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3d-wifey · 3 months

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And They'd Find Us in A Week - Chapter 13

Pairing: Finnick Odair x Reader Word Count: 9.9k Synopsis: Here! Playlist: Listen up! Tag list: - @melancholicmelanin, @yvy1s, @glomp-me, @honethatty12, @swftlore, @hashcakes, @antoheartit, @finnickodaddy, @lilifl0wer, @antoheartit, @kermitcrimess, @persophonekarter, @aawdrea, @obaewankenobis, @xyxlyn, @meandurdaughtergotaspecialthing, @innercreationflower, @kisskittenn, @xngelsau, @coriolanussnowswife Chapter Summary: I've moved the arena around a bit, but nothing major; nothing starts until day 2 1: Blood rain 2: Giant poisonous bugs 3: Toxic Fog 4: Monkies 5: Jabberjays 6: Beast 7: Unknown 8: Unknown 9: Fire 10: Flood 11: Unknown 12: Lightening A/N: this bad boy is 10k, one more chapter b4 we go into mockingjay!!!!!!

Present (XII)

THE ARENA; SECTION 5 (12:23 pm-12:59 pm)

The smell of freshly rained earth lingers around them as they traverse the jungle, and Finnick thinks of you.

During the countdown, he saw you. He locked eyes with you, and, stupidly, he thought that would be enough to tide him over. Just one last moment between the two of you before performing for the cameras. But if that were true, he wouldn’t have looked for you as soon as he reached the Cornucopia—before that, even. When he surfaced from the water, over Katniss’s shoulder as he grabbed a weapon, out of the corner of his eye when he was looking for Peeta; desperate for a glimpse of you.

And when he finally found you—no, when you found him—your voice carried his name to his ears like a gift. He didn’t need to think; his body was automatically attuned to you like a compass. He had his trident poised and ready to defend you from whatever he considered a threat—a knee-jerk reaction. But when he turned, there was only you.

You looked at him as though there was a taut rubber band between your bodies, and you had to use all of your strength to resist giving in to that pressure. The desire to run to you was instinctive.

What would that have accomplished other than showing Snow their hand early? It’s not like he could have swept you up in his arms like he wanted to. He couldn't hold you close and make you promise that you'd come back to him, whole, healthy, and his. Being that bold this soon in the Games would benefit no one. Not when you still had to be separated.

He had almost stopped to watch and make sure you made it out with Johanna, but, as you subtly reminded him, he had to stick to the plan. Plus, seeing you drive your sickle through the head of a man at least two times your size definitely reassured him that you could handle your own.

Not that he didn’t know you could bring a man to his knees. He’s had the pleasure of being on the receiving end of your firm hand enough to—he shakes his head, scolding himself like a misbehaving dog.

Not the time, Odair.

Later, he tells himself, there’ll be time for that later.

Even now, he’s thinking about how it felt to sleep next to you for the first time in eons—head against your chest, listening to your steady heartbeat as you hold him in your embrace. If he closes his eyes, he can feel sure fingers carding through his hair and dull nails scratching softly along his scalp.

But he can’t close his eyes. No, he needs them open to dart between Katniss’s sprinting form and over his shoulder as they run for their lives through this fucking jungle.

They’ve covered a good chunk of land in a relatively short amount of time. He’d say it’s taken them about ten minutes to cross a mile, maybe more. He’d be more confident in his estimate if they weren’t traveling up such a steep incline.

Around this point, Finnick decides they’ve put enough space between them and the Career pack that it should be okay to take a short break. He can feel Mags’s heart pounding against his back. Not ideal for a woman this close to ninety.

“Okay, hold up. Hold up.” He calls out, and they all come to a stop. He bends at the knee to help Mags down. “Okay. You alright now?”

He lowers himself to the ground, holding her hand as they sit down. “Okay?” He asks, and she nods, frail fingers gripping his tight as her other hand pats his bicep. Adrenaline makes her shake a little, but she waves off his concern. The four of them sit for a second, gathering themselves.

“God , it’s hot.” Peeta pants and Finnick senses that the oppressive heat might be more to blame than the hike. It’s like he’s choking on it; the air is so heavy that his nostrils don’t feel big enough to inhale it. He breathes in through his mouth and it’s only marginally better. He’s soaked. Something stings as it drips into his eyes and he genuinely can’t tell if it’s saltwater or sweat. “We gotta find fresh water.”

Water. Finnick looks around for any indication of nearby drinking water, listening in for a river or stream. He’d even take a pond. Water would be amazing, preferably without a high salt concentration.

Unknown insects chirp around them in unison; it sort of sounds like a snake. It’s so loud that he’s almost able to ignore the weight of Katniss’s stare. It’s not even like she’s glaring. It’s nearly bird-like how she appraises him—waiting for him to act like the predator she thinks he is.

Three cannons fire in quick succession. The others look to the sky, but he stares at the tree over Katniss’s shoulder. Any one of those cannons could be you. He holds back a flinch at the thought. You’re not dead. No. No, you wouldn’t do that to him. He's only just gotten you back. And even after two years apart, the two of you are so deeply intertwined that Finnick’s sure his own heart would give out when yours stopped.

With a derisive snort and a shake of his head, Finnick says, perhaps a bit manically, “Well, I guess we’re not holding hands anymore.” His chuckle is met with disapproving silence. Too soon?

Katniss regards him with a look of contempt. Definitely too soon then. “You think that’s funny?"

No, not particularly. He thinks. But what else is there to do but laugh at the absurdity of it all?

“Every time that cannon goes off, it’s music to my ears. I don’t care about any of them.” He lies. Sometimes, it feels like that’s all he’s capable of. Even now, in the midst of this death sentence, he still can’t be honest about you. He can’t afford to be. Not until he knows you’re safe.

“Good to hear.” With a sly grin, Finnick observes Katniss taking a machete out of her quiver, seemingly more as a threat than a precaution. It’s promptly wiped from his face when she says your name. “Does she know that? If that’s the case, you should have killed her back at the Cornucopia. She didn't even have a weapon. It would have been easy for you.”

“She’s our ally, Katniss." Peeta attempts to caution her or maybe admonish her; Finnick doesn’t know. And he doesn’t really care, honestly. Not with how focused he and Katniss are on each other. He can’t even acknowledge Peeta defending you, as odd as it is.

Unbidden and without provocation, the mental picture of him killing you takes shape. If he wasn’t already so lightheaded from the moist air, he’d be nauseous at the idea. Is she trying to get a rise out of him by bringing you up? Is that what this is? Or is she—is she threatening you? Whatever the hell her angle is, whatever tactic she’s trying to maneuver, he won’t let a threat against you stand—empty or not.

“You know, Katniss. You really shouldn’t speak on things you know nothing about.” He shakes his head as he ignores Mags’s warning grunt, mouth curling in that frosty way of his that entices those who are stupid enough to mistake a predator baring its teeth for a smile. But Katniss isn’t stupid. This is a language she’ll understand—the language of hunting animals. Her back straightens. His remains deceptively lax. “I mean, can't say that’s ever ended well for you, can we?”

“Are you threatening me, Odair?”

“Threat—” He can’t help but laugh because, honestly.

This is the girl they’re laying down their lives for? The girl you’re laying down your life for? Emphasis on ‘the girl’, because she’s too naïve to be an adult.

People like her—they're too busy fighting shadows to figure out what’s casting them. Too focused on watching their backs that they don't bother wondering why they have to watch it in the first place—and she’s supposed to lead them to salvation?

He wants to laugh. Instead, Finnick bites his cheek. Maybe he’s bitten into another pipe dream.

“No,” he scoffs. “I’m saving you.”

“Saving? Please , you don’t care about anyone but yourself—”

“Let’s keep moving.” Peeta rises to stand in between them, stopping to give Katniss a long look that she doesn't return, before marching forward and taking the machete with him. The two of them size each other up. For someone so emotionally stunted, her thoughts are broadcast clearly on her face.

He can see her weighing her odds against him in a fight, whether her speed with the bow is any match for him and his trident, and Finnick’s weighing how much longer she can stand being a team player. He’s not cocky enough to not consider her a threat; she’s a fighter—but, then again, so is he. That’s not what’s staying his hand. Her survival is their only way out of here—not to mention how disappointed you’d be in him if you found out. He won’t be the one to snatch this chance away from you. Not unless she throws the first punch.

He subtly shifts his grip on his weapon into something more defensive, and she gives him one last withering look, or her version of it, before following Peeta.

He wishes you were here with him. For several reasons, but in this particular moment, to show Katniss how wrong she is. Show her how much he does care about you and how much you care about him in turn. Is it childish that he feels the need to prove anything to a teenager? Maybe. Probably. Most likely.

He bends down to help Mags onto his back, scowling at Katniss’s retreating back.

It’s definitely childish, but still. He sighs. You’d understand. All the more reason to wish you were here. He knows things were touch and go—more go than touch, really—between the two of you at the time, but would it have killed Haymitch to pair the two of you together? Johanna and Blight are more than capable of playing escort for those two brainiacs.

To be fair to the other man, Haymitch had no way of knowing if Finnick would succeed in reconnecting with you.

He takes a moment to really think about it. Namely, how much anger you’ve been harboring over the past two years and the way you drove your sickle through that man’s skull. He tilts his head, squinting. What’s that saying about a woman scorned?

Pairing you together may not have killed Haymitch, but it certainly could have killed Finnick.

His train of thought is violently cut off by Peeta crashing head-first into the force field.

SECTION 11 (12:49 pm-1:12 pm)

“We’re almost at the edge of the arena,” Johanna calls down to your group, climbing halfway down the tree before jumping the rest of the way.

“What does the arena look like?” Beetee asks, pushing his glasses up for what must be the tenth time since you all decided to stop and get your bearings. The sweat on his face provided no traction to hold them in place.

“One big ass circle and we’re almost at the edge. Other than the beach, there’s nothing but jungle.” She sighs, stomping over to where you sit on the ground. Beetee gives a clinical nod.

“How close is ‘almost’?” You ask, handing her axe back.

“I’d say at most a quarter of a mile. We’re closer to the edge than we are to the Cornucopia.”

“What do’ya suppose’ll happen if we hit the edge?” Says Blight in his heavy district brogue, so different than any you’ve heard before. You had asked Johanna about it at some point—the contrasts of their voices. She explained that Blight was born further north than she was, practically on the border of Seven.

It’s not like everyone in Eleven speaks the same, but there’s at least some level of similarity that can be distinctly found in Eleven—in the southernmost districts in general. It shares a likeness with Eight and Ten. The same notes that you can sometimes hear in Katniss and Haymitch’s voices, but not in Peeta’s.

“Most likely? I’d imagine some sort of boundary or force field.” Beetee informs you all.

“Regardless. We won’t know until…” Wiress starts, trailing off as something you aren’t privy to catches her attention.

“—Until we’re upon it.” Beetee finishes for her.

You clear your throat. “I’d say it’s best we don’t find out ‘less we have to.” You drawl, dropping the Capitol accent you’ve been forced to assimilate for what you realize will be the last time. You replace the over-enunciation and grating lilt with slanted vowels and a melodic tempo.

“We can probably head in a little more and then cut to the left or right,” Johanna suggests and you realize she’s talking to you. Not just you in the sense of the whole group, but you specifically. You glance around. They’re all looking at you. It seems you’re the de facto leader.

When the hell was that decided?!

“Right. Well,” you clap your hands, picking your sickles up as you rise, “let’s get a move on. We need to go further while there’s still daylight. Then, we'll find a place to set up camp."

Hopefully.

Blight takes the lead, getting a headstart at cutting through the tightly packed vegetation with his machete.

“C’mon.” You smile down at Wiress as you help her up. She returns it gratefully and Beetee offers her his arm before they trail behind Blight. As you and Johanna carry the flank, you eye the long gash along his shoulder blade that’s steadily bleeding. Your main objective is to get these two to the pickup point, but you’d prefer if you got them there in one piece.

Chaff had said he’d be teaming up with Woof and Cecelia. As well as the morphlings, if they can find them. Unlikely, since they’re masters of stealth. You remember how they didn’t stray far from the camouflage section. You had asked Peeta about the swirls of color on his arm while you were training and he told you it was supposed to be a sunrise that the female morphling painted. She’s apparently fond of them. With skills like that, you know they’ll only be found if they want to be.

The morphlings. That’s like if you only referred to Haymitch as ‘The Alcoholic’. You scold yourself mentally for using such a needlessly cruel nickname for them just because everyone else did. Either one of your parents would’ve pinched the skin off of you if they knew that.

I can’t keep calling them that. It's probably an odd time to do so, but you decide it’s high time you learned their actual names. Before now, you had very little reason to since you rarely interacted with them. Yet, even if they hadn’t been rebels, they still deserve the basic respect of being acknowledged as people, not just in conjecture with their addictions. You don’t expect to be BFFs after you make it out of the arena, but you’d like to, at least, be someone who knows and uses their real names.

“Thanks. For what you did back there.” Johanna takes you out of your musings, swinging her axe to and fro on her other side. “Taking that guy down for me. You didn’t have to.”

You scowl at the reminder, pretending to be focused on navigating your steps along the tricky jungle floor instead of looking at her. You didn’t want to think about that. How killing him was the first solution that came to mind. It’s not that you’re naive enough to think that talking him down was even an option. He wasn’t on your side. He wasn’t one of you. He had made his own bed of flowers by turning down Haymitch’s offer. But why couldn’t it have been Gloss or Enobaria that killed him? Why did it have to be you? Why not you? “I know I didn’t.”

“But you did, and,” she sighs, jutting her jaw to the side as if it’s taking a lot out of her to say this, “and I’d probably be so minced that the hovercraft would have to make multiple trips to get all the pieces if you hadn’t stepped in, so...thank you."

You smile at her awkward discomfort, ignoring the glances she shoots you out of the corner of her eye and acting oblivious to her increasing agitation.

“Are you gonna say ‘you’re welcome’, or what, asshole?” She scoffs.

“You’re welcome, Your Highness.” You knock your shoulder into hers and she knocks yours right back.

“I owe you one.”

You laugh. “God, I hope not.”

SECTION 5 (1 pm-1:34 pm)

The force of the blow is enough to send Peeta flying backward, knocking them over so fast that Finnick can barely register that he’s not still standing.

“Peeta’s not breathing!” Katniss cries and it’s a blur of motion as he moves into action, his body acting on autopilot. “Peeta’s not breathing!”

Prop Mags up against a tree. Check for a pulse that isn’t there. CPR. Tilt his head at an angle. Pinch his nose—a stiff hand to Katniss’s sternum—pinch his nose, blow air into his deflated lungs. Ignore the arrow pointed at his head. Put his body weight behind each pump. Push his will into the unresponsive body. From his shoulders, down his biceps, and into the heels of his hands, to where Peeta’s still heart lies.

C’mon, Peeta. C’mon, c’mon.

“C’mon, Peeta!” He can feel the anticipation of the viewers boiling in on them from all angles, his hair standing on end as he tries to pump Peeta’s heart for him. If they lose Peeta, they lose Katniss. If they lose Katniss, they lose the revolution. If they lose the revolution, they’ll lose, they’ll lose, they’ll lose—“Come on! Come on!”

He’s got no idea why they haven’t called it yet, why they haven’t blown the cannon, despite his heart stopping before he even hit the floor. Maybe they’re hoping, like he’s hoping, that Peeta will come. The fuck. On.

A small gasp, a cough and—

Finnick falls back on his haunches, hands on his hips and panting as the muscles in his arms buzz. He’s lightheaded again from supplying so much of his air to Peeta. And the heat isn’t doing anyone any favors.

“Be careful. There’s a force field up there.” Peeta huffs and Katniss chuckles, half-hysterical, before dipping down to kiss him. Finnick pauses in the middle of a much-needed inhale, watching the two with narrowed eyes.

“Oh, my God. You were dead. You were dead. Your heart stopped.” Katniss sobs as she drapes over Peeta, shrill and so resoundingly real that Finnick blanches for a second. He’s never seen her hands waver when drawing her bow, but they tremble now as they hold Peeta close.

Huh.

“It’s okay.” He assures her, still smoldering and smoking a little. “It’s working now.” She helps him up, still sobbing. Or maybe choking? Choking on her sobs. Peeta looks upon her with concern.

“Katniss?” Peeta prompts, starting to look increasingly panicked and Finnick can’t handle them both freaking out.

“It’s okay. It’s just her hormones.” Finnick is slow to stand, looking them over quizzically. “From the baby.”

“No. It’s not—” She cuts herself off with more choke-sobs. There’s something here—something he couldn’t see before. Something he hadn’t considered concerning these two, concerning Katniss. That something is familiar. What does it remind him of? It’s nagging at the back of his skull. That staunch fear, the protectiveness followed by the open gasping relief. He recognizes it. Where, where, where—

“She can't possibly care about him that much."

"Yeah, well, you'd be surprised.”

Oh. Oh, shit.

Of course, he recognizes it—that familiar, desperate love. He’s felt it.

Katniss glares at him, snotty and defensive, and he stares, mystified. He shakes his head, pulling himself from his revelation-induced stupor. The two lovebirds hug each other like they’re the only things holding each other up. And with their current states, they might as well be. To give them some privacy, he walks over to check on Mags and finds her knowing gaze. He can’t have been the last one to know this love story isn’t much of a story at all, right?

SECTION 3 (6:50 pm-10:20 pm)

Finnick rolls his trident back and forth between his hands as they all wait for Katniss to come back from scouting in the trees. Mags cracks open and eats another one of the nuts Katniss has been using and substantially cooking by bouncing them off of the force field to show the rest of them where it is, considering she can hear it. He has no reason to believe otherwise; there’s no evidence to indicate she’s lying, but Finnick doesn’t buy that she can hear it just because of her hearing aid. If that’s the case, why hasn’t she mentioned it before now? He has no reason to call her out on it, so he won’t. Any advantage they have in the arena, the better.

He can feel the water evaporating out of his body like a sponge being wrung dry. He feels like a beached whale. They can’t have been in the arena for that long, but the heat—it’s not the kind he’s used to. The sun in Four has nothing on this. He’s never been so thirsty before, not even in his previous Games. They all perk up when she comes back down, hoping beyond hope that she’s seen drinkable water. That hope is crushed when she shakes her head.

“The force field…it’s a dome. We’re at the edge of the arena.” She wipes her sweat-slick hair out of her face. "I couldn't find any signs of fresh water.”

They all sit in dehydrated silence. The human body can only go on for so long with no water. Food, while an amazing plus, won’t be a real problem for weeks. And between the nuts and all the fish they could catch, it’s a problem with a simple solution. Without water, however, they will almost certainly die in five days, with their organs starting to shut down in three. He's seen it back in Four. Dead men brought back from sea shriveled and arid. He always imagined it must be torture to be surrounded by all that water and unable to drink any of it.

Now, it looks like he might find out.

And with that depressing thought, Finnick moves forward. “It’s getting dark soon. We’ll be safe with our backs protected.” Knowing the consequences of touching the force field, they’ll be able to use the arena itself as a weapon. “We should set up camp. Take turns sleeping. I can take first watch.”

“Not a chance.” Katniss scoffs.

He tilts his head.

He knows the heat is just making everything worse, only fueling his irritability. But he is so over her and this teenage snippiness. Peeta’s so easygoing that he honestly doesn’t mind his company; he can see how the two of you became such quick friends. But Katniss? She is a remarkably hard person to like.

How much longer will she treat him like a criminal? As far as he’s concerned, the only thing he’s guilty of is giving her the impression that she has authority over him in any way, shape, or form.

Burying the blunt end of his trident into the ground, he uses it to leverage himself up.

“Honey,” he mocks, his voice long-suffering and chiding, like he’s explaining something that really should be common sense to a child who's a little behind the curve. Which, honestly, doesn't seem too far off. “That thing I did back there for Peeta? That was called ‘saving his life’. If I wanted to kill either of you, I would have done it by now."

He holds her eye before he rips his weapon out of the ground. He’s too tired to have a stupid argument over this, so he nimbly picks his way over to Mags so they can start making camp.

When the Capitol anthem blares throughout the arena and the insignia projects across the sky, Finnick watches with rapt attention. He inhales sharply, watches, and waits.

Portraits of the dead flash beside the full moon. The man from Five that he killed, the man from Six, both from Eight, both from Nine, the woman from Ten and then…it stops. There’s the Capitol seal again and then nothing. No more portraits light up the sky; your portrait doesn’t light up the sky.

You’re still alive.

You’re alive. He knew that. He did. He did. He would have known, he would have felt, otherwise. After all, you had promised him, hadn’t you? In those scant few hours in the early morning before the Games, you both promised to do everything in your power to get back to each other. Promised to see this through, knowing what future waited on the other side—a future together.

He knew you were alive, but the confirmation is—

He lets out the breath he’s been holding, tension easing from his shoulders.

“Seven,” Katniss says.

“Mhm.” He acknowledges.

Seven victors. His brows furrow. The two from Eight, Woof and Cecelia. The male morphling. All dead.

But he’s still alive. And so are you.

SECTION 1 (12:55 am–3:26 am)

In the white, spectral fog of the jungle, Johanna smacks something big and hairy off the back of her hand. Are the bugs even real?

She wouldn’t put it past the Capitol to mutate them—control the mutts to crawl all over them and kill them in their sleep. But that’s too boring a death, too kind. Plus, it doesn’t make for good television. And eating bugs would probably make the audience more squeamish than child murder.

Thanks to you, they at least had something to eat. Berries, mushrooms, and, oddly enough, leaves. Not much, but it was something. But there was still the water issue—meaning there was none. They hadn't stumbled upon anything they could drink. No ponds, no rivers. Not even a fucking puddle.

She and you both agreed that there had to be water in the trees; it was too humid for there not to be. But with no way to collect it, they were all shit out of luck. Luckily, depending on how long it takes to get here, they’re expecting a rain cloud. It was the only logical assumption after they heard lightning strikes not too far off. Makes sense. Short of a sponsor gift or the magical ability to make salt water drinkable, there’s little for the victors to do in terms of battling dehydration.

If this rain doesn’t pull through, she’ll be tempted to tell you to bite the bullet and request a spile or something. Though she understands why you haven’t done so yet. Just the thought of begging those simpering morons to empty their pockets to help keep her alive makes Johanna shiver and she doesn’t even have the same history with them that you do. Knowing your fans, they’d probably get off on you debasing yourself.

Johanna knocks her head against the tree she's leaning on. She offered to take the first watch because she needed time to think. It was smart of Katniss to want you as an ally. It's easier on Johanna's part too, because at least you can take care of yourself.

And, had the rebellion not been afoot, it would've guaranteed Finnick as an ally too. Maybe Peeta is the one who picked you because Johanna doubts the girl on fire is sharp enough to think that far ahead. Or mature enough to pull her big girl pants on and notice anything around her that didn't actually revolve around her.

Johanna is woman enough to admit that she's jealous. Jealousy is nothing to be ashamed of when it's entirely warranted. Katniss doesn't have to worry about losing her family, not really. Because the Capitol just adores them. Katniss doesn't have to worry about losing her self-autonomy, her dignity, her innocence while in bed with a stranger. Katniss hasn't lived with the grief of what she's experienced long enough for it to turn her bitter or make her find an escape through substances.

And yet, here they are, protecting her even if it kills them. No, Johanna reminds herself. They're protecting the rebellion. Katniss just happens to be the face of it.

It’s almost pitch black. Without the sun to shine through the dense tops of the trees, the moon could hardly pull its weight. But it’s been dark for so long that her eyes have adapted a bit. They slept closer to the force field than she would have liked, but she understood your logic. No one can sneak up on them from behind with the force field at their back.

She digs the sharp metal part of her axe into the dense ground, pulling it out, and hacking away again.

She looks over to where the others are sleeping, Nuts and Volts guarded on either side by your and Blight's sleeping bodies. At least they aren't completely useless.

Even if Katniss hadn't wanted them as allies, they would've had to guard them anyway. Haymitch made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that they're the brains of this operation. Or at least Volts is. She zeros in on the spool of wire he clings to in his sleep.

She isn't one hundred percent sure how they plan on busting them out of the arena, but it probably has something to do with that. Or at least, it better. He nearly lost his life trying to get it. And she nearly lost her head trying to get him.

They need to meet up with Finnick, but she has no idea where his group is. It's not like they can just bury their heads in the sand and wait for them to show up. The plan rides on them all being together at the pickup point.

A drop of water wets her scalp and then another. It, like everything else in this place, is uncomfortably warm—bordering on hot. But beggars can’t be choosers. The drops of water feel heavier, but that could just be her imagination.

Rain? Finally.

She’ll wake the others up once her vocal cords stop feeling like she’s starting a fire every time she talks. It slowly but steadily picks up—drops landing on her forehead and dripping down her nape. She tilts her head back and opens her mouth and the dry, cracking chasm that she used to call her throat trembles in anticipation of the oncoming relief.

When it touches her tongue, she recoils. Thick, bitter, and metallic. It's only then that Johanna realizes the warm liquid isn't water. She holds out her hand to catch a drop and it stains red.

Blood.

And, as if the Gamemakers were waiting for her reaction, the sprinkling of rain turns into a downpour.

“Get up!” She screams, scrambling to her feet. “Get up! Get the fuck up!”

You wake up, alert, with your weapons in hand. Springing to attention like you were never asleep to begin with. When you see no enemy you can fight, your vigilance gives way to confusion. The other three are slower to rise until the blood starts pelting them like coins.

They stumble up, much like she did, but they don’t know. They don’t understand what’s falling from the sky.

“Don’t drink it—!” She tries to warn them and gets a mouthful of tacky, festering blood for her troubles. It’s thick and greasy and viscous and slippery, so the remnants of it stay behind when she tries to spit it out. It coats the back of her throat, creeping its way up her nose and slicking in between her molars.

“Blood!” The last thing Johanna can see before her vision goes red is your blurry face going from stark relief to abject terror as her words fully sink in. “It’s–it’s blood!”

From then on, there’s no room for coherent thought. Instead, Johanna gets stuck in a cycle of gagging on blood, spitting it out, and heaving in the fucked up, muggy, contaminated air, only to start it all over.

She tries to shield her eyes, but the blood creeps underneath her hands like its goal is to take out as many senses as possible. The sound of it sliding off the top of the canopies and hitting the ground is deafening; it almost drowns out your attempts to call out to Johanna. But calls for each other are only answered with blood.

They all flounder about, tottering around on unsure feet. Johanna wipes her eyes and tries to squint around it. But it’s no use. Even if her eyes weren’t compromised, the blood falls so thickly that it curtains everything around her.

Maybe that’s why she doesn’t realize she’s only seeing three red silhouettes instead of four.

She gives up on her eyes and works to save her lungs instead. She cups her mouth and nose, coughing and hacking so hard that it feels like her chest is on fire. She breathes through her nose and immediately stops when it burns her nostrils. She breathes through her mouth and it’s somehow worse to taste the sickeningly sweet iron-rich mist. She gags and breathes and gags again.

She still can’t see, but she crouches down low, hesitant as she pats the ground. Trembling hands feel around for her axe, but, apparently, everything feels like an axe handle if your eyes are closed. She can’t afford to let another victor catch her in such a vulnerable position. She may be blind, but she refuses to be defenseless.

She doesn’t find it.

They must stay there, stumbling around fully blind and half-mad for hours before a masculine shout accompanies the sound of a heavy body hitting the ground. So loud it overtakes the sound of blood that isn’t hers rushing in her ears, the sound of the rain. They must have flown before they crashed, must have been thrown back to be that loud— the force field.

“Blight!”

A cannon fires. And then. It stops. All of it. The rain, the yelling, the torture. The heat and the smell remain, if not made worse by each other. Johanna can’t figure out which one is making her stomach roll more.

“Everyone—” she gathers the blood in her mouth, along her cheeks and tongue, and spits it on the ground with disdain. She can feel the frothing, light pink saliva and drool dripping down her chin from doing the same thing three dozen times already. “Everyone alright?”

Surprisingly, the voice that calls back first is Beetee’s.

“I–I managed to hold on to Wiress. Blight, however…”

She knows not to expect Blight’s voice and that’s a pain too tender to prod at yet. You, however, don’t respond. And, unlike Blight, there’s no reasonable explanation for your sudden silence. She calls your name, but there’s no reply. There is, however, a spark of panic in her chest right next to her heaving lungs, but Johanna only heard one cannon.

She doesn’t know if the heat encourages it or keeps it at bay, but, just that fast, the blood is starting to congeal. Johanna pries her eyes open and it’s almost like they’re still closed. Now impossibly darker, the jungle is a nightmare. Made even worse by the fact that you aren’t here. She lurches up to spin in circles, shouting after you as Wiress keeps mumbling something. She staggers around, cutting herself off by coughing up the blood that’s managed to get into her chest. There’s nothing, no sign of you or where you could have gone. You are not here.

It’s like you disappeared.

A spotlight shines down on them—No, on Blight. On his cooling body. The hovercraft claw descends open-mouthed, dipping down to pick him up. Beetee pulls Wiress away before she can wander closer. Johanna watches as they take him away.

Blight is thirty, she thinks. Blight is a burly man with a big beard to match. Blight has a wife, a son. Blight’s from Zone Q, the same zone kids used to make fun of for the funny way they talked. Blight had always been kind to her. Blight now hangs limp, covered in blood. Skin singed and smelling of burnt hair. This is the last thing he will ever be.

He’ll never see the culmination of the rebellion he was willing to give his life for. He wasn’t the sharpest axe in the, well, anywhere. But…it would have been nice to give him the District Seven sendoff he deserved.

She gives herself a shake. They need to find you.

“Come on, get up.” She waves the remaining two up with her axe. “Let’s go."

“Tick, tock.”

“Where?” Beetee attempts to look at her from under his blood-smeared glasses.

“Tick, tock.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but our group has been dramatically cut from five to three—”

“Tick, tock. Tick, tock!”

“—And what the fuck is her problem?!”

“I think she might be in shock.”

“Right. Of course. That’s just fan-fucking-tastic.”

There’s an odd clicking coming from the right and some hindbrain prey instinct warns Johanna away from it. She practically drags her damsels in distress behind her as she scours as much of the jungle as she possibly can in the dark in her search for you. Down to where the sand starts, back to the edge, and then off to the left—away from the clicking. They can’t be as quiet as she would like to be, considering Beetee’s heavy steps and Wiress’s insufferable mumbling. Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, fucking tock.

How the hell did she get stuck with Nuts and Volts, of all people? You and Blight have left her alone and now, Nuts is even nuttier than before, and Volts—

“I can’t—I can’t go on. I must, I need to rest.” Beetee gasps. She glowers over her shoulder at his weak form. He raises a hand before falling on his ass. She groans, stomping back to stand over him. Even in the low lighting, he’s a sorry sight. Alarmingly pale, even for someone from Three, he looks like he might faint at any moment now.

“And what the hell is wrong with you?”

“My wound—I believe I’ve lost a fair bit of blood.” He gestures minutely behind him, and she squints at his back. He grunts as she positions him a bit better in the moonlight and his entire left flank is warm with his blood. The wound hadn’t seemed that serious earlier, long but superficial. What does she do if he’s losing more blood than any of them realize? She isn’t trained in medicine and it’s not like they can just request some kind of aid. If you were here, maybe. They’d have much better luck getting a sponsored gift if you were the one asking for it.

“Great. That’s just lovely. You know, this is exactly what we need right now.” She paces. Kicks a rock. hurts her toe. “Fuck. Fuck!” Johanna drives her axe into a nearby tree, yanking it out to only hack at it again. They’ve been searching for you for over an hour and there’s no telling where the hell you’ve wandered off to.

“What do we do now?”

“I don’t know! I don’t—!” She throws her hands up, not even bothering with rebuffing Wiress when she sways into her with her ‘tick, tock’ shit again. She groans, head hanging low. The plan has been monstrously derailed already and it hasn’t even been two full days yet. “I don’t know.”

Hopefully, you’re closer to finding Finnick than they are.

SECTION 2 ( 1:40 am-2:26 am)

You finally come to a stop, feet tripping over gnarled roots and fallen logs. You cough, blowing blood from your nose like snot. You’ve gotten far enough away from the rain that you can almost start breathing normally again. You look around you, turning in rough half-circles as you try to get your bearings. You’re careful to keep in mind the direction you’ve come from because the jungle looks the same as it has for the last mile and a half.

You want to rub at the stitch developing in your side, but you’re too afraid to take your hands off your weapons, even for a second.

That blood rain was unexpected, to say the least. Not to mention cruel. You’d never seen anything like it. The Gamemakers must have gotten a real kick out of that, knowing how readily y’all were waiting for rainwater, knowing how thirsty you were.

The blood doesn’t behave like it should. It’s made your hair dense and heavy, almost oil-slick somehow, despite the frizz from all the humidity. It dries on your skin in thick, itchy patches. Not unlike the aloe vera paste used in Eleven to heal burns and the like.

There’s no telling if the blood shower is heading in your direction or not. Can you handle that again? That suffocating force clawing its way past your esophagus, into your stomach, into your lungs—hot and thick? The taste is still on your tongue and for a moment, you’re in the eye of the storm once more. Fighting to see, to breathe, to live.

You gag and you push it down, but the longer the taste of iron soaks on your tongue, the harder it is to stop it. You gag again, hard enough that your belly cramps up. Eyes watering, you rock forward, nails digging into the wood of the handles as scorching stomach acid claws its way up your throat. You throw up what little you’ve eaten, and you despair, because it may not have been much but it was something.

You stay that way, hunched over, panting open-mouthed as more spit forms rapidly in your mouth just to drip down into the puddle of sick you’ve already left. You’ll be even more dehydrated than before. Your chest burns with acid reflux, your nose runs, and your mouth pools with drool you can’t afford to lose. You want to cry. But you don’t have that luxury. You want someone to rub your back, but you don’t have that either.

I wish Finnick was here.

You allow yourself that small moment of pity. You pull in a surprisingly cool breath before straightening up. You push your shoulders back, determined to march forward through whatever may be waiting for you because you know that on the other side, Johanna and the others need you. You walk forward, even though the idea of willingly entering that blood-filled hellscape makes your stomach lurch like a threat.

The blood still proves to be an issue without the Capitol’s input. Some of it drips down your face and neck like sweat, damn near blinding you all over again. You can only wipe it away with the back of your hand so many times. You're still trying to find a way to keep the blood out of your eyes when you hear it.

It's like when a bug flies too close to your ear but louder. Buzzing and clicking that makes the hair on your neck stand, foreboding.

You’ve never had much of a problem with insects, you weren’t allowed to. You can’t exactly claim ‘fear of bugs’ as a reason for not doing your job, even if you are six years old. After working around tracker jackers to pick various fruits, spiders climbing over you as you wade around the flooded cranberry fields, overzealous slugs as you pull carrots, to name a few, that fear dissipated. That’s not to say you love them, only that you’ve learned to work in proximity to them and ignore them if all else fails. You turn around, spinning in circles as the noise gets louder. You can’t ignore this so easily. You’re six again, trembling in fear as a peacekeeper directs you to a giant tree with an equally giant tracker jacker nest. That old fear makes a reappearance. It takes root, maturing from childish panic to fresh, genuine terror because something is coming toward you.

You hear flapping, wings. Your vision is still blurred from the blood and you're in a particularly dark part of the forest with barely any moonlight, but you can see it. Some kind of bug hurtling towards you faster than you can run. It’s massive—mutated, most likely—close to the size of a wolf. You duck as it dives at you, bulky mandibles snapping.

You’d rather fight the wolf.

It flies a few feet away before turning around and you curse the fact that you didn't pick up any long-range weapons. Where the hell is Katniss when you need her?

You’ve trained for months. Your stamina, your dexterity, your core and upper body strength. But especially your hand-to-hand combat. Woefully, you consider how well that translates into fighting a giant mutt.

For a split second, you get the urge to hide. That animalistic impulse to find a small space to burrow into that the much bigger animal can’t get you and to find it fast. You’ve felt this before in Eleven and in the Capitol. It’s only fitting that you’d feel it here in the arena too.

It hovers in the air for a moment. It's almost as if it’s thinking. As you both regard each other, it begins to feel like it really might be thinking. Just how intelligent is this thing?

It’s a beetle; you can tell that much, which means an exoskeleton. You’ll have to go for the head, the eyes. There’s no indication that it’s about to happen, it just charges you. And you realize far too late that it'll be impossible to get a clear hit at its head. You lunge to the side, but you aren't fast enough. You yell when its pincer strikes you in the side. You pitch over, rolling along the ground. You barely manage the precarious balance of covering your head and keeping your blades away from your body.

It's not done with you. But down here, you have a better chance of avoiding its bite.

The blood makes your grip on the handles slippery. You flip the one in your dominant hand upwards and keep the other one face down as it gets ready to charge you again. You roll under it, slicing upward along its stomach as it flies over you. You're quick to stand up as it wavers in the air, wings stuttering the longer it bleeds.

You’ve both weakened each other, but neither of you is dead yet.

Your mind is quiet. Only one thought echoes in the abyss back to you.

The head. The head. The head. Go for the head. Go for the head. Take the fucking head!

It swoops down at you, wobbling in the air, but still clicking. You kneel down with your sickles turned outward and cross your arms in front of your face. You wait for it to get closer until you can see its head peeking over the gap your weapons leave and straighten your elbows, decapitating it. You close your eyes as black blood rains down on you and its head and body hit the ground with two distinct thumps.

Its body convulses on the ground and its head stays still, but you don't have time to check if it's really dead. Like the man from Nine. More buzzes and clicks come from your right and you're running before you even register that your feet are moving.

You don't look behind you, you don't need to. You can hear them, closing in on you. You just keep sprinting, lungs burning in exhaustion as you push yourself faster. You don't know where you're running to, but you know you have no way of fighting off more than one.

There's a hill a few feet ahead of you, and you prepare yourself to roll down. You throw your weapons to the bottom and cover your head as you tumble down, scraping yourself on stray twigs and rocks.

You scramble to stand up at the bottom of the hill and look up in time to see the bugs hovering at the top. They're stopped by what looks like a force field. But that doesn’t make any sense. You—you just came from there. Suddenly, they lose interest in you like you were never there to begin with and they turn around. They bump into each other as they fly away, probably on their way to swarm someone else.

A piercing scream comes from the direction the mutated insects flew off to. Better you than me, you think and regret it immediately. That could be someone you care about. Chaff, Johanna, Katniss, Peeta.

Finnick, your brain supplies. You shake away the thought. You don't have to worry about that because he promised you.

"He promised me. He promised me." You repeat to yourself in a whisper.

You stumble back into a tree, chest heaving.

Once the adrenaline rush passes, another problem presents itself. The blood on your body has grown cold, so it's surprising to feel a warm rush of liquid on your side.

You look at where your jumpsuit is torn above your right hip. You stretch the fabric and see two holes about six inches away from each other. Twice the size of a bottle cap, one's a little above your hip bone and the other rests a little before where your back starts, both wider and deeper than you would like—but you don’t see muscle, which counts for something. They're rough, not perfect circles. Skin hangs haphazardly from them both, peeling away at the edges with jagged incisions going towards the middle. As if being punctured like a piece of paper wasn’t enough, they've been torn from the pincers still being buried in you and then violently ripped out after you fell.

Now that you're aware of them, they throb in sharp waves.

"Shit," you curse, breathing around the tears that bubble up from the pain. Your breaths are shuttered, halting. You're bleeding at a pretty steady pace and you won't last long with the wound out in the open. Especially if there's a creature out here that can smell blood. “Shit, shit, shit.” You whimper.

You scream as cramps rocket through your abdomen and the ability to be quiet is beyond your pain-addled mind, you can’t stop it. Luckily, it comes out of your dry throat more of a raspy croak than a real scream. You press a shaking, blood-soaked hand to your mouth anyway. You don’t know what other killer insects may be out here with you and you can’t afford to grab their unwanted attention just because you can’t control yourself.

Your medical knowledge isn’t extensive. Honestly, it’s a little below average for what’s expected in Eleven, but probably far more than what an ordinary citizen in the other districts would know. Not everyone can afford the services of doctors, especially if they live in the Shacks, so you were all taught how to help each other. You don’t know any of the fancy shit they probably teach in the academies, but you were taught how to heal with the land—old methods and practices passed down from before the Dark Days.

Your first thought is to clean it, but with what? You don’t even have clean water to drink. Your second thought is to pack it, if not with cotton then with aloe vera—it’ll ward off infection for a while, right? You have no way of disinfecting it, not by yourself and not with what’s available to you, so stopping the bleeding is the next best thing.

This may not be your environment, may not be your plants, but you learned a thing or two while training Peeta in the Edible Plant section. This is the perfect environment for natural, as natural as the arena will permit, aloe to grow. But it’s still dark. You can’t go looking for it, not by yourself. And you aren’t desperate enough to start begging your sponsors for help.

You sigh. You’ll have to settle for the bare minimum.

You pull both of your sleeves down where they detach at the shoulder and even that little movement makes your stomach cramp again. You flinch as the muscles underneath the wounds spasm, pumping out more blood.

You tie one end of both sleeves together, working past the hurt, and, God, does it hurt. But the hurt is unavoidable. That’s what you tell yourself. That’s what you’ve always told yourself. You let your mind drift, taking you somewhere else.

The hurt is unavoidable. The hurt is unavoidable. The hurt is unavoidable.

Sweat drips down your back, or maybe it’s blood, as you move the makeshift tourniquet around your waist. You lay a flat piece of the fabric on the wound and nearly black out as you tie the two loose ends in the back. You tie it again just for good measure, biting around a scream as you pull it tight enough to staunch the bleeding.

Your vision swims as you gasp in big gulps of air. Your hands shake from the pain and yet another adrenaline drop. Your legs feel weak, barely holding you up as you lean most of your weight against the tree.

You need a game plan.

Another canon fires.

You don’t know how long you sit there, eyes closed, head tilted back, pitying yourself. But by the time you decide to get moving, you notice something. Something’s…wrong.

Everything sways when you move your head up. You blink nearly twenty times before your eyes can focus again. You feel warm. Not warmth from the humidity. Not warmth from exercise. But warmth from a fever, a sickness. Nausea creeps upon you and, fuck, please, you can’t throw up again—you can’t . An injury this nasty will certainly come with symptoms, but you shouldn't have this kind of reaction. You try to remember what kind of bug it was. You remember it was a beetle, but you rack your brain for what it looked like. Your muscles spasm around your wound, reminding you how open and exposed they are even when covered with fabric.

You’ve got two plugs taken out of your side, you’re covered in blood, both real and synthetic, you’ve been poisoned, and you’re alone.

Alone. There is no sound other than your labored breathing because you’re alone. That’s the worst part somehow.

You’re slow as you lean down, wincing at the slightest movement, and snatch up your sickles. If just that is enough to sap you of your energy, then—

You can’t stay out here in the open where you’re vulnerable, no one to watch your back, no one to protect you. You’re an easy target, no help to the revolution like this. You take a few quick breaths to psych yourself up. You push off the tree, grunting as the smallest use of your abdomen aggravates the wounds. You hobble along, heading in the opposite direction of where you left Johanna and the others.

Hopefully, Finnick’s group is having better luck.

SECTION 3 (3:17 am-3:28 am)

Finnick is sure that there are certain moments that he’ll remember for the rest of his life. His reaping, the first person he killed, meeting you. These moments, these entries penned into the book of his life, define him. They’re all weaved into a tapestry, sewn into a quilt that illustrates his past and blankets his future. Who he is today, and who he will be tomorrow, is shaped by these moments. He’ll remain irrevocably changed by these events.

He’s sure this moment will be one of them.

The fog creeps behind them and he’s suddenly so glad you aren’t a part of their group. A spectral wall of wispy gas that observes their suffering with the same indifference as the Capitol does. Peeta is a solid weight on Finnick’s shoulder and he’s thankful for it. It’s a reminder, the weight of what he’s defending. He clenches his teeth against the fog's stray tendrils and their poisonous grasp, increasing his speed even as pain licks at his heels.

“Fhinnic’, Fhinnic’!” He skids to a stop, looking behind him at Peeta’s slurred insistence. He turns in time to see Katniss and Mags crash to the ground. He rushes over to them. Mags sits concerned next to Katniss who’s beginning to blister.

“It’s no use,” Katniss says. He kneels beside them and he can see she’s feeling the effects of the fog. Her left leg is getting stiffer and her face has begun to droop. “Can you take them both? Go on ahead, I’ll catch up.” The confidence in her voice is interrupted by the grimace on her sagging face.

Mags has been touched by the fog less than the rest of them, if at all. Probably for the opposite reason that Finnick seems to have the most damage, she’s small. By this logic, it should be easy for Finnick to carry her along with Peeta. It should be easy.

“My arms aren’t working. My arms, they aren’t—” From his shoulder blades down to his fingertips, the muscles in his arms are ruined. They spasm sporadically, jerking uncontrollably as they hang limp at his sides. He’s even relying on Peeta to hold onto his trident for him. “I’m sorry, Mags. I can’t, I can’t do it. I’m sorry.” He apologies. He keeps apologizing to her and he can’t see why, too focused on the wave of white threatening to seize them.

It’s all so quick. Mags has realized what Finnick himself is too stubborn to acknowledge. There’s a heaviness in his chest that he tries to swallow around but it only spreads to his throat. His throat gets tight. His senses feel heightened, his heart beating faster, lungs heaving harder, but he’s still trying to find a way out of this. His mind is moving at the speed of light, determined to fix it, determined to row this impossible boat upstream—thinking about everything but the only realistic outcome here.

They never talked about this. Never discussed the possibility. A situation where he would ever have to—it just never, never came to mind. He never thought to imagine it. And yet, she’s taking off the bracelet she’s wearing—his bracelet that she wore as a token for him. The same bracelet he made under her roof, under her knowing gaze. She slides it up his wrist, tightening it before grabbing his face between her weathered hands. She places a gentle peck on his lips and that’s when he realizes she’ll be leaving, whether he’s ready to say goodbye or not.

“Mags? Mags? Mags!” Tears blur his vision as she dodders uphill into the fog. Katniss grabs his wrist, stopping him from going after her. “Mags! Mags!”

“Finnick!” He can see her silhouette just past the veil of mist, convulsing violently before—a cannon fires. He sits there, desolate. He can’t tell if the numbness spreading through him is organic or from the nerve damage.

“Finnick, we have to go. We have to get outta here.” He’s slow to turn around and look at Katniss. “We have to go.”

Finnick climbs to his feet, accounting for Peeta’s weight, as Katniss drags herself behind him. He sniffs once, twice, three times.

Later, he tells himself, there’ll be time for that later.

A/N: 1.) Blight's accent is the Canadian accent - specifically Letterman Kenny 2.) reckon the covey (Lucy Gray's group) traveled to the north from 11 to 12 during the 1st rebellion and got trapped in 12 after they lost. the Seam now has a distinct accent that sounds vaguely southern. 3.) i headcanon there's no singular southern accent in 11, using this map:https://fineartamerica.com/featured/vintage-map-of-panem-from-the-hunger-games-design-turnpike.html?product=art-print you can see just how much southern land it covers. So that's a mix of Creole, Irish, Mexican, and deep south roots. I'd imagine the mix of Creole, southern aave, and Spanish makes for a very particular accent. but if I had to pick one, it's closer to the southern drawl than the southern twang. 4.) the capitol accent basically the transatlantic accent 5.) You and Finnick think the same, since it was his idea to sleep next to the forcefield and use it as a weapon. yall literally think the same. also finnick wakes up the same way you do in the book when katniss screams about the fog. 6.) in the book, Lucy Gray is quiet but cunning. She doesn't have the "girl bossified quirky" demeanor she does in the movie and I blame Disney for that. As such, she doesn't have the "loud and proud/nothing affects me/cocky without a cause" attitude in my canon. What attracted Snow to her was that survivor instinct he saw in her that he felt he had. Everything that made Lucy Gray interesting to him can be found in Star (and Peeta.) I think Katniss's personality wise is so much like Sejanus's that it pissed him off. close enough to District 12, but not exactly. district eleven has the exact background that Snow wishes he had with 12. He has more control over Eleven, they're easier to control/oppress as opposed to the free-spirited District 12. With Star, he strives to fix what mistakes he made with Lucy Gray. my beta reader said "i agree honestly like i think thats also why people are misreading snow in the movie bc they don't actually understand lucy gray and therefore misunderstand why snow even liked her" 7.) eleven is mainly a black and indigenous North American (Canada, US, and Mexico) population

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carryon-countdown · 6 months

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🍂Carry On Countdown 2023 • Prompt List ❄️

Hello, friends! We are excited to announce that it is once again time for the annual 2023 Carry On Countdown. The Carry On Countdown is a fandom hosted, month-long ‘countdown’ event to the Chapter 61 Snowbaz anniversary for The Simon Snow Trilogy by Rainbow Rowell. The event begins on November 25th and features daily prompts to help inspire all kinds of delightful, fan-created content as we draw closer to Simon and Baz’s anniversary date on December 24th.

We encourage fanfiction, fanart, cosplay, memes, songs, playlists, crafts, etc. The prompts are completely up to your own interpretation and can be used in your content however you like, but if you have any questions, please send us an ask.

Speaking of, this year’s admins are thrilled to present the prompt list for the 2023 Carry On Countdown:

Day 1, NOV 25: Creature

Day 2, NOV 26: Confession

Day 3, NOV 27: AU/Alternate Universe

Day 4, NOV 28: Stars

Day 5, NOV 29: Fight

Day 6, NOV 30: WLW

Day 7, DEC 1: Midnight

Day 8, DEC 2: Sick

Day 9, DEC 3: Pride

Day 10, DEC 4: Wrath

Day 11, DEC 5: Side Ships/Alternative Ships

Day 12, DEC 6: Wings

Day 13, DEC 7: Shudder

Day 14, DEC 8: Blade

Day 15, DEC 9: Familiar

Day 16, DEC 10: Smoke

Day 17, DEC 11: Fluff

Day 18, DEC 12: Hunger

Day 19, DEC 13: Sci-Fi

Day 20, DEC 14: Flowers

Day 21, DEC 15: Begin Again

Day 22, DEC 16: Music

Day 23, DEC 17: Bite

Day 24, DEC 18: Cross

Day 25, DEC 19: Carnival/Faire

Day 26, DEC 20: Angst

Day 27, DEC 21: Gift

Day 28, DEC 22: Gently

Day 29, DEC 23: Cherry

Day 30, DEC 24: Crack

You are welcome to participate in as many or as few of the days of the event as you wish. Completing every daily prompt for the COC is not mandatory, although anyone who does will earn a special spot on our “Page of Honour” once the event has concluded.

The COC is a fan-created and fan-run event, and once again we have another dedicated team of admins who are busy organizing all of the fun: Cora @otherpeoplesheartachept-2, Lola @dragoneggos, Froggy @jasonfunderberkerthefrogexists, and Raegan @carryonmylovelies. Please stay tuned for our Meet the Admin’s post in a few weeks!

If you can believe it, this is the 8th consecutive year that the fandom has hosted this countdown, and its admins are thrilled to continue this cherished tradition with you all. We wish everyone who is planning on participating in the countdown the best of luck. And don’t forget! Our askbox is always open for any questions you may have concerning this event.

Reblogs are very much appreciated (please reblog!), and the hashtags we encourage using with posts relating to the countdown are #Carry On Countdown and #COC 2023.

With love,

The admins of the 2023 Carry On Countdown <3

#carry on countdown #coc 2023 #simon snow #baz pitch #snowbaz #the simon snow trilogy #carry on #wayward son #any way the wind blows #rainbow rowell #please share and reblog!

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sashaisready · 4 months

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New Year with Bucky - Drabble

Wrote this fluff in the early hours when my baby was having a new year’s rave and keeping me awake 😒

Some references to smut..

Bucky isn’t particularly fussed about New Year’s Eve, he hadn’t celebrated it for so long that it’s just another day to him now. And he’s not very impressed by the amount of drunks out on the streets…

You tell him that a new year is exciting because it’s a chance to start afresh, wipe the slate of the previous year clean and begin again - to do better. Be better. There’s so much hope and promise as the clock counts down. So much potential. He smiles wryly at this and presses a small kiss to your hairline. He loves how you see the world. And he can’t deny that a fresh chance does sound nice. That’s all he ever wanted. And he was lucky enough to get it with you.

“Fine” he grumbles. He exasperatedly blows on a party noisemaker and lets you put those novelty glasses with the year on them over his face. He sits calmly as you giggle and tenderly move a strand of hair from his face. “But I’m not going out” he protests, although the look in his eyes softens as he watches you beam. He’d do anything to make you smile like that. “That’s okay” you agree. “We can have our own party right here”. Alpine offers a meow in agreement.

You have dinner together, sharing the chopping and prep in comfortable silence. Bucky absentmindedly wraps an arm around your waist as he stands at the stove, lost in his task. Metal fingers tickle the skin of your hips and you nuzzle into him, perfectly content in that moment, a moment of bliss in your small kitchen.

After dinner and half a bottle of wine, you both flop onto the couch with Alpine and watch TV for a while. Bucky’s constant touches and caresses finally get too much and you squeak as he lifts you effortlessly, carrying you to the bedroom and giving you one final memory of the year.

You pant and cry out and fist his hair, laying back and letting yourself catch your breath as he grins and watches you smugly. You only realise the time as your phone lights up on the nightstand. You hastily start the countdown in bed, in the safest place on earth - wrapped his arms, your cheek pressed to the furnace of his bare chest. “10…9…8…” you whisper in unison.

“Happy new year!!” He kisses you and you kiss him as you hear your neighbours drunkenly sing Auld Lang Syne through the walls. You curl up into him and he holds you tightly.

You reel off a couple of your New Year’s resolutions as he strokes your hair, the usual stuff. Small things you’d like to achieve, do better at. “You’re already perfect, Doll” he mutters gruffly, his lids growing heavy with fatigue.

“What about you, Buck? Any resolutions?” You whisper and he turns to look at you, his brilliant blue eyes studying you as he quietly considers your question.

“To spend more time with those I love” he replies earnestly, giving you a chaste kiss. “I’m off to a good start”.

You smile back and tell him you love him, as sleeps takes you both and pulls you into the new year.

#bucky barnes #bucky x you #bucky x reader #james buchanan barnes

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kathanglangit · 7 months

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The Third Blade: Hinalung - Handheld Speartip

Five days left to go before the launch of the Gubat Banwa Kickstarter campaign! Gubat Banwa is a TTRPG that allows you to play as warrior Kadungganan in the Sword Isles, a fantasy setting as colorful and intricate as the Southeast Asian cultures from which it draws inspiration.

I've been posting the weapons I've been drawing for the game as kind of a countdown, leading up to the launch on October 10. I was planning to do this for Swordtember, but sometimes you gotta shift the goalpost a little bit. 3/7 blades down, behold the HINALUNG

This multi-purpose blade comes in a few different shapes and sizes, but in general they are symmetrical and double-edged. They don't get much longer than one's forearm, and more often than not have handles wrapped in rattan lashings.

(Blades by Tatang HImanggo and one of his students- a certain Arnold; As shared by Biboy's Sharp Edges) If I'm not mistaken, the term "hinalung" is Ifugao- referring to a certain group of indigenous peoples in the Philippine Cordilleras- though the usage of the blade itself was widespread across the mountains of north Luzon. Nowadays, it isn't just Ifugao smiths making them, and a number of contemporary smiths from across the region seem to lay claim to the blade. In any case, the blade is of the Cordilleras, unconquered by Spain.

(Blades by Ifugao Traditional Blades) One more thing of note is the open scabbard, which seems to be common among blades in that region- not just the hinalung. Some of them boast enough space for more than one blade to be sheathed, and are often sold as novelties. The first example below has a large hinalung in the middle, joined by a pair of pinahig. It can very quickly get out of hand. These X-in-1 sets are usually sold as novelties.

(Blades by Orinn Mongalini/Panday Anitu Mumbaki)

(Photo from Orinn Mongalini)

(Photo from Ifugao Artistic Blade)

Now for the fun part! You may be wondering why the handle is shaped the way it is, with that triangular opening near the base of the blade? Or perhaps you read the title of this post and you already know where this is going?

They double as spearheads! The handle itself is steel folded in to create a hollow socket, allowing the hinalung to be mounted on a wooden shaft, turning it into a spear. Supposedly, this spear-form was used for hunting. You can see the hollow socket more clearly here:

(Blade by HanYan Blades)

(Screencap from a video by AJ Blade Reviews testing the blade as a spear; Blade by Lakay Paul Dulnuan Sr.) As mentioned previously, the Philippine Cordilleras were never conquered by Spain, and as such were able to carry their traditions with a little more ease into the present day. It is very much apparent in the blade culture. Present-day smiths in the Cordilleras still forge hinalung, some of them stating they do it in the traditional way, others admitting to hewing to more modern methods.

(Antique from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology)

(Modern build by Lakay Pabian, photo by Ramon Bathan) Like I said before: Blade culture is alive and still developing. One of the Five Major Mahamandalas of Gubat Banwa pays homage to and gleans inspiration from living cultures like those I mentioned here. If you want to know what the first half of that sentence means, check out the game and its Kickstarter!

The Gubat Banwa Kickstarter launches in 5 days! Check it out here:

I've watched this game be started, written, and developed by like- one guy, who just managed to drum up enough interest and meet enough people willing to help shape the dream, and make it what it is today. It could not have gotten this far without all of them. Still, it remains a very small team of creators from the global south, with very limited resources. We would dearly appreciate any and all help in getting the word out about the game!

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maarriiii · 1 year

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Simp (Part 10) | Wilbur Soot

A/N: I really wanted to do a double update so that’s why i’ve been putting this off since I haven’t written the date part but i really don’t want to put this off any longer, so here you go lovely people!!

Summary: Countdown to you and Wilbur meeting and everything that happened in between

Pairing(s): CC!Wilbur Soot x gender neutral!reader, CC!Wilbur Soot x actor!reader

Warning(s): It’s pretty long guys. So, get comfortable

italics: tweets

my masterlist :))

4 months before the show. This was it. The end. After two weeks of traveling multiple cities and countries for press tour, this premiere would be your last before heading back home to Los Angeles, free from any obligations. You smiled and waved to the blaring lights of cameras and shouts of your name, facing here and there as they asked. To your left and right were your costars and people that worked on the movie, director and producers. Some of them were accompanied by their partners or family members. Some were with their publicist and team, including you.

You caught the eyes of one of the family members—a mother to a particularly young actor—she was holding their hand, smiling but you could tell she was overwhelmed. You smiled and mouthed 'you're doing great'. At that her shoulders relaxed and she mouthed back 'thank you'. You gave her a wink before flashing your award winning smile back at the camera—seconds after the three of you posed together and clips of you comforting the mother went viral the next day.

By the time the walking and the posing was done, you were finally inside the theater where seats were filled with the cast, crew, critics, fans, and other people you might don't know. Companion of The West was met with pretty good reviews so far from all the early screenings, praising the writing, directing, the ensemble of cast, and your acting in the new genre. You rarely look up reviews but when it's good things you've been hearing, how can one resist—the movie might even get nominated in major categories in the upcoming awards season.

"Thank you, Nottingham. You've been fucking amazing!"

The crowd cheered as Lovejoy walked backstage, adrenaline still coursing through their bodies and sweat pouring down on it. Wilbur dabbed a white towel on his face and neck, smiling and cheering with his bandmates for yet another good show on the tour. Although, he played shows before it still felt like the first time. He was on cloud nine and no anchor heavy enough could pull him down. He loves every second of every moment he get to play with his friends and hearing the crowds shout back the very lyrics he wrote.

Wilbur muttered a 'thanks' when his friends congratulate him for a great show, still wiping down the sweat trailing down his body like a flood. He took a few bottle of beers in his hand, gave it to Ash, Joe, and Mark, before gulping down his. The cold liquid managed to quench his thirst and after singing the last few songs.

Wilbur and the rest of the band and crew started packing up their instruments and gear after hydrating themselves and taking a few polaroid pictures backstage. They carried all the bags, cases, and whatnot to the van they've rented before driving back to the hotel they stayed in and going out for a few drinks before leaving Nottingham.

2 months before the show. You did something incredibly embarrassing earlier that made you want to dig up a hole, crawl into it, and bury yourself for eternity in an attempt to conceal yourself from the internet. It was an accident. You tweeted something with the intention of putting it in your second and private account, where only your closest friends follows you, after seeing a picture of Wilbur on stage. The tweet itself might be classified as to what the internet calls a 'thirst tweet' and although you've denied it multiple times—when Sam called you out and tease you for it—the longer the notion swam inside your mind, the more convinced you were that they were right. And that just made it worse.

You were in the kitchen getting some snacks when the thought suddenly appeared in your head. Anxiety builds up inside you, fear and assurance trying to beat the other and take control. You fast walked to the living room where the TV was paused on a show and your phone lay on the couch. You hurriedly typed in the password, cursing when you got it wrong a couple of times. You mumbled words of encouragement to yourself, saying that you couldn't possibly do such a thing and that you were always careful. Spoiler alert, you were wrong.

Dread washes over you when you saw the tweet with already 500 likes and retweets. You knew it won't have any effect since your fans would definitely screenshot it and immortalize it for people to see and make articles about, but you still wanted to save yourself.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck. Oh god, you're lagging, really?" You pressed the screen with a little too much force trying to delete the tweet.

It seemed to be an occurrence now that Wilbur always chokes—be it on water or even just air—at the sudden mention of your name. He was amused, honored, and embarrassed at his current predicament. How can he not? Ash was the first one who came across your tweet and decided to show it to everyone first then him. They were hollering, cheering, whistling, and Wilbur couldn't run and hide, so he just opted to curse everyone off but it prove useless since he had a smile on his lips.

when he's british and in a band 🤤🥰

If Wilbur was being honest seeing that kinda boosted his ego just a tad. He tried to find it later, when he was no longer in the bus and wasn't practically surrounded by everyone but all he could find was screenshot of it from both of your fans which led him to think that you probably didn't mean to post for your millions of followers. He kinda felt bad for you—lord knows he'd been embarrassed before—and there was a part of him that wanted to reach out to you but he thought of another way to try and comfort you or maybe even tease you.

He typed something in his phone and after a few words of encouragement before finally saying 'fuck it', Wilbur pressed the blue tweet button.

when you're british and in a band 😏

He'd definitely be hearing about this in the upcoming days.

2 weeks before the show Months went by quickly and before you know it, the Lovejoy show in Los Angeles was getting closer and closer. You and Wilbur were constantly communicating; phone calls, texts, video calls. You name it, both of you probably did it. He always told you how the shows went, where he and the rest of the band went to unwind and explore after the show. He would send you a picture of a film poster that had your face in it. He would tell you facts about the states he was in and you would find it endearing, adorable, and impressive how he knows all of that. You did the same to him. You told him about your days. You told him about future roles that you might want to audition for. You recommended places to visit if you've ever been where he was. It was beginning to be a part of your routine, listening and talking to Wilbur, and you love every minute of it.

This time it was no different. You were out and about, headphones plugged in your ear, Wilbur's voice drowning out all the other noises, while your sunglasses covered eyes scoured the storefronts decorated in mannequins.

"Oh, I'm just wandering around. Nothing exciting, really. I just--"

You saw two young women approached you, phone in their hand, a book and pen in the other. The nervous smiles and whispers shared amongst them was something you became accustomed to by now whenever people recognize you.

"y/n? Are you still there?" Wilbur asked, a slight worry in his voice at your sudden pause.

"Yeah, sorry, Wil. I'm fine. Could you just give me a second?"

"Yeah, of course."

You put your sunglasses over your head and flashed a friendly smile, trying to make them comfortable.

"Hey guys, how are you?"

"Hi, y/n. It's nice to meet you. We love your new movie."

"Aww. Thank you so much. I'm glad you like it. Do you want me to sign that?" You asked, pointing at the book.

"Yeah, and could we get a picture too if that's not too much?"

You nodded. "Yeah, of course. Not at all."

On the other side of the line, Wilbur just sat and listened to your voice. You didn't mute the call and he was glad you didn't--not because he wanted to eavesdrop or anything like that. He just enjoyed hearing the sound of your voice. Everyday he just looks forward to it, hearing you say hello and his name coming out your lips. He dreads whenever you had to say goodbye or 'I have to go' and it took every will power inside of him to not just beg for you to stay for another second. He was absolutely and utterly smitten with you.

"Are you going to the lovejoy show soon, y/n?" A distant voice asked.

At the mention of his band, Wilbur perked up.

"Yeah, I am." His heart fluttered at how excited you were. Damn you. "Are you guys too?"

"Yeah, we came here to see them actually."

"Oh, that's awesome."

The two of you exchanged a few more words until a different voice spoke.

"I think you and Wilbur are really cute together."

You laughed, but it was quite awkward. He knew you didn't expect hearing that and neither did he.

"Are you guys dating?"

Wilbur cringed at the question and by now he knew you well enough that you probably did too. It's an awkward and quite frankly intrusive questions to ask someone but for some reason the questions lingered inside his mind. Are you dating? The two of you flirted at each other, more so him than you. You spent an ungodly amount of time talking to each other. Both of you knew about the other's feeling but, you never really said it out loud. It was just there, in the air--if he had to put it dramatically. He cursed at himself mentally before devising a plan, a mission. He was going to tell you, straight up. When he see you in two weeks, he would muster up all the courage in his 6'6 body and ask you out on a date.

"Tell them no and that you fucking hate my guts." Wilbur said to the phone.

He could tell you were smiling from how you sounded and during the entire encounter Wilbur's voice filled your ears, talking about things that made you want to laugh.

The day of the show. A sudden gush of wind flew by and you shivered, tugging the jacket you wore closer. Sam stood beside you with a matching jacket--something that you didn't coordinate at all--with hand in his pocket and the other holding his phone. In front and behind you, people were waiting in line outside the venue Lovejoy will be playing at. A few people recognized the two of you, excited whispers shared amongst friends who no doubt were convinced that there's definitely something going on with you and Wilbur while others just didn't care at all which you were thankful for.

"Do you think I would make it here back in time if I went and grab us some food from that place we like?" Sam asked, a bored look on his face.

You gave him a look. "Did you not eat before?"

He shook his head nonchalantly.

"Dude, this is a--what, two hours show? Why didn't you eat before?"

"Cause I wasn't hungry before."

"Then, why didn't you get something on the way here?"

"Because-" Sam wrapped an arm around you and pulled you closer, lowering his voice. "-I want to make sure you get to meet your prince charming right on time."

You shrugged off his arm. "Shut up. Also, I don't mind if we're late just a little bit, you know."

"I know."

Suddenly, the line started to move and the crowd cheered, including you. With the supervision of a security guard at the door, everyone walked in an orderly fashion, and with every step you took, the anticipation grew inside you. Out of habit, you held onto Sam's arm. He knew you well enough to know what the action meant so, he just tapped your hand twice, a silent gesture to tell you that he was there.

He couldn't believe his eyes. He couldn't believe his fucking eyes. There you were like you said you would. In the middle of crowd, bright and wide eyes, like something out of a movie. It was a cliche happening in real life, his life, and it was unexplainable what he felt. Your eyes was magnet, pulling his line of sight to you only. He could feel his cheeks stretched, smiling at the sight of your gorgeous face in the dim light. The guy next to you, who he thinks must be Sam, smirked at him and it made Wilbur hide his smile behind the microphone in front of him. He thought to himself if he noticed, did other people notice too? And to answer his own question, he looked to his left where Ash were and there was that smile, the smile that tease him on the van when he found your tweet. He looked to his right, at Joe, and he found him laughing.

Wilbur found the situation amusing and slightly embarrasing. God, he's so incredibly taken by you that he was making a fool himself. The show hasn't even started yet. They've yet to play the first song. How was he to get through the entire night? He would probably be a certified clown or joker by that point. He looked to you again, the smile that he saw never left your lips.

"Hello, Los Angeles! Thank you all for coming."

The crowd cheered including you. He swore he could you amongst the other voices.

"Thanks for having us here and hope you all enjoy the show."

Mark started them off and without a second to waste they played the first song of the night with Wilbur in a newfound spirit at the presence of you.

The night didn't end at the show for you. Not long after Lovejoy left the stage, your phone buzzed inside your pocket. A notification from Wilbur, telling you to stay and that someone will come and get you and Sam. After a long wait, since you had to wait until everyone left the venue, someone you least expected came. It was Wilbur himself. Your eyes grew wide at the sight of him. When he said someone will come and get you, you didn't realized it was going to be him. You knew he was tall but seeing him in real life, face to face, just made you realize how tall he actually was. You both stared at each other, smiling sheepishly. The moment both of you had been waiting for was there yet you could only stare into each other's eyes.

Wilbur spoke first. "Hey, y/n."

"Hi, Wil."

There was this awkward moment where one of you went for a handshake and the other for a hug before finally going for the latter. You had to stand on your tiptoes to wrapped your arms around his neck. When you felt his arms around your waist, butterflies burst inside you. You didn't understand how a single touch could make you feel this way, traveling all over your body. You gave the hug, Wilbur really, a squeeze despite the fact he had probably been sweating. If him just putting your arms around your waist made you feel things then him squeezing you back made your heart combust.

When Sam cleared his throat, the two of you pulled away like a pair of teenagers getting caught doing something. Your hands was on Wilbur's chest, albeit clenched, and Wilbur's had his still on your waist.

"Hey there, I'm Sam." He smiled, reaching out his hand.

Wilbur stumbled over his words, his hands left your waist when he realized it was still there. He shook Sam's hand. "Hi, sorry, I'm Wilbur, uh, Wil-" Wilbur shook his head. "-Anything works, really."

Sam nodded. "Congrats on the show."

"Thanks, man. I'm glad you enjoy it."

The two men let go of their hands and you hoped Sam doesn't do any passive-aggressive threatening on Wilbur like he did with people that have shown interest in you.

"So, hi. Finally."

You giggled at Wilbur. You couldn't remember if you giggled this much when talking to someone that you like, when you were still with Alex. There's just something about Wilbur that made your cheeks hurt by smiling too wide and laughing to hard. The two of you were in a bar, along with Sam and the rest of the band, a place that you and Sam recommended. It was your hidden gem, a place to unwind without attracting any attention. The guys were in the booth, Sam fitting in well with the brits, discussing music or something else. You and Wilbur sat on the stools, intentionally distancing yourself away from your friends for a time alone.

"Hi, finally." You smiled. You realized you haven't stop smiling this whole night.

Wilbur ducked his head, smiling. "I'm sorry if I'm being weird. I just—I can't believe I'm here, with you. Seems unreal."

"I get what you mean. I keep imagining how seeing you would be like and now that I am, it still feels weird almost."

"Oh." He quirked up his brow, a teasing smile. "So, you've been imagining me?"

You felt the heat rose to your cheeks. Shit. "N–not like that."

"Like what then?"

"Stop it. You're messing with me."

Wilbur laughed and god you want to hear that for the rest of your life. "I'm sorry. You look very adorable when flustered."

You only laughed, looking at your hands since his eyes on you starting to become overwhelming. It wasn’t bad or uncomfortable by any means. It’s just that you don’t think someone has ever looked at you like that, with so much affection. “God, I think I’m gonna die of embarassement at this point.

He smiled, then the words left his lips. “Do you want to go on a date with me?”

Your body straightened, eyes wide. “What?”

“Go on a date with me. Tomorrow. Before I head back on tour.”

It felt like your brain was lagging. It took awhile for his proposition to sink into your head but when it did it you wanted nothing more than grab Sam by the shoulder, shook him, and scream ‘he’s asking me out on a date’. You didn’t any of that, of course—you were an adult—so, instead, you had the biggest smile on your face, eyes sparkling like a kid in a candy store.

“I would love to go on a date with you.”

Joe nudged Ash on his side, nodding towards the two of you smiling like idiots. Sam and Mark noticed as well and the group of men shared knowing looks amongst themselves. They talked about the two of you among other things, discussing on when Wilbur will finally ask you out. They didn’t have super hearing but just by the looks of him, they knew he did it and you said yes. Without any warning, Sam started clapping and cheering, surprising everyone.

“Finally. I thought the two of you are just gonna sit there and stare into each other’s eyes the entire night. You did ask them out, right, Wil?”

Wilbur nodded, smiling. “Yes, I did.”

“Sam!” You scolded him.

“What?” He shrugged. “It’s true. They can vouch for me.”

The three of them nodded, followed by murmurs of yeah’s and definitely’.

You shook your head, before turning back around to Wilbur, face flushed.

“At least I know that he approves of me.”

You spend the rest of the night smiling, laughing and drinking, exchanging stories with your new friends and Wilbur. When the night had to end and all of you had to leave, you wrapped your arms around Wilbur’s neck. He leaned down a little to make it easier for you and wrapped his arms around your torso. You whispered how much you enjoy the night and the show, he whispered the same. When you pulled away from his warm embrace, a task proven difficult to do, you planted a kiss on his cheek. He was surprised to say the least. The action, albeit small, left him speechless. The feeling of your lips on his skin almost send him into an overdrive. He was sure the pounding he heard in his eardrums was the sound of his heartbeat beating rapidly. When you said goodbye all he could muster up was a weak wave and a lovestruck smile. All he could think about was how he couldn’t wait to see you again tomorrow.

taglist: @ella-fella-bo-bella @lillylvjy @jadeissues

Send me an ask, message me, or just comment if you want to be added to my taglist 💕

#simp #wilbur soot #wilbur x reader #wilbur x you #wilbur soot x reader #wilbur soot x you #wilbur mcyt #mcyt x reader #cc!wilbur

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ash-fandom-blog · 1 year

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Carry On Countdown Day 10: Angst

Don’t worry, Simon will be fine! Baz is there to kiss it all better after all.

#i’m doing these prompts late now but i wanted to do a few more before the countdown was over #coc 2022 #carry on countdown #the simon snow trilogy #snowbaz #simon snow #baz pitch #rainbow rowell #my art

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lonestarflight · 11 months

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A Touch of Luck

"As the Apollo 10 crew walks along a corridor on the way to Launch Complex 39B, mission commander Thomas P. Stafford pats the nose of Snoopy, the mission's mascot, held by Jamye Flowers, astronaut Gordon Coopers' secretary.

The Apollo 10 crew nicknamed the Lunar Module (LM) 'Snoopy' and the Command/Service Module (CSM) 'Charlie Brown' after characters in the Charles Schulz comic strip "Peanuts."

Launched on May 18, 1969, the Apollo 10 mission was a 'dress rehearsal' for the lunar landing that occurred later that year.

The mission successfully completed the first manned CSM and LM docking and undocking operations in a lunar environment. Apollo 10 orbited the moon 31 times during its eight-day mission and took the LM to within 50,000 feet of the lunar surface, simulating a lunar landing.

After all these historic 'firsts,' the crew also sent the first live color television from space."

"The Apollo 10 crew leaves the Kennedy Space Center's Manned Spacecraft Operations Building during the Apollo 10 prelaunch countdown. Leading is astronaut John W. Young, command module pilot, followed by astronauts Thomas P. Stafford, commander; and Eugene A. Cernan, lunar module pilot. The transfer van carried them over to Pad B, Launch Complex 39, where their spacecraft awaited them."

NASA ID: link, S69-35315

#Apollo 10 #CSM-106 #Charlie Brown #LM-4 #Snoopy #Lunar Module #SA-505 #Saturn V #Rocket #NASA #Apollo Program #F-type mission #LC-39B #Kennedy Space Center #Florida #May #1969 #my post

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dohrnaira · 1 year

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Carry on Countdown - Day 10 - Angst

I cheated a bit, because this is a design I drew for Inktober, but, I made a linocut print out of it for this challenge! And put it on the living room wall.

I very recently tried this new medium, and @skeedelvee 's Carry on ABC may or may not have had something to do with it (that and the sale on starter kits at the art store). And I loved it, so thanks for the inspiration!

#carry on countdown #coc 2022 #simon snow #simon snow series #carry on rainbow rowell #carry on fanart

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writingmeraki · 1 year

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hey stupid, I love you !

a lee kangin drabble !

genre : fluff ( tooth rotting ver. )

pairing : lee kangin x gn!reader, established relationship.

warnings : kisses, talks about love, not really anything particularly triggering but let me know if there's something i should add !

author's note : damnn look who finally posted ?!? that too with kangin ?!? i think i really need to start writing again...i miss it a lot but also it's terrible to be in this slumpy state of mind :/ so sorry for the long long wait and thank you for your patience and support 💖 let me know what you think of this hehe ^^ i had fun writing this tbh it's something that was inspired by that one tiktok, idk if you have seen it, but i saw it on Twitter and can't seem to find the video :( anyways enjoy !!

word count : 2.4k ( i got a little carried away )

💖 special dt : @kpdlvr2 ( the one who motivated me to post ily !! )

🤎🎧 recommended song : hey stupid, i love you by JP Saxe !

Growing up, you'd been someone who preffered sharing your love with actions. In other words, your so called love language was always in ways of physical affection.

A helping hand when your siblings really needed your help in their academic studies or a gesture of giving a flower to your mother when you would notice the damp mood she had, the bruises on your knees and scrapes on your hand being worth it after digging through the neighbour's mini garden for the perfect sunflower, especially when you'd see the smile that took over her face and the several kisses she'd shower you with for this, murmuring loving words of how she loved you so so much.

You don't think anything makes you happier when your love language is reciprocated by someone in their own unique love language. Be it gestures, gifts or even sweet words. You had a lot of love to give and surely you'd always give it in huge bulks especially to those who held a special place in your heart.

So when you found someone like Kangin in your life, you definitely felt like this was possibly the one of the best things to have happened to you.

Lee Kangin.

Your boyfriend of nearly 10 months, 2 weeks and 3 days. Yes, you kept a countdown which you memorised. It was your own way of counting how many lucky days you'd had since well, you met him.

You and him, in many or less words, were a simple cliché. Being in the same college, him being the forward striker of your college football team and well you being the captain of the volleyball team.

Seeing as how you both held a great love for your respective sports, you'd instantly bonded over your passions. In one way though, you knew you played because it was somewhat of a hobby, granted a hobby you loved and surprisingly good enough to be a whole captain of, you still knew you weren't sure as to whether to make it into a whole career.

But still you were grateful to have been in the team, happy to play. Maybe in the likely future, it could turn into something more but for the time being you were happy with it and really what else matters right?

Unlike Kangin though, you knew he was likely to begin playing for the national levels in no time, given this was his drive. His passion. Something that was definitely more than just a hobby. You could see it, him being a huge football player in the coming days.

Nonetheless, you were always supportive of him since you got together and him being the best boyfriend you'd had, was equally if not more supportive of whatever you'd want to do in your life ahead.

Showing up to his matches cheer him on, proudly wearing his number 19 jersey that he specially gave you and him making sure to scream the loudest whenever you would score in your own matches, making your cheeks warm whenever you'd spot him in the crowd with the biggest smile on his face as he cheered you on.

He'd always been the sweetest with his words especially which you quickly learnt was his love language, words of affection. They do say opposites do attract don't they? One whose love language was more of physical affection and the others being loving words, a perfect balance.

Actually he'd been the one to ask you out, he'd been the one to first confess and you were able to give back all his love with your own until he said the first I love you.

Kangin didn't mind at all though, he knew you. He knew every thought you'd have, and he even knew you wouldn't say it back just yet.

But well this was his way of showing his love. Declarations of it in those three little words. And you knew that, you of course did. You think before your mind admitted to this, your heart already knew. Your heart was already deeply and wholly in love with him.

And when you both were able to get a free day amidst your hectic schedules, you wasted no time in planning the perfect date.

A movie you'd been dying to watch since it came out was definitely one of the top things in that date, and who was Kangin to say no to his lover who asked him with the cute sheepish smile and the fact that you already booked them in advance out of pure excitement.

Besides he actually had planned to take you out to watch it first knowing how much you simply loved the particular movie series.

You'd worn a cute outfit, choosing a jacket over a white top and a pair of jeans you found comfortable yet fashionable. He came to pick you up, wearing his own white t-shirt and black coat, unknowingly matching with you.

You grinned at him when you realised this, seeing his own slight surprise at how you both matched,

"Ohhh, look at us, we're definitely telepathically connected." You giggled as you scanned his figure, the jacket definitely sitting perfectly tightly on his broad shoulders and the white t-shirt making him look the more attractive than he already was.

Kangin smiled at your words, turning towards you and grabbing your hand which had previously been sitting on your lap into his, entwining them and immediately warmth engulfing your colder hand, feeling relief at the feeling.

“Hmm whatever you say.” He said softly as he brought your hand up to his lips to place a soft kiss on it, your heart fluttering wildly at the simple gesture.

"I never did as well, I always have a good sixth sense of these types of things you know, a secret superpower in a way." You jokingly said with a smirk as you looked at him and laughed again at the way he rolled his eyes at your words ( affectionately )

“Of course baby, I'd never doubt you.” He said playing along to your little act making you wheezed a bit through your nose.

"But we really need to get going though, or else we'd miss the first few minutes of the movie." He finished as he saw the time on his car display, now only a few more minutes until the show timings.

"Right let's go then!" You said hurriedly putting on your seat belt because of course road safety and your safety came first.

Reaching the movie theaters, you both quickly got out, your hand instinctively entwining with his, a habit you always had whenever you would go out, a small smile forming on his face due to your giddiness. Really it felt as though it was also spreading to him and how could it not when his lover was so happy.

Having entered the theatre after getting snacks of, you both quickly made your way to your seats and sat down, the lights dimming after a few minutes and you immediately going into a trance as you stared at the beautiful cinematics of the film.

Even though Kangin wasn't quite a huge fan as you were of the particular movie series, he found it beneficial when he could just stare at you, in a cute way, and observe your reactions to certain scenes which really made you look the more adorable to him atleast.

In that moment though, he did know, he loved you a lot and he wouldn't have it any other way with any other person because you were his and he was yours.

"I love you." He told after seeing a pout on your face due to his observations, it was out of no where but he really couldn't help it, the simplest of things just made him fall more and more.

You turned towards him, slightly out of focus due to your attention being towards the film, but nonetheless you heard him and certainly you felt it.

You heart fluttered at his confessions despite it not being the first time but truly it meant a lot more to you than just three words. Three very heavy words but a type of weight you could carry for as long as your heart would allow it to.

Softly chuckling, you neared him and cupped his face, the only light being of the film, illuminating his cheeks and eyes holding reflections of the flashing scene, it was dark but you could still see part of him and it was enough.

"I know." You whispered gently and caressed his cheeks with your thumbs while giving him a peck on his lips. Kangin moved forward when you leaned back, wanting more. The action making you giggle as you shushed him telling him to focus on the film and to let you focus as well.

He wanted to whine but upon seeing your focus go back, he decided he'd take his own revenge later. You side eyed him once again, seeing the small pout on his face and held back your giggles.

Cute. He's so cute.

Soon enough, much to your sadness but Kangin's delight, the film came to an end. You were left with that bittersweet feeling of wishing it'd never end and though you knew Kangin didn't like the movie, you could see he tried to understand how you felt and kept interest in what you said about it afterwards.

It was considerate of him though, and that only made you happier with him more and more.

As you both began walking out of the theaters and were near the exit, you spotted something sitting on the corner of the left side.

It was a photobooth, the logo 'PHOTOS' being lit up in a bright white colour and you immediately felt inclined to go there.

You grabbed Kangin's hand which was tucked in his coat, looking towards him with excitement and pleading eyes.

"Can we please go there ? I really want to take some photos with you at a photobooth!" You asked pointing toward the booth and Kangin looked towards it and back at you noticing your excitement that you tried to keep within you but you couldn't help it and grinned at him as you thought of the different poses you could do.

"Of course. If it makes you happy, I'll do whatever." He said, a small smile on his face when he saw your grin getting wider.

"I've always wanted to take photos in a photobooth, but rarely were there any back home." You told as you began walking towards it now, hands still holding each other.

"It's good that there's one here and even better that you're the one who'll take photos with me." You pushed aside the blue velvet curtain as you entered the miniature room.

You both sat on the small bench, making sure the curtain was closed and only the light from the LED screen lighting up the space.

"Hold on, I have change we can use." Before you could say anything Kangin slipped a bill into the machine and the screen saver changing to a camera screen with instructions on the side.

"So we have around six photos we can take and there's a 10 second interval between each to change poses as we wish." You read out loud, and looked at Kangin who seemed to be already looking at you, nodding and humming, to tell you he heard.

Besides the screen there were also some headbands, and you looked back at him, him seemingly knowing what you were thinking and just nodding again, smiling once more at you.

"Yeah we can take with those, I guess. BUT only like two max." You already had reached and grabbed the two which seemed the most cutest, a greenish frog headband and a bunny one.

Handing him the bunny one, you grinned even though he glared at you, it was harmless of course, but you did it on purpose, knowing he's get irritated.

"Oh hush, besides you said two photos only anyways!" Putting the headband on, you moved closer to Kangin.

"Okay, so I think a good pose would be putting up peace signs ? For the start, it's a simple pose, well decide the others later." You got into position, putting a peace sign near your face and looking toward the screen as Kangin did the same, looking at the camera.

You pressed the button on the screen and a timer of 3 seconds went off before a flash blinded you slightly.

Blinking a bit to make sure you handle gone blind, you turned towards Kangin,

"How about I kiss you on the cheek now?" "Sure."

He replied with no hesitation whatsoever making you chuckle at his eagerness and you lightly smacked your lips, making sure you still had your gloss on.

Kangin turned towards the camera, slightly flushed, as you placed your lips on his cheek, they felt soft and just…right. You grinned as the timer went off.

Another flash went off, and you pulled away. Seeing Kangin remove the cute headpiece made you pout a bit but if it was what he wanted to do then you'd do it.

Placing both of them back in their original places, you patted down your hair and asked him "Do I look okay now?"

"Baby, you look good always, beautiful in fact the most prettiest person I've ever seen!" He told you with such determination, you felt like your heart could burst them and there.

"Kangin." Before he could say anything, you spoke up,

"I love you."

You said softly, feeling warm and your mind flowing with many thoughts and emotions.

A bright light flooded the room as Kangin processed what you said, the photo taken being of you smiling warmly and him being in shock, a contrasting comical expression and surely a memorable photo.

"Do you, wait-" Before he could say anything, you grabbed his face, scanning it seeing the little angel kisses littered beautifully across it, the one near his eye in particular being the most prettiest one in your opinion.

You pressed your lips to his, shutting your eyes, Kangin coming back to his senses just before the photo was being snapped, as he pulled you impossibly closer by your waist.

"I love you too, and always will." He said as he pulled away, his eyes speaking more than enough for you to know he meant those words by his whole soul.

You giggled lightly, placing a soft peck on his lips,

"I know my love, I know."

all written works as well as images and edits (unless credited) belong to pri. do not plagiarise, repost, re-edit or claim as yours. pics mostly found on pinterest.

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uselesssomebody · 2 years

Text

𝕥𝕣𝕚𝕔𝕜 𝕠𝕣 𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥! - dad!eddie munson x mom!reader

complete masterlist | stranger things masterlist | eddie munson masterlist

words || 𝟚𝕜

series masterlist || week to all hallows' eve

summary || in which eddie, the reader, and their daughter celebrate halloween

a/n || oh my god? more? but this time, it's part of a multifandom series! ➵ part of my 'week to hallows' eve' halloween countdown. i was way too swamped to do kinktober/spooktober but i still wanted to something special for halloween. so, every day, new, halloween-themed content will be coming out about different characters i write about. check out the masterlist ^ ➵ this is set post-events of s4, like ~10 years after? eddie's a dad! but the idea of him being scary is (somewhat) still present. also robin and vickie are in this one! ➵ happy diwali to anyone who celebrates it! i hope you guys had a lovely meal, lovely activities and a lovely night! ➵ not yet proofread ➵ send me requests if you have ‘em. enjoy!

warnings || fluff, fluff, fluff! so fluffy

rosie had a stomach full of pumpkin pie, courtesy of her mother, and her hands full of accessories for her costume. her mother carried her headband in one hand, and her trick-or-treat basket in the other, watching fondly as her daughter pulled her pale yellow tights over her legs.

“you alright there? need some help?” she called, as rosie struggled with pulling on her dress.

“i’m fine - i’m fine!” she said the sentence once, and it came out muffled from under the bunched cloth, but, the second time, as she peeked her head out of the opening, it came out crystal clear. she took a moment to stifle a laugh at her daughter’s predicament, before setting her things down and tentatively tugging the rest of the dress over the young girl’s torso. when her arms finally popped out on the other side, she let out a sigh of relief, relenting and allowing her mother to smooth out the wrinkles of the lemon-yellow dress.

“can i come in?” the question was accompanied by a faint knock on the door of the room, and his voice was a bit muffled behind the wood.

“yeah, come on in, ed.” she mumbles it over her shoulder, moving on to twist the pretty, dark locks of her daughter’s hair between her fingers, pushing some of them away from her forehead as she pressed a soft kiss in their place. as her husband entered the room, she rose up, going to collect her things once again. she glanced up at eddie, but his eyes were fixated on rosie, a soft smile on his face in reaction to the absolutely adorable get-up she had on.

“hello, princess!” his voice was more animated - as it always was with rosie - and the young girl blushed and giggled at the moniker, “want me to do your hair?” he was already inching towards the thin hair ties and the hairbrush resting on her mother’s vanity, when rosie nodded vigorously meeting him halfway with the tools.

“alright: sweetie, ed,” she pointed at the both of them respectively, “behave while i’m gone. i’m gonna drop off some of that pie at robin's, ‘lright?” eddie nodded, and rosie babbled a goodbye as she headed to the kitchen.

the rest of the pie, which she had reserved for their neighbors and very good friends robin buckley and vickie mahan - the town’s resident roommates, had a significant chunk missing, indicating that eddie had helped himself while she was busy. when she lifted up the tin, she saw a small note, confirming just that fact.

‘sorry, babe, couldn’t help myself…i’ll make it up to you sometime!’

‘‘make it up to our neighbors, ed.’’ she muttered to herself, smiling at her husband’s childish antics. that was the thing she thinks that she loves most about him - his boyish charm, his innocent gestures, his sweet, childish habits. his habit of getting far too engrossed in a show with rosie, or him rambling about the lord of the rings, something she had - though - realized was much more to him that a book he read as a kid.

hell, he named their daughter after one of the characters - of course it meant so much more to him.

he loved halloween. she did too, but he adored it. the cheap costumes, the cheap candy, the cheap scares. it was all thrilling. and now, with their 8 year old daughter, he had someone experiencing it with him through his own eyes - those eyes of childish wonder, who saw adventure and intrigue in everything.

she rung the doorbell for the neighbors. robin answered almost immediately, dressed in zombie attire, no doubt to spook the kids who would be rolling in during the next few hours.

“hey, rob! i wanted to give your guys this - you mentioned you like pumpkin pie?”

“pie?” at that, she heard the sound of vickie from behind robin, red paint gushing from make-up fangs at the corners of her mouth.

she was ushered in quickly by the homey couple, and she placed the tin down on their dinner table. there wasn’t too much decoration - not nearly as much as her own house, but she enjoyed the touch of the skull garland hung on top of the window. robin had always had something for morbidity and, as much as it clashed with vickie’s colorful theme, they seemed to make it fit perfectly.

“sorry there isn’t that much, eddie got his hands in it while i wasn’t looking.” they looked at each other, smiling at their neighbor’s antics.

“how’s rosie doing?” vickie mentioned, as robin looked around for plates.

“oh, she’s just fine. getting her hair done with dad.” robin placed three plates in front of them.

“she dressing up?” she nodded, remembering her daughter’s outfit and smiling.

“yup! belle, from beauty and -”

“- the beast! oh, i’m sure she’ll look so cute! please bring her around!”

“oh, of course, you guys are the first ones we’re hitting.”

“right, right. when’re you guys gonna go around?” she glanced down at her watch at the question, and her eyes widened.

“oh - oh, shit, we’ve gotta get going in a few minutes. i’ve gotta - i’ll see you guys in a bit!” vickie nodded, helping her out of the door, before she rushed back to her house.

when she got back to her own house, eddie was not-so-secretly sharing a mars bar with rosie.

“ed! those are for our trick or treaters!” eddie, having been caught red-handed, redirected the bite of chocolate going into his mouth, to instead go into his wife’s mouth and, after a moment of pursing her lips in fake annoyance, she allowed him to drop the sweet treat onto her tongue, “alright, you get a pass.” she said, through a chocolaty mumble. suddenly, she felt a light tug on her pant leg. she looked down at rosie, seeing her hair perfectly done-up, the tiara balancing precariously on her head.

“can we go trick-or-treating, mommy?” she looked so excited, with her small hand wrapped around the handle of her pumpkin-shaped candy bucket, that her mom immediately reached down to grab her fingers in her own.

“of course, sweetie. c’mon, let’s get going.” rosie let her mom guide her towards the exit, and she let her dad slip her white, royal gloves over her hands. they were part of the outfit, but they also worked to keep the young girl warm in the october evening. they all stepped out onto the porch, and eddie locked the door behind them.

many other young children and their parents littered the streets; it was tradition. from 5 to 7, all the younger kids would trick-or-treat, before letting the rest of the older kids come around after 7. it worked perfectly, allowing the parents of toddler and children tend to their own, before tending to the neighborhoods’.

they made a beeline for the buckley & mahan residence, finding both women waiting in excitement for the arrival of their first trick-or-treater.

as the door swung open, rosie exclaimed the phrase with gusto: confident even in her small voice.

“oh, you look so pretty, hon!” robin was quick to gush about her outfit, while vickie fished for some candy for the young girl. her mother looked in shock at the sheer amount, but knew that the friendly neighbors had a tendency to play favorites when it came to the adorable rosie. soon, they were waved off, and the went to hit the next house.

rosie’s basket was being carried by her mother, and her father had the young girl in his arms. too caught up in the excitement, she’d fallen asleep after begging her father to pick her up due to her aching legs. her soft breaths let out the faintest puffs of clouded air in the cold - now - night. she’d gotten many a compliment for her dress, and her mom had noticed her father blushing profusely whenever someone complimented the style of her hair.

her mom fumbled with the keys to enter the house. eddie was quick to climb up the steps to rosie’s room, settling her in for the night, and pressing a kiss to her forehead before switching off her light and closing the door.

he was quiet in coming down the stairs, but he also knew rosie was a heavy sleeper - not waking up to anything except her mother’s signature sunday pancakes.

his wife was in the crux between the porch and the entrance, fixing the last of the few decoration right outside the house. she had hung a large sign ensuring that the kids would only be knocking, knowing a doorbell would likely wake her daughter up. as she closed the door, beginning the wait, she yelped in shock at the feeling of hands around her waist.

she felt the mane of his hair before she felt his nose, nuzzling into the soft skin of her neck.

“eddie!” it’s supposed to be exasperated - but can she help that it isn’t? “we’ve gotta set up…”

“i know, baby, i know. lemme just - just for a minute, ‘kay?” she sighs softly, obliging and sinking into his hold.

“her hair was gorgeous.” she complimented quietly, not wanting to break the air of the moment

“i know.” was his blunt response, the joke in his tone obvious even in his whisper.

“eddie…” he laughed, moving his hands up to her shoulders and pulling her further into him to place a chaste kiss onto her lips.

“thank you, babe.” he corrects, taking her hand in his as he led her back into the kitchen, getting the droves of candy that they had bought and helping her place it on the accessible table beside the entrance, “i’m gonna go set up, wait here?” she nods, and watches as he slips out of the door.

see, every halloween, eddie made sure to give their first guest a proper scare. last year, for example, it was by disguising as one of their yard decorations and popping out while they walked up to the porch. this year, though, with his wife as his accomplice, he planned to pop out from above them, peeking out from the roof above the porch and jumping at them like a bat. the roof was quite flat, and the light of the porch didn’t exactly hit it, keeping his position hidden until his reveal.

the kids of hawkins knew of this tradition, and it had become a game, trying to be first in order to experience one of munson’s infamous scares. and, so far, he had always delivered: the kids of the town looking over their shoulders his next move, but still finding a pleasant, momentarily heart-wrenching, surprise awaiting them.

as much as it was now a household tradition, she had also realized that it must be somewhat cathartic to eddie: his terrifying reputation had always preceded him but, now that he was older, the town was wiser and the people he loved were with him, he found a way to turn such a horrifying concept into one he could enjoy. people were still ‘scared’ of him, but they weren’t scared of him: not his progressive views, or his odd hobbies, or his innate eddie-ness. no, he was no longer the butt of jokes or a rumor amongst christian radicals. he was just him, and he found that people could love just that.

she was stirred from her thoughts by the sound of the first knock, and she went to the door, trying to suppress her excited smile, and opened it to the beaming faces of several middle-schoolers. they had dressed in the typical garb of a monster fest: frankenstein, a mummy, a vampire and a shockingly well-done zombie. that one had a particular smugness to her face, as if she’d heard the rumors and she was absolutely sure she wasn’t about to get scared.

“hey, guys! oh, your costumes look fantastic!” while she is being completely genuine, appreciating the attention to detail, but it was also a ploy to give eddie an extra moment or two to prepare. in unison, the kids began:

“trick, or -”

“- or treat!” from behind them, eddie stuck his head down, his torso hanging off the roof and remaining in place by the fixed nature of his legs on the roof. his interruption causes them all to whip around and scream, his pale face almost ghastly in the light of the porch, and the smudged eyeshadow around his eyes causing a skull-like effect. he stuck his tongue out, widening his eyes, and they all stumbled in horror, the zombie grasping at her for support. she offered it, taking in the girl’s freaked-out appearance.

eddie, with shocking skill, jumped down gracefully, his hands in the air in a mock-terrifying way, giving the kids a chance to take a breath, looking at each other and laughing.

“oh my god!”

“that was crazy.”

“you should have seen the look on your face!” their babble came to a slight halt as she called for them all to grab some candy. after a moment, eddie joined her, and gave zombie-girl a playful wink at her ecstatic face at the experience. she’d had a bet running with her friends that she wouldn’t get scared but, honestly, she wasn’t even that bothered about having to give her friends some extra candy.

the kids waved polite goodbyes, their jabbering carrying back to the door as they left, and eddie leans back against the door as he closed it.

“they loved it.” she mumbled to him, fond smile on her face. he’s a little out of breath: sticking your head upside down’ll do that to ya.

“they loved it.” he mumbled back, and she laughed, wrapping her arms around his neck, “happy halloween, babe.” he presses a kiss to her nose, and she scrunches it at the ticklish sensation.

“happy halloween, ed.”

#stranger things #stranger things imagine #stranger things 4 #eddie munson #eddie munson oneshot #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson x reader #joseph quinn #trick or treat #week to hallows' eve #halloween #dad!eddie munson

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