Mountains & Earth

you were brave. you were strong. you were good. you mattered. Theoretically multifandom, in practice 90% Hunger Games District 2 lore. Prone to sprawling headcanons. Sucker for mentor feelings, warrior women and indoctrinated kids. Apologies in perpetuity to anyone who follows me for non-Hunger Games Careers reasons. If you want to stay and preserve your sanity, the tag to block is #we must be killers: tales from district 2 I look; morning to night I am never done with looking. FIC TESTIMONIAL: "sorta heartwarming, but at the same time there's the murder" Askbox is a Sisyphean endeavour; thank you for your patience Read Me: AO3 | DW | LJ (archival) CREDITS || icon: C.H. Lett || header: Pat Biancolli

[huariqueje]

Northern Fires, Sunset - William H. Hays , 2026.

American , b. 1956 -

Colour reduction linocut print , 9 x 12 in.

[strawberrycamel]

we really should be calling it fanworks, not content

[strawberrycamel]

I'm here for fun and community not to rp a mega corporation's underpaid social media intern

[lorata]

hi sorry to bother can you tell me brutus's mom's first name please 😭it's bothering me SO bad i've been trying to figure this out for three days

heidi :) dad's name is marc

[azalea-blooming]

"I'm in! Let's go! Let's do it!"

Fear is like this vicious little worm that lives inside you and eats you alive. You have to fight it. You have to accept that you'll never get rid of it, but fight it just the same.

I'm pretty gung ho. Unlike Cassie, unlike Tobias perhaps, I'm ruthless at times. But even I have enough sense to know the words "we have to win" are the first four steps on the road to hell.

Instead, ignoring the hideous pain, I chewed through my own tail.

He walked in silence beside me for a while. "How many Animorphs were there when you started?" "Six." "And now?" "Still six."

I wanted so much to live. I wanted so much to stay, and not to leave.

"You were brave. You were strong. You were good. You mattered."

Animorphs Book #5 // the dictionary // unknown // Orca - Wintersleep // Animorphs Book #12 // unknown // stock image // Seven Devils - Florence + The Machine // Animorphs Book #17 // Boyish - Japanese Breakfast // post by @/starei // Animorphs Book #22 // unknown // Monster - Melissa Etheridge // Animorphs Book #37 // Anecdote of the Pig - Tory Adkisson // Animorphs Book #54 // unknown // Mirrors - Nikki Geovani // Wikipedia // Animorphs Book #54 // Wikipedia

[lorata]

Odd question, did any of the victors find the animal kill test harder than the human one? Psychologically speaking.

yeah that's the idea!

the animals are cute and innocent and did nothing to hurt you. it's meant to be upsetting! in the arena odds are you're going to be faced with some kid half your size who's crying and begging you to stop. you can't stop. this is the first step on that journey

(on a side note, it also serves red-flag any of the kids who are here just to hurt things for further attention. doesn't always work! but still)

the crucial part is getting over that first sick discomfort, working past it to the next couple animal kills and starting to feel less horrified -- then you get the humans, which sets off a new chain of horrors and a new train of conditioning and desensitization -- and at the end you have one more animal, to compare

and it feels easy after all that, and you think, you're right, it is the same, only this one didn't do anything to deserve it. people do.

[lorata]

I fear as soon as Alec x Claudius happens Brutus offers beer to everyone for putting up with the worst case of pining in the village/Callista gives the shovel talk

excuse me, Callista doesn't shovel talk, everyone here is perfectly capable of taking care of themselves!

she does sit them down for an incredibly comprehensive mandatory sexual health talk that makes alec fight her like he's fresh out because why did you do that i'm never going to get any now

(claudius: actually i wish i'd had this when i won! could have saved me a lot of trouble)

[lorata]

Does Lyme just watch in amusement?? Misha??

There has to be a point a few months in where one goes ‘hey D get this..’

lyme says LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA

i feel like misha very much wants to say something but alec glares at her soooooo hard that she's like ah, ok, roger that! and backs off. petra is also sorely tempted to hit D upside the head but alec is like, do Not

claudius and victor selene took 5 years to figure it out! unless one party is actively miserable the mentors tend to leave them alone. alec is a big boy, he's dying a bit on the inside but it is MUCH worse for one of the grownups to have to step in for him, like NO THANKS

(i'm on the fence about how it would shake out, whether naturally -- eventually -- via sparring like victor selene or if he'd get frustrated and use small words like selene and dash in the crack au. i'll have to muse)

[lorata]

Just want you to know i laughed maniacally for a minute at the war brides Selene please teach Creed how to properly haze his brother now and I hope when Claudius and Alec get married Creed mentions this conversation in his wedding speech "Nothing is going to happen he said and here we are folks in this wonderful day celebrating this blessed union -Hey you can't throw napkins at me while I'm doing your wedding speech"

Claudius: when who gets what now Alec: don't worry about it

it's especially funny to me because Alec universally is a one-date-play for keeps kinda guy (Rowan, Jake). if he and leander hadn't been doomed by the narrative he would have wifed him up him against all protests. having a thing for the most oblivious man alive is TORTURE. boy makes fun of Creed for carrying a one-sided torch for years then turns around and immediately does the same. peak comedy

[lorata]

What exactly would Creed's reaction be to Alec's crush on Claudius? lol he would be horrified

well i tried to write that and instead i wrote ...... not that, because the boys are being, well, the boys. but uh here you go??????

800+ words of seward emotional constipation under the cut

“So your plan is, what.” Alec leans back and flicks his wrist with a smooth, practiced movement, sending the rock skipping across the lake surface. “Wait? For twenty years, like a war bride?”

Creed’s stone slips from his fingers at the last moment, hitting the water at a hard angle with a wet ploonk. At least the sound is satisfying; Selene used to say making a big splash was more fun, anyway. Alec turns to him, grin sharp and feral as his ears redden. “Who in the Village reads romance novels for you to steal from?” he asks instead, desperately seizing on the distraction.

“Odin, obviously, and nice try.” Alec waves away a cloud of gnats and squints into the sun before sending his next rock flying. It only manages half the distance this time, which fills Creed with an absolutely normal and non-petty amount of satisfaction. “Seriously, though, is she waiting? Selene doesn’t wait for dinner.” 

His tone is light but the glance he shoots at Creed carries far too much weight, and he curses his childhood self for the years of sincerity which now come back to pester him. “She doesn’t have to,” Creed says. “We haven’t — discussed anything, she can do what she wants, date whomever she wants.” 

“Whomever,” Alec quotes, in the ‘you’re being ridiculous’ tone he’s heard over the phone from the Peacekeeper barracks so many times in the past year.

“Whoever,” Creed snaps back. “Whatever. I don’t see how it matters to you, anyway. You’re the one living like a monk after making such a big deal out of the importance of sexual freedom.” 

Alec slits him a dark-eyed glare, and for a second Creed tenses, watches for a shift in Alec’s footing or a curl of fingers or drawing back of his shoulder that indicate a fight — but no, no he holds himself steady. “Like the golden boy needs me to tell him about playing to the camera.” 

“So that’s all for you then, is it?” Normally Creed wouldn’t push, he’s never asked about One Boy or the Arena or how much of that was real, but Alec started it with digging about Selene, and while Creed has accepted that he has a life far past his prior expiration date twenty years still gives him a frisson of panic. “Arena showmance and nothing else? I refuse to believe Callista isn’t taking you out to underage dungeons or something else that would keep me up at night.” The ground still shifts beneath him, and he strikes out for normalcy. “You’re not a war bride, there has to be someone you’re into.” 

Alec holds himself very quiet, an old trick from their childhood that Creed once associated with old-soul thoughtfulness and now, with bone-sick discomfort, recognizes as the stilling of prey before a distant hunter. But he is not their father — he’s not even Selene — and there’s no need for that, not anymore. 

That doesn’t mean he’s going to let it go. He’s not a saint. “You do.” Creed nudges him. Alec lets him, once, but when he moves to repeat the motion Alec shoves him, hard enough to force a stagger. “You like someone.” 

“I don’t like anyone.” Alec’s lips curl back. “I’m not five.” 

His whole life, he never questioned — never let himself question, or stop to think, in case the whole house of cards tumbled down around him — but they should have had this, it strikes him with knife-sharp clarity. They should have had this, a normal childhood, teenage years spent together, not separated by walls of swords and arbitrary divisions. Alec should have told him the first time he liked a boy, and Creed would have said something stupid and insensitive like an idiot and come back and offered Alec a free shot later in apology. 

(And then what, said the sharp voice in his head that sounded like his father, the children of Two fall in line to the slaughter unprepared like everyone else so that poor, suffering boys like Alec and Creed can tease each other over crushes? How noble, how righteous.)

Creed huffs a hard breath through his teeth. “Sure, fine, whatever. It doesn’t matter.” He drops to the bank, scuffing his toes into the stones and flopping his arms over his knees. 

A low breeze skitters over the lake, sending wave after wave of ripples chasing each other until they hit the far bank. Alec sighs and sprawls next to him, knocking their shoes together. “You really suck at this. You should let Selene give you some lessons on giving people a hard time before she ships out. You know if you don’t keep bugging me then I have to tell you myself, and that’s way worse.” 

Creed narrows his eyes but doesn’t take the bait. “Says the Callista tribute. Since when do you need someone else to push you around anymore?” 

“Maybe I don’t,” Alec says, his tone even. “But that means I don’t need to tell you shit.” 

“Ugh.” Creed jostles him. “Fine, be that way. I’ll figure it out myself.” 

“You won’t.” Something in Alec’s voice twists there, and Creed glances at him but he’s schooled his expression now into casual unconcern. “Nothing’s going to happen anyway.” 

“Now who’s a war bride,” Creed teases, and Alec knocks him headfirst into the water.

[lorata]

Do you have a favourite universe of all the ones you've written for THG or is that a "which is your favourite child" sort of question?

the main canon divergence AU is probably my favourite just because it's like ... the 'base' universe that sort of supersedes canon for my guys (what do you mean postwar, they're fine!) but mentor misha & victor selene are a close second i think

i also have a huge soft spot for the first avenger games married au with brutus and frigga, because it is SO ridiculous and i have no excuse and yet i love it so. i still remember exactly where i was when we decided to write it (naha airport, waiting for my not-yet-fiancee by the bathroom, texting azelmaroark one-handed with a bag full of beni-imo omiyage)

the others i play in are very fun and great for character exercises, but i don't always want to like ... expand the universe? like victor alec and victor creed are GREAT but as soon as i think about the future i need to know what the war would look like and i go uuuUUUUuugh (lol)

also i know this is niche but the gundam / hunger games crossovers (including the modern 'everybody lives' au) are extremely dumb and fun even though they only exist in my brain and will never be written

[lorata]

Have you ever wrote when lyme choose claudius?

i have! wayyy back in 2013 (good lord, lol)

[lorata]

Who enjoys ironing and who doesn’t?? Is it a skill baby victors learn? I loath ironing but I do it because I hate wrinkles.. do the victors have similar motives?

devon loves to iron but misha hides it from him bc she thinks he looks like a TOOL!!! he has to sneak over to adessa's (obviously her pantsuits are creased sharp enough to cut) and then misha mocks him. she wishes he did not dress like that but alas, she loves a dweeb

misha is probably the most virulently anti-iron in the VV, claudius and enobaria simply do not bother and none of brutus' clothes require it (unless he's going out but then the prep team takes care of it). nero likes wearing comfy clothes and emory favours casual workwear so they rarely do either. lyme tends to steam her man-hunting shirts, and callista irons her cats' clothing more than her own

i grew up in an iron-heavy household, my dad was very prone to going STOP!!!!!! and pulling out the ironing board before we could leave the house, and now i have gone completely feral and don't even own one. sorry dad!!!! it's a good thing i work outside in the mud but i can never change jobs bc i'm completely lost for functional society

[lorata]

Okay Alec and Selene being cute and trying to act as normal as possible (only they didn't have a normal childhood) Creed's death being less about a loss and making jokes about his legacy (acceptance -the final stage in grief) "obviously he was congregating me in my transition" lol they get to talk things out and be happy

right?? they deserve it for once

with postwar alec i always think of a meeting by wendell berry:

In a dream I meet my dead friend. He has, I know, gone long and far, and yet he is the same for the dead are changeless. They grow no older. It is I who have changed, grown strange to what I was. Yet I, the changed one, ask: "How you been?" He grins and looks at me. "I been eating peaches off some mighty fine trees."

(a drink of water by jeffrey harrison is also an alec poem to me but in sort of a mirror universe way, bc sometimes it's about creed and sometimes it's about canon kit and selene and sometimes it's both)

[lorata]

this is DUMB i have no excuse

700 words of postwar canon divergence selene and alec that is very tonally inconsistent bc the whole scene exists to justify a one-off joke that @xanify texted me about 9 months ago but the timeline did not lend itself to full humour. WHATEVER LOL i haven't written in months

happy pride to trans ally braxton the intra-district train engineer

It’s weird, seeing her. She’s older, weathered where her younger self cut sharp and quick. Alec can’t read her scars anymore, doesn’t hold the map to the dark circles beneath her eyes or the guarded way she chooses their seats at the bar, at the far end with their backs to the corner wall, when once she flung herself into place with careless, unflinching abandon.

He’s changed too, at least superficially. Can she see Creed’s death on him? The aching chasm between him and his parents, the sting of betrayal, the years of warring pride and guilt before the war ? Or does her gaze peel back the adult in front of her — exhausted, afraid, always playing catch-up — to the child underneath, smaller but very much the same? 

Probably not. Selene never was the type for soul-searching. 

Conversation stutters a bit at first as they test their footing on uncertain ground, learn which rocks can’t hold their weight, which are safe enough to use as stepping stones and which have solid foundation for a good foothold. She’s involved in reconstruction efforts; he doesn’t ask about before, who is or isn’t there with her. She doesn’t ask him why she never saw him in uniform on either side of the war. 

A handclap on his shoulder startles him, but hey, it’s been years since he flinched at unexpected contact. “Doc!” calls the cheery voice of someone three cups deep. It’s — shit, what was his name, Brian? no, Braxton — an engineer who’d stopped by the clinic a couple times for his bum knee before the intra-district train lines shut down mid-way through the war. 

They make it through a pleasantries before Braxton turns his gaze to Selene and his face splits in a grin. “Oh, and who’s this now?” 

Alec pins Selene with the full weight of their entire childhood behind his stare as her eyes twinkle, begging the agent of chaos not to do it, just this once, please. As nostalgic as it would be to spend an evening pretending to date his former best friend simply because she thinks it’s funny, Alec really does not have the energy — 

She winks at him, a bare flicker of one eyelid, and turns her smile on Braxton. “I’m his sister,” she says, shaking his hand. “Be nice to him, now, or I’ll have to beat you up.” 

Braxton blinks. “Thought you had a brother?” 

Years now, it’s been. Grief doesn’t swamp him anymore, doesn’t drag him under with its claws and hold him there; now the pain is the sharp, unexpected start of banging his shin against a table in the dark. “He died,” Alec says, short. 

His eyes narrow at the corners, gaze flicking side to side as thoughts tick over, processing. “Oh,” Braxton says. Then, inexplicably — “Oh. I got you. Well, congratulations! No more games, brand new world, as my daughter keeps reminding me.” (Wait, what?) “You look fantastic, if you don’t mind me saying. Now I best get on, let you two enjoy the evening. Hope to see you around, Doc!”

Alec stares after him, lost, even as the swell of Selene’s incipient laughter fills the space between them like an oncoming thunderclap. “What just happened?”

Selene grins, teeth sharp, and for a moment the years vanish and her teenage self sits before him, smug and fond and predatory all at once. “Really, doc,” she says, nicking his beer and taking a swig for herself, “you’re so provincial. He was complimenting me on my transition.”

“On your —” At last the pieces click, and the bubble of laughter catches in his throat. “Oh no. I don’t know if I should find him and explain or let it go.”  

“It’s not the worst legacy, really,” Selene muses. Their reflections blur in the wavy glass behind the bottles on the wall, and for a moment there could almost be a third figure between them. “And I think he’d find it funny. He’d be stupid hot as a girl, too. You Sewards and your eyelashes.” 

Alec nudges her with his knee. “Stop calling my dead brother hot, girl or no,” he says, making her cackle. The transfer paperwork for Six still waits for him at home, but maybe it doesn’t need to be one-way. Maybe it’s less about ghosts and guilt and penance than it is a restless need to prove himself. “You know, I think you’re right. In a way, it’s kind of fitting. I lost a brother, but I gained a sister.” 

He laid it on thick, full of the childhood sincerity that used to make her squawk and screech, and he fully expects her to feign nausea now. Instead the glitter of the bar lights catch the dark flush on her cheeks before she shakes her hair in front of her face. “Oh shut up,” Selene says. “I’m making fun of you, don’t go making it sweet.” 

“Too late,” Alec says, serene. He steals her drink — cinnamon whiskey, like paint thinner in a bakery — and finishes the glass, waving the bartender over for another round. 

[lorata]

Can always sniff a teacher out just by their handwriting😔

Also if they can read chicken scratch.. big on chicken scratch

lol yeah one of my coworkers has absolutely illegible cursive (love u girl) so this is a skill i practice on the daily

HOWEVER my champion ability is both deciphering kids' invented spelling (brogle, anyone?) and working out what they're drawing

[lorata]

Heyy I've been rereading Sloane's story and I have a question....do you think her mum knew what her stepdad was doing or she was brushing it under the rug?I think she might definitely knew something was up but on the other hand in multiple scenes the stepdad is shown to be charismatic so i don't know

(CW: discussions of child sexual abuse)

she either didn't know, or didn't want to know

i figure sloane said something the first time and mom told her she was wrong and when she insisted called her a liar

but then she mentioned it to stepdad just in case and he reassured her everything was a big misunderstanding, and was careful for a while (and then threatened sloane if she did that again)

stepdad IS very charming and she really did not like being a single mom

[lorata]

Lol can you imagine how jealous Alec would be if someone was flirting with Claudius in front of him?

IT'S FASCINATING bc Alec is not really a jealous person and normal Alec is like well. I guess that's happening, bc he doesn't believe he deserves good things and also is a passive participant in his own life

Callista!Alec on the other hand is much different. He gets to ask for what he wants! Callista says so! so I think he's much more likely to tell the other person to take a hike, and when Claudius is like what was THAT about he's just like :) nothing here's your drink

(meanwhile the poor rando is like holy shit dude i think i almost died back there #come not between the nazgul and his prey)