck in her mind, and she hadn’t managed to wipe it away. Mama had wiped her hands off on her trousers, and placed the squirrel on a sheet of paper. “C’mon, kiddo. Let’s get home and you can see how we use them afterwards.”
Mama was right. When they’d gotten home, Ma had shown Emory how to properly skin the squirrel — hook the tip of the knife into its head, beneath the skin, and slowly flay away the fur until it’s a mess of blood and bone — and how to cut around the bones so that they can get the most meat out of it. Emory had liked that bit better than the killing. At least the squirrel was being used for something. Even the hide can be used, she’d learnt. Ma had said she would turn it into a holster for Mama’s gun, and sent a soppy smile her Mama’s way. Emory had sat on the kitchen counter and poked the hide sullenly. They’d gotten hardly anything out of the squirrel because she’d failed to shoot it in the right place. She’d have to make a better shot next time. Ma had smiled at her, and tucked Emory’s hair beneath her ears.
“Thanks for bringing this home,” she’d said, smiling. “It was very helpful.”
——
The quarry towns still hold some of District Two’s oldest traditions. Every solstice, Emory sits with her Ma and bakes a pie for the whole town to eat. The best part of solstice nights, is that Emory gets to stay up as long as she likes. Everyone gets together to make what Ma calls a potluck — everyone contributing their own share of a feast — and Emory gets to laden up her plate with all the foods she likes best. Soups, bread rolls, lasagne, the works. She loves it best because she gets to talk to people. Old man Dave from the house two doors down brings his grandkids and his hounds, and Mary from the butchers brings her new fiancée to meet everyone. Emory spends the night curled up by the bonfire at her Ma’s side, sipping on her pumpkin soup and watching as the sky turns from blue to black to dotted with stars. Fireflies and sparks from the fire light the navy darkness of the night with gleams of gold, and once the chatter has died down, everyone takes a roll of bread and scatters it’s crumbs across the bonfire.
——
When Emory turns six, she starts going to school. Emory’s happy to go to school and sit on the carpet and run her fingertips over it’s looped bristles over and over to comfort herself. She can listen contentedly as her teacher talks them through craft projects. She’s got a mini art easel made of popsicle sticks and covered in glitter which she’d taken home and propped on her window sill. School is fun largely because her teacher likes her — she doesn’t scream like the other kids when they get excited or wail when she’s dropped off and her parents leave — and she gets to sit calmly and enjoy the comforting atmosphere of the classroom.
The day everything shifts is a day like any other. Emory is sitting on her designated piece of carpet — no one said it was hers, but she sat there on the first day because it’s beneath the window and gets the sun, and she’s at such a vantage point that she can see the chalkboard, and now it’s the place she always sits — when her teacher starts writing symbols on the board. Letters, she says. The letters make sounds, and the sounds strung together are what makes words. Emory learns that the writing is when you put down the sounds onto paper — is spoken turned to written. Her teacher assigns them each a reading list — ten words to learn before next week — and Emory tucks hers into the pocket of her pants for safekeeping.
On the walk home, Emory takes the slip of words out and tries to sound out the letters. In class, her teacher had walked them through the different sounds each letter made, and that made enough sense, even if Emory doesn’t understand why shapes can make sounds. The problem isn’t that she doesn’t know what letters make which sounds, it’s that she can’t tell what the letters are. She squints at the list in the bright light, and tries to make out what the words are.
She doesn’t know all the letters yet, so it’s difficult. And more than that, when she looks at them, they move. One second she’s certain there’s a “d” and the next, when she looks back at it, it says “p.” It’s nearly enough to drive her to tears. She whispers the letters aloud as she walks, trying desperately to string them into words. The whole thing is awful. She knows her words, she knows how to speak, so why don’t the letters make sense?
She tucks the lost beneath her pillow when she gets home. Lights off is at seven, but if she’s careful, she’ll be able to light her lamp and try to read it afterwards. It’s probably fine, anyways. There’s no way she’s the only one who doesn’t get it. Plenty of the other kids will be struggling too, she’s sure.
——
The thing is, the other kids aren’t struggling with reading. Sure, they did at the beginning, when the letters were unfamiliar and the onset of reading daunting, but they’ve picked it up. The others fly through their lists quickly each week, but Emory can’t even manage to learn her first. It makes her gut twist and her cheeks flame and her eyes burn every time she has to go up to her teacher at the end of the day, and admit that she still doesn’t know what the words say.
She begs her teacher to help her. Actually begs, even though Ma says that she shouldn’t let anyone debase her to begging. The fear is palpable though, and Emory just needs to know how. In the end, her teacher just repeats what she’s already said; she seems at a loss, too. Eventually, she concedes to let Emory take home material with her, stacks of picture books and lists and a sheet that breaks down the sounds made by consonants and vowels.
When she gets home, Emory hauls up in her room and presses a chair against the door so that her parents won’t come up and bother her. She spreads the sheets and books over the floor and flicks on her lamp. She spends hours there that night, knees and ankles aching from where they press into the carpet, trying desperately to stumble through each sentence. She doesn’t get very far.
The next day, she packs away all the reading materials into her bag to give back. She’s not giving up, she tells herself, but, well- . It’s difficult, is all. She’ll try to stumble through all the reading exercises, but she figures there’s no use putting her effort into something hopeless. She’s spent hours pouring over her lists, over the words and the books, and it never gets any easier. Not even a little bit. When the teacher raises her eyes hopefully at Emory that morning, she just wordlessly shakes her head. The teacher’s face falls, and she offers Emory a hug.
It’s okay, if she doesn’t think about it too hard. She’ll find some other way to be useful. It only makes her panic when she thinks about it too hard — about how Mama needs to be able to read for her work as peacekeeper, how Ma needs to know what the signs say in the quarries, how her teacher needs to read to teach — because then all she can think about is how there’s hardly any work in the district that doesn’t require reading. How is she supposed to help the district when she can’t even read? When she asks her Mama, all she says is that little girls don’t need to worry about such things. Emory thinks there’s a lot of things for her to worry about, but keeps her mouth shut.
——
The good thing is, not everything requires reading. Emory’s tall for her age, and strong too because of all the work she does with Mama, and there’s plenty of kids smaller than her who tend to get picked on. Those kids need help fighting off the bigger kids, and that’s where Emory comes in. She can’t stand the mean kids — the ones who steal lunches and sneer at the younger kids and disrespect the teachers who are only trying to help. When they take a kids lunch out on the play ground, and kick him to the floor when he tries to get it back, Emory knows that no one else is going to stop it.
The teacher isn’t outside, so Emory stomps over to the fight with a determination that can’t be broken. She grabs the boy’s wrist — thicker than hers, but not by much — and yanks him aside.
“Give it back to him,” she says steely. The boy looks at her gormless for a moment, before his face resolves to rage.
“Yeah,” he mocks. “See, I don’t think I will.” He spits at the floor. Emory frowns, considering. She draws her hand back. The boy laughs at her. She punches him across the face, fingers drawn in with the thumb on the outside like Mama taught her, and feels the crack of his nose against her fist. The boy stumbles backwards to the ground, falling flat on his back in the sandpit.
“Give it back to him,” she repeats. The boy is still clutching his nose, but now looks to be in a state of fugue shock. He blinks wetly, and hands over the now smashed sandwich. Emory smiles. She thinks she should probably make him apologise, since that’s what you’re meant to do when you’re in the wrong, but she also doesn’t want to push her luck and so she stays quiet.
——
She gets into more fights after that. She scraps with kids who bully the younger students, and defends anyone they try to fight and eventually they start ignoring the others altogether and just annoy her. By the time it’s summer again, Emory’s gotten into six fights across two weeks. It’s not deliberate, she tells her mums when they ask. It’s just that there’s plenty of kids who can’t fight back, and if she’s able to fight their battles for them, why shouldn’t she? Her Ma purses her lips, but Mama beams at Emory and ruffles her hair, and they have her favourite soup for dinner, so it’s worth it.
Emory still doesn’t have people she really talks to at lunch, but her teacher’s taken to keeping her company at recess. She’s not her teacher anymore — Emory moved up a class during the holidays just like everybody else, even though she still can’t read — but she seems to have a soft spot for her regardless. When Emory gets in fights, it’s her who brings her up to the principal’s office to call her parents. That happens more and more often nowadays. It’s not like she gets in trouble either, or she’d have stopped. They just call and talk, and talk some more. She hears whispers of a centre one day, but she’s not sure what they’re talking about and so she usually just reverts back to swinging her legs under the chair to keep herself entertained instead of trying to listen in.
“I’ve always thought she’d go when she was old enough,” Mama is saying. “That’s what I did. Went through to sixteen and drifted out to the Academy. She can do the same thing, if she wants.” Emory keeps half an ear on the conversation, but has rapidly found herself enthralled by the pitted wood texture of the desk.
“Well,” Principal Hudgens says, adjusting a stack of sheets. “We’ve got all the paperwork here for a recommendation. She might not be as vicious as some of the other kids we have here, but she’s stable, and she’d enjoy it, if nothing else. Send us a memo if you want me to put it through.”
“I thought the centre didn’t send people to the quarry towns,” Ma says, though it sounds more like a question.
“Not for recruitment,” Hudgens tells her. “But they ask us for a report on the kids here, so that they can streamline the application and interview process. I don’t think your girl will have any problems getting in.” Ma makes a sound in her throat, drawing Emory’s attention away from the wood carvings.
“Getting in to what?” Emory asks. Mama hums, probably pondering her answer.
“Well,” she says. “Do you remember when we talked about the Hunger Games a few months ago?” Emory nods, because yes, she does remember. The Hunger Games are the price the district pays each year for rebelling, and District Two offers up two eighteen year old volunteers every year so that the district can remain safe. The Centre is what gets them there. It teaches kids how to protect the district. She knows because one of the girls in the year above at school goes to the centre, and she says that going to the Centre is great because she’s learning how to save people. Emory’s not sure what the Hunger Games themselves are yet — they haven’t talked about it in school, and some parents tell their kids early, but hers haven’t — but she does know that they’re something good. Mama continues, emboldened. “The Centre’s primary function is to train people for the Games, but they take in children like you at seven and you don’t have to go to the games if you don’t want to.”
“What do the kids do there?” Emory asks. She doesn’t want to commit to anything if she’s not going to like it. What if she goes there expecting it to be fun, and all they make her do is read.
“Mostly, you exercise and run and play games,” Mama says, and that sounds good actually. Emory likes running, and sport is her favourite lesson of the week, because she gets to have fun and strategise, and she doesn’t have to read ever. “It’s after school, and if only goes for a few hours. We can take you there for an interview if you like.”
Emory thinks for a minute. She knows it’s a minute because she trains her eyes on the clock as she considers it, and the minute hand makes one full rotation.
“I’ll go,” she decides eventually, and tries not to catalogue Mama’s smile and Ma’s frown.
——
The interview isn’t for a while yet, Emory knows, because the centre takes you in when you’re seven, and she’s still six for a few months. During those months, she spends most of her time behind the quarry. She knows that during the interviews, they give out tests. Not real tests, not like the ones at school where she has to memorise and write things, but one of the older kids who already goes to the centre said that they make you do all sorts of things on application day. She’d asked him what sorts of tests there were, but he’d just made a face and said that it wasn’t fair if she knew and the others didn’t. Emory hadn’t protested, because he’d made a decent point; it wouldn’t have been fair if she’d had a head start.
Still, not knowing means she has no direction. She spends her days running as fast as she can around the quarry, lap after lap, until her lungs burn and her legs shake and she can hardly make it back home without collapsing. She practices push ups at night when she’s meant to be sleeping, and makes sure to ask Mama all sorts of questions about how the process works. She tries not to ask when Ma’s there, because she gets the feeling Ma doesn’t like the idea of Emory going all so much. Mama though, is prouder of Emory than ever. She beams at Emory’s excitement and tells her every night that she’s so glad she’s taking this seriously. Emory smiles, because by the time she’s being tucked in for the night, her bodies exhausted and tired and she can’t fight off the desire to be coddled like she does during the day — the big kids at the centre won’t be tucked into bed by their Mommies, but Emory’s not at the centre yet, so maybe it’s fine.
When she’s not trying to outrun her racing thoughts, she fills out the last of the paperwork. Most of it has nothing to do with her really — there’s a form her parents need to sign and another that needs to be filled with her medical details, and another after that with school grades and teacher statements and recommendations — but there’s a section with questions for her to fill out. Mama says it doesn’t matter too much, as most of the important stuff is covered in a verbal interview, but it’s Emory’s duty to fill it out herself, and so she takes it with her up to her room and asks Ma to read the questions out to her slowly, so that she can think through her answers. When Ma leaves, Emory takes out a pen and slowly tries to write her way through the answers. Why do you want to go to the centre? What motivates you? Hoe can you best describe your relationship ship to school? Emory thinks the questions are a bit complex really. Why does any of that even matter? She knows this is the right thing to do. It’s what she needs to do. Mama says the centre is about protecting people — just like peacekeeping is — and Emory wants to protect people. In the end, she figures that’s probably a good enough answer, and spends the whole night staying up trying to write it down even though the letters are still squirrelly and run away from her when she tries to grab them.
When the day of the interview comes, Emory wakes bright and early. Maybe it’s silly to feel so overeager, but she’s spent the last while trying desperately to figure out what the Centre really is, and she’s so excited to find out. Her parents don’t own a car, so she walks down to the train with her Mama whose on her way to work. She won’t be able to pick her up until her shift is over, and so Emory will have to stay late at the regional centre afterwards — the nearest testing centre to their house is in Calgaratt, and Mama can’t get off work early enough to pick her up when the interview will end. The train ride is peaceful, and Emory spends much of it picking at the knees of her pants and periodically straightening her posture. When the train ride ends, her Mama helps her off and gives her directions to find the actual centre building, which is further down the road.
“You ready?” Mama asks, bending down to Emory’s height. Emory nods solemnly. She is. “I’ll come pick you up at five o’clock, okay.” She waits for Emory to agree, before ducking down to press a kiss to her forehead. “Good luck.”
“Thanks,” Emory says, and turns to look up at the centre.
—
The centre building is enormous; gleaming white walls and sheets of window pane and a sprawling oval behind it, where Emory can see kids running frantically and chucking things at each other in what must be some kind of game. Emory would be worried about gawking, but there’s plenty of other kids here who are gazing dazed at the building. Still, she snaps herself out of her staring and crosses the gravel car park up to the entrance. There’s a small line of children there — those born in the month of July, like Emory — and Emory goes to join them in the waiting room.
The room is sparse but still nicer than anything else Emory’s seen. The couches are some kind of dyed leather, she thinks, and the floor is tiled white. She takes a seat on the couch when a woman directs her to, and has the number seven printed off and taped to her back and front. What seems like hours pass as she sits there. There are three rooms available for interviews, and so over the course of roughly half an hour, those waiting are called in. Emory knows she arrived at 9 A.M, so by her estimates she been waiting for roughly three hours. There must be some kind of backlog, she thinks, because Mama said that when she’d had her own interview she’d gone in immediately.
When they call her name and Emory stands, she find that she’s sweated so much that her thighs are almost stuck to the leather. She looks at the couch briefly with a sense of betrayal. They don’t have much leather at home, and Emory had forgotten how much she hated how it sticks to the skin. She walks over to the aide who called her, and tries to ignore how ominous her footfalls sound against the loud tiling, with nothing else to muffle them.
“My name is Amelie,” the woman explains with a kind smile. “Follow me through to room three, and I’ll conduct your interview.”
Amelie takes a seat behind a desk and gestures for Emory to do the same, and so she sits. Amelie explains that the first portion of the interview is done through some routine tests and identifying games. She pulls out a sheath of papers, each of which has a pattern printed on it. She tells Emory to identify as many as she can. The patterns, Emory finds, are pretty easy. One is a repeating sunset, the other is a hidden image. Some of them are strings of numbers, and she correctly notices that each number is the sum of the previous two numbers. There’s some math after that, too. Addition and subtraction, and even some of the basic multiplication that they’ve started to learn in class. Emory likes math too, so that’s not so bad.
The only real problem is when they get to reading. It’s basic, and Amelie asks her to read as much of it as she can. There’s only a few sentences but Emory looks at it and just as always the words don’t work. Her eyes swim and she presses her nails into her legs so that’s she doesn’t cry. The centre won’t want crybabies. She straightens her spine and tries her best to stumble through the sentences, but it’s clear she’s not succeeding from the look on Amelie’s face. She reaches out and takes the papers away from Emory.
“How about we move on?” She asks, and Emory nods gratefully. She doesn’t want to spend any longer on this than she has to. Maybe once she’s in the centre, she’ll never have to try to read again. Amelie produces another stack of papers — these ones have printed images on each of them, of people in different scenarios — and she asks Emory to walk her through what each person in the images are thinking. It’s not too bad. Emory thinks she understands people pretty well, and at the very least, nothing she says here makes Amelie frown the way she did when Emory did the reading section. Most of the images are fairly simple — a boy crying looking out his window, a girl who’s spilt her block tower on the floor — but one catches her eye. A little girl learning how to shoot. When Amelie asks her what the people are thinking, Emory tells her that the little girl is being taught about duty.
“What do you think duty is?” Amelie asks, and Emory frowns.
“Duty is what we have to do,” Emory says, thinking. “It’s what we need to do,” she amends.
“What do you need to do?”
“I need to pass this test,” Emory says wryly, in a bout of candour she doesn’t feel. Amelie laughs. “I need to help.”
“Alright,” Amelie says, now far more relaxed. “I’ve got to go grab some final paperwork before I give you the tour, but I’m going to leave a marshmallow here.”
“What’s a marshmallow?”
“It’s a kind of lolly,” Amelie explains. “I’ll leave it here, and if you want to have it you can. If you wait until I get back though, I can bring another one and you can have two.” Emory wants to ask which is better — if she should wait or not, but she figures that like with the rest of the tests, she needs to find the answer herself.
“Okay,” she says instead. Amelie places the ‘marshmallow’ on the desk and leaves. It’s a weird thing — it looks like a small, white pillow. When she pokes it, it’s gelatinous, and powdery too. Emory thinks it probably doesn’t have much substance, because it smells cloyingly sweet and almost airy. She sits back and waits, watching the marshmallow with a vague sense of apprehension. She’s at least curious as to what it is — Amelie called it a lolly, so it must be for eating, but why would anyone eat it when there’s better things that aren’t as sugary? By the time Amelie returns, Emory hasn’t even begun to answer her own question, and the marshmallow is still there, plain as day. Amelie smiles and withdraws a second marshmallow from her pocket and hands it to Emory.
“Patient,” she praises. “That’s good. Come on, you can eat while we walk.”
She leads Emory out through the back door, and they head out into what Amelie calls the pavilion. There are kids sparring on gym mats, and more classes whacking each other with foam swords, and a group on the ropes, and everything about it makes Emory’s blood sing. The sounds of shouts and yelling, and the stick of the gym mats and the sound of steel on steel. Emory’s sure she looks positively deranged — she catches a glimpse of herself in the windows, and her eyes are wide and her grin exuberant — but she can’t bring herself to care. The Centre is perfect, and Emory feels everything about it settle into her chest like a missing limb. She needs it like she needs air. Nothing ever felt right at school, but here, Emory thinks she can finally find what she’s been looking for. She’s not sure what that is, exactly, but she wants it with a vigour she hasn’t felt before. Amelie let’s her climb the ropes course, and it’s great because Emory’s strong for her age and manages to climb all the way up to the top, and she only scrapes her foot a little on the way down, because she’s climbed ropes before in the quarries. Emory can’t even find it in herself to be ashamed for the show of emotion or the excitement she feels, because by the time she leaves, she thinks if they don’t accept her, she’ll lose the one place in her life where she might belong. This is what she needs.
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The video i mentioned in my Artemisia cosplay post.
anyone want a slice of melon?
#artemisia jacobs#cosplay#ish.#artemisia is @lorata's character#but i already tagged them once so i refuse to bother them again.
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I really want to do my end of year sappiness post right now so I am going to do it. This year. This year, this year was the year that the fact that I made it is something I have to talk about it, because honestly I wasn’t sure between everything. And in the trauma (the activated Jewish Trauma Genre), in the hate I have also found love. Am Yisrael Chai. We live. I live.
Which is why I have to first send my love to my Jewish Mutuals/Friends and to Jumblr - @cephalopodvictorious @captainlordauditor and just, every one of my Jewish Mutuals and people who have sent kind words. Who have made me, a patrilineal mizrahi jewish woman reconnecting with her heritage and faith because of abuse feel Jewish enough to go to Synagogue.
This year was, despite everything the year I reconnected with old friends (shout to my friends in physical space - E, R, C and C), I took an art class, I swam more, I wrote a bunch of words, I found my love of art again and discovered that I might, might be good at it, I even asked for things like gifts even though it’s Terrifying.
To my saatis. My sisters. My chosen family. Thank you for everything - the phone calls you let me schedule, the chats and the wise words and the blorbos and from some of you the in person hugs (there will be more I will offer hugs to and I will also hug again). @shes-a-voodoo-child @bibliothekara @wheresonichedgehogwnt @pearlsthatwereeyes @star-anise @notabuddhist @kawuli lemonsharks @maevedarlings @ruffboijuliaburnsides @taibhsearachd @blackeyedgirl-writes @armyofthedaegiloth @strangeetudes @findingfeather
@bessemerprocess @sarking @jesidres @kshandra @amadistuff FRIENDS. FRIENDS. Love you to the moon and back - and we are here. We are here.
And @geeoharee - The Sherlock Content <3.
To the Pocket Friends Who Have/Are Becoming(If It’s okay obviously!) Become Friends: @rahabs whose kindness I will never ever forget. To @theladyelizabeth who patiently answers my questions about all kinds of Tudors Things and who is like, The Best. To @nocompromise-noregrets for Ellie, for answering archives questions and just in general. To @gen-is-gone - a saati in the making, holder of correct Doctor Who Opinions forever. To @herawell - the bravest when scared, indulges my OT3 verse. To @miabicicletta - one of the best fic writers, so generous and kind and whose comments make my entire day. @eidetictelekinetic - my favourite Tudors Fic Writer is my Friend Now and is awesome.
@jkthinkythoughts <333333.
@lorata - whose worldbuilding leaves me in awe and who is just, frankly absolutely great.
@isagrimorie because CORRECT DOCTOR WHO AND BEST META
@feuillesmortes for never failing to make me think, to post beautiful poetry and for the best H7/EOY sources and for always, above all being kind.
@hoursofreading @becauseforoncethisisme (special shout out to you <3) @disredspectful (oh my gosh your words)
@anhaga @goshawke @beatrice-otter @alexseanchai <333333
Also @nurselaney for indulging my Thomas/Mihrimah Content and also the women of the SOE.
@sherwoodknights for Scarlet Pimpernel and also Patrick Gibson feels.
@quillington - for correct Anne Boleyn and Scarlet Pimpernel thoughts and also being The Sweetest.
@lordlykisses - kindness and Taylor Swift. And @cleoselene for Taylor Swift and kind words I will also never forget.
To The Cromwell/James Frain Appreciation Brigade - @uncheckedaggression @reallyginnyf (also a fellow hurt/comfort enjoyer) @cinemaocd - thank you <3.
To all the West Wing Discord People - I adore you. Thank you for being so kind and welcoming and wonderful.
And to all my mutuals. Thank you for bearing with me this year, with so much kindness. I know it’s been A Lot but I have, despite everything felt so so loved.
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