Cool Kiss From The Giver

Mandrake | she/her | adult Link Tree | My Art | My Writing Anti AI

[mandrake-mistakes]

Uncross Our Stars | Chapter 29

It gets to me on a delay, like I'm feeling in slow motion. The boy has sprinted down the street by the time it hits me. I watch the back of his head as he bounces up to a woman down the road, repeating his news, and turn to Peeta whose face is glowing with enough optimism for both of us. Bruised and injured but still so clear eyed, so hopeful. My dandelion after a long deadly winter, pushing up through the earth, yellow and nourishing. Free. He scoops me up before I can cry or say something stupid, and spins me around in his arms while I laugh and cling to his neck. I squeeze my eyes shut and feel the sun on my face, red behind my eyelids, spiraling around me until Peeta puts me back down. He shouldn't be exerting himself. He's still very hurt. But he tells me he's okay and then lets me take him inside and doctor his wounds some more.

If the star crossed lovers from district 12 never went into the games, if they were never pitted against each other, doomed to fight and kill each other, if their stars weren’t crossed at all, what would have happened anyway?

Keeping Katniss's family fed without tesserae is not easy and Peeta's parents are pushing him to marry a merchant girl as soon as possible. The best way to escape starvation and a prison of a marriage is to marry each other, but that would require Katniss to let go of a promise she made to herself a long time ago, to never marry anyone.

[mandrake-mistakes]

Made a long ass post about how Gale is unable to see nuance or feel empathy or value life if its not the life of someone he personally decided is on his team and that he’s willing to kick ppl off that team for a lot of reasons but ppl keep reblogging it like it was a pro gale take and im confused. I know I also said he saved some lives but damn lol

[mandrake-mistakes]

Saw a good convo about Gale saving district 12 citizens from the fire bombs that got me thinking and I gotta yap about him some more. Shout out to Rachel Ramras on tiktok and youtube. I believe in my heart she’s with us here on tumblr but she has not revealed herself.

The difference between Katniss and Gale is how they treat their enemies, not their allies. Gale is a brave and capable ally! He defends HIS people. Leads them to safety, pulls them out of the flames, he goes after Prim during the bombings of 13, he goes to rescue Peeta in the Capitol. But he is very specific about who counts as being on his team and over the course of the story, especially Mockingjay, his idea of who deserves his protection gets more and more narrow.

He has no empathy for anyone from the Capitol, no forgiveness for people who forward the Capitol’s cause regardless of circumstances, and he goes so far as to write off citizens of 8 who are working in the nut. A job that was probably the main income for a whole district of impoverished people much like the coal mines in 12 which is a job GALE HIMSELF USED TO HAVE. Katniss even brings up d13’s own spies who are inside the mountain and Gale is willing to sacrifice them because he’s reached a point where the only thing that matters is destroying the enemy. His list of allies gets really short by the end.

His double bomb design is a symptom of this. Katniss finds it unacceptable. Gale has no limits for what he thinks can be done to their enemies. We know that he didn’t intentionally deploy that design against Prim, but I think it comes down to Gale dealing with the inevitable consequences of becoming so war crazed. He fails to empathize with anyone he sees as against him or find any nuance in this conflict, he pairs down his list of who he is willing to call an ally, and then he sees his own violence pointed at one of the few allies he has left. Prim, someone he has sworn to protect for so long, falls victim to something he thought would only ever be used on enemies, and he’s forced to the opposite side of his own equation and ends up losing Katniss because of it.

Katniss figured out in her first games that the soldiers in war aren’t the real source of the evil. She empathized with the tributes trying to kill her because she was trying to kill them and she knew none of them had a choice. Not even Cato became a true villain in her mind. She watched him realize how meaningless his existence was in the end. She admired Fox Face and mourned Thresh. She was able to see humanity in her enemies and recognize that Capitol citizens were only seeing what they were allowed to see. Katniss remembered who the real enemy is and Gale did not

[gremlinnddraws]

Waiting to hear if the Games have been cancelled.

There was a weird comfort in knowing the other was not ok either. As they would not be for a long time.

[mandrake-mistakes]

Are we getting the Uncross epilogue tomorrow? 😭

Uuuuummmmmm……… 👉👈

Ya see what had happened was, my brain broke and then I discovered The Sims and then I decided I needed to re-read the whole fic in preparation and well, no. The epilogue is not written. It is very important to me though and it is coming. June 30th marks the one year mark from posting chapter 1 of Uncross Our Stars and I am considering waiting to post the epilogue on her birthday for momentous reasons. We’ll see. But you can expect it this month some time

[mandrake-mistakes]

Ive gone back and forth for a long time about wether or not Everlark is into begging in bed or if they’re insistent the other never has to ask. I’ve come to my conclusion and this is the official ruling:

Peeta LOVES to hear Katniss beg for him. A well placed “please” can send him into a coma. Because he always wanted to be wanted.

Katniss does not allow Peeta to beg because he’s spent enough time pining and reaching and she wants him to know he always has her, with certainty.

[evil-twink-reg]

“i’m rattled by the turn in the conversation. the implications that i could so readily dispose of peeta, that i’m in love with gale, that the whole thing has been an act.” THEYRE IN LOVE YOUR HONOR

[butterflythoughtss]

I just realized something as I'm rereading a part to catching fire

Katniss and Peeta are having a little sweet, wholesome, romantic moment as usual, and when he stops playing with her hair, she immediately says, "what?" AND PEETA PROCEEDS TO SAY, "I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever."

Katniss thinks of how that type of comment normally makes her feel guilty and yadayadayada, BUT HER RESPONSE TO THAT IS LITERALLY: "Okay."

I'M CACKLING BECAUSE WHO ON EARTH SAYS THAT AFTER SOMEONE JUST DECLARED THE MOST SWEETEST THING POSSIBLE TO YOU 😭😭🙏 HELP SHE IS SO AWKWARD AND IN LOVE AND DOESN'T EVEN KNOW IT I'M CRYING

[ellipsus-writes]

Today is the biggest day for Ellipsus since we launched in 2023... 👀

Back then, we began building Ellipsus out of a simple belief: writers deserve a place to create, collaborate, and share their work without handing over their words, their data, or their creative process to bad actors and Big Tech—a promise that matters now, more than ever.

Nearly 600k writers and counting are writing on Ellipsus because of this promise. We see everyday how writers are rejecting Big Tech's data mining model in favor of tools that respect user privacy and reflect our values.

We’re a small full-time team building, maintaining, supporting, and improving the tool every day. And to keep doing that sustainably—without compromising the promises that brought people here—we’re introducing Ellipsus Plus.

Plus is a set of optional features on top of free Ellipsus, designed to help fund the continued development of Ellipsus for everyone, free and paid; while helping us stay independent, ad-free, and working to improve the tool well into the future.

That means the Ellipsus you know is staying free: you can keep writing with unlimited documents, drafts, collaborators, and core features. Free Ellipsus will continue to receive updates, improvements, and new features too, including major work already planned (like offline syncing and native apps).

Plus features have been designed alongside community feedback, our pricing shaped by our users around what felt fair and sustainable.

Every Plus subscription leads to ultimate ownership of the tool. Not metaphorical ownership, but real ownership, including all future updates to the Plus plan. No endless subscriptions. Once you’ve paid, it’s yours. Really.

Our introductory Plus features are designed to be fun, creative, practical, and help you get the most out of the tool! We really hope you enjoy them. Here’s a quick overview:

Custom themes

Make your writing space feel like home with custom themes! Use any colors, gradients, images, or .gifs you love. Share with friends and readers. The choices are infinite.

Writing Insights

See insights into your writing process and spot patterns faster across ten AI-free metrics—like vocabulary diversity, sentence length, sentence rhythm, word frequency, and more. Writing insights are opt-in only, and run on local data, so your text never leaves the editor. 

Customizable Snippets

We all love snippets! Now you can give your words an extra personal touch. Customize your snippets with media backgrounds (GIFs, images), fonts, text colors, and custom themes—you can even add byline credits for authors and characters!

Emboss

Emboss is our AI-free proof-of-work layer for human writing. Show your readers the time, labor, and love that went into your work. Instead of relying on unreliable “AI-powered” “verifiers” that judge a piece after the fact, share your writing journey, with authorship metrics that help inspire trust. You can also show how your work evolved with snapshots of your version history. Emboss is fully opt-in.

We hope you’re as excited about Plus as we are! Try Plus free for 7 days, no payment required. You can read more (and sign up!) on our Plus page.

Again, there’s tons more to come, and we can’t wait to build it for you. Free or paid, Ellipsus is going to keep getting better. Thank you for your support.

Have questions about Plus? We’re hosting an “Ask the Team” doc where we’ll be answering your burning questions. Please make comments there! Now please, go forth and explore!

- the Ellipsus Team xo

[mandrake-mistakes]

Power went out. Only one bar of cell service. Help

[mandrake-mistakes]

It’s back. That was a really scary half hour

[mandrake-mistakes]

Power went out. Only one bar of cell service. Help

[mandrake-mistakes]

have you thought about writing another drabble or similar in gale’s pov?

I don’t think there’s anything left for him to say that interests me tbh. Once the war started that was his main thing and I do not enjoy writing about the stupid war. I’m really only interested in Gale POV when it pertains to Everlark. Some people did want a Gale POV of his night slept on their living room floor but I never found much to say there. Im always open to going back if I find inspiration but right now it feels closed

[glimmeringpearl]

I genuinely think that all men who hate on peeta just know they’ll never be like him and are afraid to admit he’s all that women want and need

[mandrake-mistakes]

Did Ira survive the Rebellion in Uncross or was she also a casualty like the elder Mellarks?

I swore I responded to this already but clearly not. Sorry Anon!

Ya’ll know that Ira couldn’t just die off that easily. She is very much alive and ready to be the antagonist in the sit com that Katniss and Peeta’s lives become after the war. Someone has to cause drama at the PTA meetings and such and who better than Peeta’s evil ex fiancé?

I felt that killing off everyone who ever bothered them with “whoops. War” was a bit too convenient so she has survived to annoy another day. Thanks for asking!

[mandrake-mistakes]

Will there be one last Peeta pov chapter for uncrossed stars, before the epilogue?

It won’t make it in time to beat the epilogue but yes I have at least one if not two peeta pov’s id like to do. Thanks for asking!

[glimmeringpearl]

a *completely objective* pros and cons list of peeta and gale my bsf and I made during spanish class

Translation:

Peeta

Pros -> Strong, handsome, taller than Katniss, protective, charismatic, charming, smart, empathetic, good with words, thick dick (headcanon), biteable biceps (big), bakes bread, pretty eyes, wrestles, popular, sociable, non-toxic, painter, blond, good in bed (headcanon), nice smile, good kisser, flirty, sarcastic and funny, romantic.

Cons -> He thinks he is on First Dates (or Love Island) but he is in The Hunger Games, he has too many clothes on.

Gale

Pros -> tall, handsome, and protective.

Cons -> Bombs children, jealous, toxic, possessive, extremist, manipulative, egocentric, 0 empathy, full of rage and hatred, stubborn, detonates Prim, womanizer, obsessed, allows himself to be manipulated (by Coin).

[depsidase]