she painted her cheeks with blood (1457 words) by lorata
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Wonder Woman (2017)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Antiope (Wonder Woman), Hippolyta (Wonder Woman), Diana (Wonder Woman)
Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, Backstory, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Violence, War, Storytelling, Mythology - Freeform
Summary:
Once, Diana asks Antiope what she knows of men. Or: For every story Diana has heard, there are a thousand she has not.

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on the bloody morning after (6019 words) by lorata
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Characters: Brutus (Hunger Games), Enobaria (Hunger Games), Finnick Odair, Johanna Mason, Beetee Latier, Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, Lyme (Hunger Games), Victors (Hunger Games)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Quarter Quell, Canon-Typical Violence, District 2, Careers (Hunger Games)
Series: Part 47 of We Must Be Killers: Tales from District 2
Summary:

one tin soldier rides away

The rebellion fails. The wrong person finds out about the Arena plan and it all falls apart: Plutarch Heavensbee and the mentors are arrested, President Coin cuts her losses and retreats to District 13 to plot another day, and the victor-tributes in the Arena are on their own. No lightning, no forcefield, no rescue.

Not that Brutus knows any of this, of course. He's too busy trying not to die.

(One-shot AU)

From a prompt on Tumblr: an AU where there's no rebellion and Brutus wins the 75.

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A District Upside Down: The War (31215 words) by lorata
Chapters: 4/15
Fandom: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Brutus (Hunger Games), Lyme (Hunger Games), Victors (Hunger Games), Alma Coin, Other Character Tags to Be Added, Coriolanus Snow
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, District 2, District 13, Careers (Hunger Games), Victors, Mentors, War, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Series: Part 3 of My World's On Fire (How 'Bout Yours?): District 2 at War
Chapter Summary: Nobody in District 2 is good at sitting on their hands.

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A District Upside Down: The War (22855 words) by lorata
Chapters: 3/15
Fandom: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Brutus (Hunger Games), Lyme (Hunger Games), Victors (Hunger Games), Alma Coin, Coriolanus Snow, Other Character Tags to Be Added
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, District 2, District 13, Careers (Hunger Games), Victors, Mentors, War, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Series: Part 3 of My World's On Fire (How 'Bout Yours?): District 2 at War


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(My computer, as you may have divined from the delay, is dead. My hope is that the hard drive is still in tact so I can at least put it in an enclosure and get my data from it. The enclosure just arrived today, so we shall see!)

morbane asked, "Something(s) you like to eat or drink?"

Things I drink regularly:
- plain water
- plain carbonated water
- DavidsTEA herbal/non-caffeinated teas (love: cinnamon rooibus chai, Queen of Tarts, Pumpkin Cheesecake - I prefer spicy/earthy to grassy and fruity/tangy to sweet, with exceptions)

Things I drink occasionally:
- juice (anything without grapefruit or banana)
- Starbucks chai (regular order: soy no-water half-sweet chai latte)
- DavidsTEA caffeinated teas (French toast cardamom, various greens)
- anti-Emory hot chocolate (homemade, dark chocolate melted on the stove with added heavy cream & cinnamon)

Things I do not drink ever:
- pop/soda/soft drinks
- alcohol of any kind

I'm not a coffee person. I wanted to be tall as a kid and I'd heard the "coffee stunts your growth" myth, plus it tasted disgusting whenever I got to try a sip of dad's instant Nescafe (which, lol). Then in high school someone told me I'd get addicted to coffee in university like everyone else, and so I got very NO YOU >( and decided to never ever drink it (as one does). I've tried it once or twice, but every time someone tells me that I've just never tried THEIR FAVOURITE TYPE of coffee it always ends up tasting gross to me. (Dear anyone reading this who thinks they're the exception: that's what they all say, but feel free to buy me a cup!) I had to drink a little more coffee in Japan because whenever I visited a school (e.g. a kindergarten where my coworker and I played Santa) the secretaries would offer coffee and it was rude to refuse. Luckily for me they usually also offered some sort of sweet, so I would toss that in there and hope it took some of the taste away.

I used to drink a lot of Pepsi in undergrad while studying, until I realized that oh hey Pepsi has caffeine so I was giving myself an addiction even without coffee. So I ............ went cold-turkey and had an absolutely miserable week, but I haven't touched the stuff since. I had a similar incident during my master's, where I'd been drinking an insane amount of decaf tea thinking I was safe. My sleep doctor at the time told me to cut out all tea just in case, and 2 days later I texted xanify (who was in Australia and therefore awake) in a panic because I didn't understand why I felt like I was dying. She then asked me when I stopped drinking tea, and then asked whether I had tapered off or gone cold turkey. I couldn't see her face over text when I said I'd just cut it out altogether but I swear I have a memory of her facial expression. Anyway now I'm fine and I'm very careful about my consumption even if I'm only drinking herbal.

My absolute favourite drink is, sadly, carbonated water. The conbini in Japan would sell 500ml bottles for anywhere between 88-105yen, and I would drink up to 6 bottles/day because I didn't like the tap water. Since the recycling was only picked up in the neighbourhood once/month, I routinely had to cart out my bottles in the middle of the night like a criminal to shove them in the recycling bins next to various vending machines. Coming back to Canada I was dismayed to see how much more expensive it is, but I have a Sodastream now and it's amazing. No going back.

(Food and I have a weird relationship right now so I'm just going to go with drinks -- hope that's okay)

Hey all, my Macbook died last night and I'm currently waiting to hear back on a quote/repair options. Cross fingers for me, and be patient if I don't manage to get the meta out for a couple days. Good vibes please! D:

kawuli asked: "What does D2 look like 10years postwar? What's different, what stays, ramblings in that general direction?"

Okay so once again fair warning, I am a bit fuzzy on the timeline after a while because ... well tbh because some of my characters are getting older, and I don't really want to think about what happens. EVERYONE LIVES FOREVER BLAH BLAH BLAH INNIT GREAT YES IT IS. (It helps that Heidi's joke about hard work and clean leaving means people tend to live longer in D2, and probably every Victor at least hits their 90s, but like..... even so.)

NOT THAT ANYONE IS 90 IN 10 YEARS BUT WHATEVER MY NEUROSES ARE SILLY I KNOW

In 10 years, though, I think District 2 is doing okay. It didn't get hit too badly by the war, and while obviously the supplies problem would hit them harder than some of the others for this reason, they're reasonably self-sufficient. Not on a grand scale, it's not like the mayor of D2 could afford to feed everyone, but there are community gardens and people know how to hunt and there are tons of forests with animals to eat. Plus poaching is no longer a thing now that the land doesn't all belong to the Capitol, so. The first winter or two would be hard, but by 10 years in, that's all settled. Plus with the Victors still living across the districts and that network going strong, that helps grease some wheels where necessary.

Politically I think District 2 would be recovering from some pretty heavy isolationism following the immediate postwar years, though nowhere near as bad as in canon, but by 10 years out it's a lot better. The Victors all relocated back to their districts (or wherever they chose to stay) after 5 years, and it's nice because the Threes and Rokia all decide to stay. It makes a statement whether they want to or not. Still, though, I think that's around when public sentiment starts ramping back up into anti-Career stuff. After 5-10 years people are plenty angry, especially when it comes to rebuilding, and it hasn't worked itself out quite yet. Rather than get into fights, though, I think Two would stick to its own and keep on working with its head down, that sort of thing.

The facility at Eagle Pass never gets recovered. The rebels spend some time trying to salvage what's there, see if they can get any of the intel stored in the old facility, but none of the high-ranking Twos still living will hand over the keys or the codes, and nobody knows who they are to even find them. I mean, people in the district do, but they're not telling -- Petra's list of possible supporters is private, shared with the other D2 ex-Peacekeepers only, not given to anyone outside of Two, for good reason. So eventually it's left, and possibly turned into a memorial about the war (a controversial move, most likely, but I like to think Paylor knows better than to pretend it didn't happen or that the people there deserved it). Not the touristy kind, that's a bit gauche, but there would be a plaque and a picture of the compound before the war so people who do make a pilgrimage can look and think about things.

By 10 years every kid who was in the Program has aged out and gone on to do new things. The ones in Residential have finished their detox and are working, the kids who were in the early years have mostly forgotten the details because it was so long ago. Education in Two has changed, too, because it was mostly very rudimentary and a good chunk of kids missed a lot for the Program or quit once they hit 15-16 to work in the quarries, or whatnot. It's more comprehensive, and kids who have dyslexia or other learning disabilities will actually have them treated, which is nice. Beetee forms his polytechnic, and there are exchange programs to other districts and options beyond the usual spectrum. There are also adult education facilities open for anyone who wants to learn to read or write better, or learn higher math skills, but honestly I don't think many do. It's too much of a cultural shift for old dogs, though I think more and more people encourage their kids to stay in school and get themselves some fancier book learning.

The Peacekeeping Academy is rebuilt, with a new focus and a shift in the way they do things, like starting to train people as adults or late teenagers instead of kids, and getting rid of the kill test prerequisites, that sort of thing. I still don't know what it's called. The Centre by 10 years out has become what it said it was on paper before -- the Athletics and Personal Growth Centre, which is essentially a giant community centre with various social community initiatives. Claudius still works there, along with Devon and a few others, and they provide community support and a place for kids to go after school to manage their aggression and stay out of trouble. I like to think that this time the Centre actually does work to help kids who come there out of abuse, since they no longer need to use that to turn kids into killers.

Petra, Dash and Selene have moved back to Two by then, following their tour of rebuilding the districts. They move out of the Village (which makes Brutus VERY SAD) and get their own place, a small house with a yard and a garden and room to grow. By 10 years out they're either planning their family or are one kid in already, which means that Brutus, Selene's parents, and the Sewards all get to be grandparents/grand-aunts-and-uncles and that's really nice for all of them. Meanwhile Heidi and Marc have adopted Kadi and Allie, and Kadi will be transferring from public school to Beetee's polytechnic while Allie has gotten married to one of Devon's nephews. Good times for families all around.

There's no more tesserae and no more stipends from the Program, which makes things a little harder for families down on their luck, but I like to think that by 10 years out a new form of social security/basic income/nutrition assistance/whatever will be in place to replace at least the tesserae. Claudius fights pretty hard to get the Centre's stipend budget reinstated too, for families who need the income, so that will at least be in the works if not in place already. District 2 is still proud, but less nationalistic about it. The war hurt, and a lot of the stuff that came out during the trials shocked people, but at the end of the day, not much changes for the people in their day-to-day lives.

In the end, the sun comes up and the world still spins.

blackgenevieve asked: "Which roles do different Victors play at the Centre? I've read between the lines that same go back and train the kids or otherwise share their expertise, while some seem to dive into mentoring and focus mainly on that."

For the most part, Victors stay away from the Centre. In the Avengers AU Frigga goes back as a trainer, but that's unusual, and it's not encouraged as a career track for Victors after the Arena.

There are a couple reasons for this.

One main one, particularly in the last few generations, is that the Centre is ... complicated for Victors. Like, yes, on one hand, it made them who they are and gave them the training that allowed them to survive, but on the other -- well, look what it did to them to get them there. A few of the Victors have entirely positive feelings about the Centre, like Claudius (whose mom abandoned him and the Centre took him in), or Petra (who spent her entire childhood waiting for Residential and who has zero Arena murder-guilt whatsoever). Some have a more nuanced opinion, like Lyme, who was grateful to the Centre for letting her express her gender how she wanted and for giving her the tools and strength to stand up to her father, but also realizes that the Centre likes to recruit abused kids because they're easy to separate from their families and turn into killers. Others have an outright negative view: Nero killed his dad by accident and was told Residential or the penal mines; Brutus can never forget what he was before and what they turned him into, and who and what he lost as a result.

It's difficult to go back to the Centre after the Arena, to see all those kids training for something they will never actually be ready for, to know all the things these kids are kept in ignorance of for their own safety and sanity. Trainers know but they don't know, not personally, not really, and that's a good thing. Plausible deniability and distance/dissociation is built into the Program at every level. And also, after having a mentor and knowing what that feels like, it becomes super clear that while the trainers might have had their favourites, and might even have been nice to them, they didn't care, not really. The trainers couldn't afford to, not when they have so many kids, and not when the odds of death for two of those kids got higher and narrower as the years went on. Mentors, on the other hand, that's their whole job.

Another thing is that trainers teach a general set of skills and work at drawing out potential and shaping tribute candidates, while Victors know what works for them. Having a Victor as a trainer is a little bit like giving someone with a PHD a job teaching elementary school. Like... you can?? but it's not gonna be the best use of anyone's time.

The last consideration is that two things will happen if a Victor works at the Centre: at first they'll be a distraction (because HOLY SNOW IT'S A VICTOR AAAAAAAA), but then, over time, the sheen will fade and the kids will realize the Victor is human like the rest of them, and they'll become demystified. This is actually the OPPOSITE of what the Program wants. The Victors should always be a step above, something almost unreachable, unreal, a thing to strive for because it feels all but impossible. Having the kids in regular contact with the Victor removes that sense of awe and mystery and grandeur.

Instead, what Victors do is occasionally stop by and make appearances now and then. Usually with the new batch of kids in transition (around age 10), to show them that now they're not just babies who play dodgeball and do races, but they're here to be serious. The kids are awestruck, and they're generally too young to trigger the Victors, so it all works out. There will be a demo lesson, a Q&A, and then maybe snack time with the Victor, then they leave. The kids are reenergized and excited, and meanwhile the Arena is far enough from these babies that the Victors don't go home and think about which ones will be dead in eight years.

A similar thing is if there's a candidate who is really promising but really arrogant, and the trainers aren't sure whether they can bring them in line enough to recommend them for Volunteer. In this case, the quickest way to fix it is to bring in a Victor -- either one they admire or one they're terrified of -- and have them fight. This happened to bb Callista, who got her ass handed to her by Adessa, and she never forgot it. This is kind of a last-ditch effort because there are a few ways it could go wrong, but when it works, it works. Depending on the Victor, though, this can be damaging for them, and you have to make absolutely sure that this would not be the kid's future mentor, so again, last resort.

Victors don't get involved in the administration of the Program or anything like that. That's reserved for the ex-Program elite; the Head of the Program never went into the Arena, which means they can have a clearer (or more dispassionate) head about things in a way that Victors often can't, not anymore. Victors can get called to consult, particularly if there's been a run of the same problem happening in the Arena -- what should the Program switch its focus on, are any of the tests inadequate -- which is how the kill testing got established and finalized, but it's always ever only on an invite basis.

This is also important because it lets the graduates who didn't make Volunteer have a special status. High-ranking ex-Careers can go into Program management, or fundraising, or climb the trainer track and make their way to Program Head, or sit on the selection committee, or get training in counselling and work at the detox dorms. This is also how many of the families known for their association with the Centre get involved; most don't have a Victor in the family at all, though several have had tributes who didn't make it, but they retake their names after graduation and continue to build a legacy around the Program. They become donors or sponsors of the Program, get involved in the administration or PR aspect, and are generally well-known and well-respected. It actually gets trickier to have a Victor from one of those families, because that can (and has) lead to entitlement -- harder to remove the kid from the family and sever all connections when everyone knows who that family is. (This is another reason why the Program moved away from Offerings and more toward quarry kids or kids with crappy home lives.)

Anyway. It's an interesting conundrum, and the topic of the Centre doesn't get brought up in the Village much because it's ... complicated. You'll never get Petra to agree that the Centre was wrong, and even Claudius will fight you on it, because yeah sure okay they taught him to kill but they also took him in and showed him acceptance and gave him a new family and he would've ended up killing someone anyway. Brutus, meanwhile, will never say a word against the Centre because that would be akin to treason, but he's not gonna think charitable thoughts about it on his spare time.

Turning kids into killers is a complicated business -- who knew!

nattaila asked: "Who were Callista, Odin, and Adessa's mentors? Really just who's who on the District 2 mentor tree, because I try to keep track but there's just SO MANY"

Ah, the District 2 mentors. Full disclosure: while I have most of the D2 victors figured out, I don't have all of them. There's still a bit of a gap in the earlier years. I don't know any of the pre-Career Victors or everyone in the 20s and 30s, oops. So I apologize that this is going to be incomplete.

First things first: Callista's mentor is Hera, Adessa's is Iris, and Odin's is...... HEY LOOK OVER THERE, A SHINY THING! *flees*

(Seriously I have no idea who Odin's mentor is, this is a bizarre oversight. BUT IN MY DEFENCE it never comes up! Given his particular brand of benevolent sexism I would guess his mentor was male, but I don't know who. He was one of the first -- along with Hera -- who were mentored by Ronan's kids and not by Ronan himself, though, I know that.)

However: Odin's relationship with his mentor was mostly professional, I think. At the time things were still much more by the books and less ruled by emotion, and some of the later conventions like sparring and feelings and whatnot weren't so much a thing. Odin was the last of the Offerings, aka the kids given freely by parents with the understanding that they would become the Volunteer one day, and so his mentor had more of a distance from the decision. Adessa and her mentor, meanwhile, had a very student/teacher relationship; Adessa asked a lot of questions and Iris answered them, and made sure Adessa had lots of opportunities for future learnings. Adessa respects her mentor for her experience and her knowledge and would never think of challenging her, because that's not how it's Done. Callista, meanwhile, was an emotional choice, and poor Hera ended up way over her head with this one, but she loves her crazy, bloodthirsty girl even if she has no idea what to do with her. Hera despairs a lot -- Callista bargains more than any Victor before her, always testing and poking and looking for weakness like the raptors with the electric fence in Jurassic Park -- but she loves her girl, and Callista basks in it. Calli is very much a cat, most of the time preferring not to be touched but occasionally demanding ALL of the attention RIGHT. NOW. Callista doesn't show the same deference to her mentor that Odin does, but she listens, and to Hera that means more.

The mentor tree is..... fuzzy, up to a certain point. I can give you what I have, though:

? -> Iris -> Adessa -> Nero -> Lyme (-> Misha, Claudius), Enobaria
? -> Odin -> Brutus -> Emory, Devon, Petra
? -> Hera -> Callista
Ronan -> Caius, ?, ?
???????

Put another way, the generations go roughly like this:

Ronan is basically Generation 1 all by himself, but the next ones are more like 1.5. His first Victors are very close to his age (Caius might even be only a year off? since Ronan won at 16) and there's less of a hierarchy than gets established later, so they're on a much more equal footing. Still, because of Ronan's responsibilities and the fact that he mentored 3 (I think) kids of his own before any one of them managed to save one, this does put some distance between them. As a result, Caius and the others (IDK WHO THEY ARE DON'T SUE ME) are more peers while Ronan is like ..... the cool upperclassman, kinda. They hang out but he's always a little bit above.

Adessa is in an interesting position because she's in between? She's around the same age as Odin and Hera (2-3 years older) but she's in the previous decade, and that makes her feel like she's older. She likes Odin well enough, he's a good man, but he's also just so..... young, and sincere, my goodness. Adessa and Hera are less close than they are colleagues, I think because they both pulled their first Victors one year after the other, and Hera is a little more reserved in general. She also comes off young to Adessa, mostly because Hera has emotions.

Odin and Hera meanwhile are back-to-back Victors and are very close (they could have been a couple, maybe would have been, but both were super focused on work and were mentoring against each other, and, well). The other in the Golden Trio is too, obviously, but I ..... have no idea who it is. Ahem.

Callista and Nero are also back-to-back Victors and are also extremely close, though Nero had a crush on her and Callista did not reciprocate. (She called him, rather uncharitably if not unkindly, an oversized puppy.) Callista is also friends with Adessa, which I find hilarious -- they're both cold and calculating and carry a sadistic/manipulative streak, but otherwise they are EXTREME opposites and it's just really funny to me. They spend most of their time together drinking wine, judging people, and snarking at each other for their ridiculous life choices. Callista thinks Adessa dresses like a grandmother and Adessa thinks Callista dresses like a prostitute. But while they're constantly sniping at each other, don't you dare try insulting one of them in the other's hearing, because you will wake up in a bathtub without your kidneys.

Feel free to comment with any follow-up questions!

kawuli asked about Devon's classmates at the Centre.

A bit of background before I start this: Brutus tends to choose his kids on solidity, stability, personal branding, and who he thinks they'd be on the other side. It's a bit superstitious but at the same time it's also practical, he wouldn't choose someone who had no chance of walking out sane. This also ties in with the type of kid whom Brutus can understand and who he thinks he could help -- would Brutus have been able to help Callista? No he would not. (This comes out in the crossover AU where he gets tasked with fresh bb victor Loki, and it goes terribly because they just don't get each other at all.)

So: Devon, like Emory, is not the standout of his year. He's low on aggression and showmanship, and he prefers clean combat and a fair fight. His kill scores are good, and he nailed his Field Exam both for prowess and the sanity check as well as his creation of a compelling persona. He's charming and the trainers like him a lot, and this gives him a bit of a teacher's pet reputation.

Devon is also a total flirt. He discovered he liked boys around Transition, when the focus shifted away from dodgeball and more to hand-to-hand combat and grappling. After getting into Residential, Devon gets into kissing pretty early. Why not! It's fun, it feels nice, and it makes people happy, what's not to like? He makes out with every boy even vaguely inclined in his year, and a handful of the boys above him. It's less of a badge of honour to be an ex-Career who's made out with Devon than it is a membership in a very large club. (If you're a Peacekeeper, the number is hilariously high. The ones stationed in Two joke about it, 'cause man, you gotta. The ones who go out of district hope nobody ever finds out.) At this point it's probably weirder if someone DIDN'T. Who is so straight they said no to the cutest, most charming boy in Residential? It's not like they'll ever see him again after Residential.

His classmates, as a result, like him but don't think of him as a threat. They know he's funny and personable and the trainers favour him, but whatever, they're stronger and meaner and bigger and showier and they want it more than he does, he's not a threat. And BECAUSE he's not a threat, they don't have the same intense rivalry they have with each other. They don't have to worry about Devon, he'll become a trainer or a Centre recruiter or work for the district, no need to get competitive with him. It's just Devon! Meanwhile they're at each other's throats all the time, and it's kind of nice to chill with Devon and have him compliment them on how well they did today.

In case you didn't guess already: Devon played them.

Devon is easy-going, non-competitive, non-aggressive and overall a very chill person. He's also the boy who, at age six, collected all the Victor photo books and won every 'meet the Victor' essay contest and got autographs for every single Victor -- and when he couldn't get the last 3, he sneaked his way onto the district train and got all the way to the Victors' Village to ask for them in person. (He got them. Ronan was very impressed. Twelve years later he's impressed all over again, and a little bit sad.) He also manipulates his classmates constantly, getting him to trade him food or favours or turning them against each other, and none of them see it because they're not looking for it. They have more important things to worry about than being paranoid that Devon, kind and harmless, is secretly better than they think he is.

The trainers notice, though, and when Brutus gets his top 3 candidates to choose from, there are two big, brutal boys and Devon. Everyone assumes he'll go for one of the bruisers, but you never know, and Devon is good enough to make the final cut, if nothing else.

Everything changes after the selection. The boys who thought they were ahead of him assume Devon screwed a trainer or found some other way to bribe them. They try to fight him and he shakes them off. They try to corner him in the showers and he slips away. No matter what they do he avoids them, manages to talk his way out of it or somehow win a sparring match that they intended to cave his head in during. They contribute it hard to raw luck and charm and cheating, and that makes them furious, but they can't ever make him pay for it. (The reasons for this don't ever quite sink in.)

The interesting side effect of this -- because he only scores an 8, because he only kills 7 in the Arena, because he manipulates his Career Pack into an amiable split, because his Arena is a standard one without undue horror -- after Devon win's the others who were in the running can't brush it off. In Petra's year, for example, Selene and the other girls who'd been in competition with her realize this is never what they wanted, they couldn't have survived that and wouldn't want to. For Devon's classmates, not so much. Devon won easily, and he wasn't even the best of them! That makes them think they could've won it too, if only the trainers had picked them, if only Devon hadn't cheated, if only it wasn't fair! But whining about how you could've been the Victor if-only is a short-cut to social pariah-hood in District 2, so they keep their heads down and their mouths shut. They probably meet up for angry drinks a few times, but it doesn't really help, so eventually they move on.

As a result, Devon is friends with lots of people from the Centre after he wins, but not the ones who were in the immediate running with him. Devon knows why not, and he feels a little bad about it, but not forever. They did what they did to win, and so did he. He has other things to be guilty about, and they're lucky this is the worst thing to happen to them.

Devon does hear when they're promoted, though, because he asks the VA office to keep him apprised. He handwrites them very sincere letters of congratulations, signs them "Your Victor always" and includes an autographed photo, to be extra, extra thoughtful.

penfold_x asked: "Is there a real future for Panem? In Divergence, certainly, because it is the positive fix-it, but what about in canon, where Panem is a decimated society riven by class divisions and hampered by a lack of ability to use the resources they have."

The short version of this is essentially "man, I dunno..." The long version is basically that, but with more words.

When we leave Panem pre-epilogue, there's no reliable transit infrastructure on a widespread scale, the supply lines have been destroyed, several major power centres have been taken out, several manufacturing facilities (mines, factories, refineries) were bombed by either side. Food production has been hampered, and distribution gutted. The political system has been entirely (and hastily) overhauled and an attempt at democracy instituted by people who have no idea what democracy looks like or how it should run. The political climate is volatile, even openly hostile: everyone is looking for someone to blame, and as the growing pains of a new nation begin in the aftermath, this will only continue. There is no standardized education, no Panem-wise curriculum, and education in the districts for at least the last 75 years has been state-mandated propaganda, censored by the Capitol and used to keep people in ignorance and instil a sense of fear. Transportation -- what wasn't destroyed in the war -- is woefully inadequate, since the passenger lines exist to transport personnel in and out of the Capitol, and we don't know how well the cargo lines will serve that purpose. The "media" as we know it does not exist; what Panem had before was, again, state-run propaganda, with no freedom of the press and no actual reporting, only repeating what the dictator tells them to say, and the new media will have to deal with this. District 12 is a smoking crater with almost 8000 corpses and a burning coal mine, which are not easy to put out and which also belch out toxic amounts of carbon monoxide and can burn for literally centuries (see the Centralia mine fire).

There's not enough food, there's not enough power, there will be anger and frustration and jealousy around resource allocation. People will be arguing who "deserves" supplies first. Districts will be arguing they should feed their own before accepting refugees. Very likely the non-Career districts will say that the Careers deserve no help at all for being complicit in the previous regime. People who had a lot before will be shocked, horrified and furious at being expected to make do with less. The Capitol will be a giant wailing meltdown as they're forced to confront reality, and the districts will obviously not be sympathetic, but this means thousands upon thousands of adults with no actual skills who still have to be fed somehow.

But it's okay, guys, we know that in 15-20 years it'll all be fine!

Seriously though, I dunno. I think it will be okay, because humans endure. But it will be a long process, and people will die. The agrarian areas will have it best, as they lived mostly separate from the others and are more self-sustaining. The ones who relied most on transport from other districts, and those in urban areas with little ability to grow/raise their own food, will have it harder. But I like to think there will be sharing, eventually; folk knowledge will spread, and people who might have scoffed at chewing willow bark for pain when they could take a dose of morphling (or..... whatever the Panem version of a Tylenol is? surely people didn't get hits of opiates for a headache??) will learn the merits. Doctors educated in better will go out to the districts and merge their skills with the local healers. City-dwellers will relocate and learn how to farm. The district fences will come down and the wilderness will be reclaimed in a new frontier, just as we did before, hopefully with less genocide but likely not without skirmishes.

Will it happen in 10 years, or 15, or even 20? Well, that I'm not so sure. 10 years after the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake in Kobe, you couldn't tell there was ever a disaster. 10 years following Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is a different story. If the trajectory of Panem follows that of the real world in the wake of a disaster, the existing income inequalities will only worsen, and gaps will widen and become more pronounced. Unlike in a lot of wars today, there are no nearby foreign powers with money to help out. The good ("good") thing in this case is that the government and social systems which favoured the ruling class were destroyed in the war, so it's less likely that regular citizens will be priced out of, say, tenements in District 6 while the wealthy Capitolites set up yoga studios and drive up real estate prices -- but this tends to happen. In the event of a catastrophe, class and wealth and power are paramount in driving the shape of the new world. We can hope that the people of Panem would come together and do their best to share and erase those lines, but sadly, our history has some ugly pictures of what happens when an authoritarian government gets overthrown and replaced with the promise of equality and allocation of wealth and resources. Humans gonna human; some scorpions will always be scorpions, and some frogs will wake up one day to find they've grown a stinger. Other frogs will build themselves prosthetic ones and start jabbing the remaining frogs to prove how far they've come in the world.

I think Panem will be okay, in the end, or at least I like to. But it's going to be a lot of work, and I think the epilogue of Mockingjay does a disservice to that work. I think it's telling that when people say "we survived [previous thing], we'll survive this" as a comfort to themselves, they often forget the hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people who didn't. They forget that nothing is given, nothing just "becomes okay" because the universe wills it. It's a struggle always to improve, to heal, and to have compassion and work to tear down systems of inequity and not fall back on the old ways because it's easy. Here's hoping Panem does better.

inthespout asked "what is your editing process?"

For those who aren't aware, on top of teaching I also work as a professional editor. I do everything from resumes to school essays to dissertations to works of fiction, and my services go all the way from deep developmental critiques to big-picture broad strokes edits to proofreads or a combination. I also edit non-professionally for people I'm fond of as a favour -- I've done both doctoral dissertations, short stories and novels for friends for free, because hey, pass it on.

My process is ... well I don't know really, it's not anything I have consciously sat down and developed, so I apologize if this is all over the place. I've put this all under a cut to be safe because, welp.

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I've done this a couple times before and it was really fun to do, so let's bring it back again!

Pick a day and ask me a question, propose a topic, etc, and I will write about it on that day. This can be fandom meta, real life stuff, whatever you want to hear me ramble about!

NOTE: this time around I'm making a "no fic prompts" rule. ;) I do plenty of prompt memes, but this is specifically because I occasionally get the urge to write a meta post but am never sure what to talk about or what people would be interested in. Fic prompts also tend to run away with me, which backs up the meme.

I've included some of the meta questions that I missed from some of the last rounds; feel free to claim one of them or ask a new one!

PREVIOUS UNANSWERED QUESTIONS:

• Devon's classmates at the Centre
  
• media I consumed 10 years ago
  
• my inspiration for teaching
  
• favourite lesser-known nobody's-heard-of things
  
• what I miss most about Japan
  
• what I love most about Canada
  
• snack recommendations
  
• Tobias (from Animorphs)
  
• fixing the Animorphs ending

APRIL QUESTIONS:

1. my approach to editing (for inthespout)
   
2. Is there a real future for canon Panem? (for penfold_x)
   
3. Devon's classmates (for kawuli)
   
4. Mentors: Odin, Callista, Adessa, the mentor tree in general (for nattaila)
   
5. Victors & the Centre, post-Games (for blackgenevieve)
   
6. District 2 divergence AU, 10 years postwar (for kawuli)
   
7. things I like to eat/drink (for morbane)
   
8. Tobias from Animorphs (for kawuli)
   
9. Why does Lyme pick up strays in all universes? (for kawuli)
   
10. 
    
11. 
    
12. the Centre in the 20s/30s compared to the 60s/70s (for nattaila)
    
13. how I find character voices/get to know/figure out new characters (for kawuli)
    
14. 
    
15. Adessa: Capitol persona, endorsements, friendships, etc (for penfold_x)
    
16. 
    
17. 
    
18. writing diverse characters (for rey_of_sunlight)
    
19. Callista, her persona and sex (for blackgenevieve)
    
20. District 2 Victor Talents (for nattaila)
    
21. tribute tropes/types from other districts
    
22. my opinions on stationery (for xanify, +1 morbane)
    
23. Centre friendships (for chronicbookworm)
    
24. Centre trainers & thoughts toward kids, self-justifications (for rey_of_sunlight)
    
25. the Victors' Village layout (bonus: best/worst neighbours) (for nattaila)
    
26. 
    
27. what happens if/when a District 2 tribute loses it (for blackgenevieve)
    
28. 
    
29. new Centre trainers: transitioning, adjustment, etc (for elisabeth16)
    

A District Upside Down: The War (7576 words) by lorata
Chapters: 1/15
Fandom: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Brutus (Hunger Games), Lyme (Hunger Games), Victors (Hunger Games), Alma Coin, Other Character Tags to Be Added
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, District 2, District 13, Careers (Hunger Games), Victors, Mentors, War, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Series: Part 3 of My World's On Fire (How 'Bout Yours?): District 2 at War
Summary:

When the Arena falls and Brutus dies, Lyme leaves for District 13. It's soon clear that Alma Coin is less than perfect, but with her best friend dead and no other options, Lyme vows to make the best of her decision. Meanwhile, Brutus' youngest Victor joins President Snow in the Capitol to be the symbol of loyalty and the voice of her people as District 2 prepares for war.

The twist: when Brutus fell, the hovercraft team who retrieved his corpse fought to resuscitate him, refusing to stand by and watch their hero die. A second rebellion — split off from District 13, fearing that Alma Coin had gone too far — saw their opportunity to gather fighters and a potentially valuable symbol, and recruit them to fight against both the Capitol and District 13.

The Victors of District 2 are now split along five fronts: Enobaria in custody in the Capitol; Lyme and Claudius in District 13; Petra, Ronan and Nero in the Capitol; Brutus and the Peacekeepers who turned traitor to save him in District 8; and the rest at home in District 2, mourning and waiting and fearing whatever is to come.

Some things will change, some will not, but one thing is true: District 2's Victors have the chance to make it out alive.

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Happy holidays, whether you're lighting a candle or carolling or what! Whatever your day is like, I hope this brings a little bit of laughter.

Title: Fighting for the Holidays
Rating: G
Characters: Brutus, Lyme, Enobaria, Ronan, Adessa, Callista, Nero, Emory, Misha, Devon, Claudius, Petra
Summary: The District 2 Victors' Village has a new holiday tradition, which makes for some very interesting shenanigans.

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BECAUSE WHY NOT. Cross-posted with Tumblr.

Give me a universe (original or fandom) and any number(s) you want. :D

1. describe the plot in 1 sentence.
2. pick one sight, smell, sound, feel, and taste to describe the aesthetic of your novel.
3. which 3+ songs would make up a playlist for the novel?
4. what’s the time period and location in which the novel takes place?
5. is this a standalone or a part in a series?
6. are there any former titles you’ve considered but discarded?
7. how many times does the word ____ appear in the novel?
8. what’s the first line that comes up when you search _____?
9. what’s the first line of your novel?
10. what’s a line of dialogue you’re particularly proud of?
11. which line from the novel most represents it as a whole?
12. who are your character faceclaims?
13. sort your characters into harry potter houses!
14. which character’s name do you like the most?
15. describe each character’s daily outfit.
16. do any characters have distinctive birthmarks/scars?
17. pick a color to represent each character.
18. pick a font to represent each character.
19. which character most fits a character trope? which trope?
20. which character is the best writer? worst?
21. which character is the best liar? worst?
22. which character swears the most? least?
23. which character has the best handwriting? worst?
24. which character is most like you? least like you?
25. which character would you most like to be?

Don't Flinch (4561 words) by lorata
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Characters: Cato (Hunger Games), Clove (Hunger Games), Lyme (Hunger Games), Brutus (Hunger Games), Caesar Flickerman, Background & Cameo Characters
Additional Tags: 74th Hunger Games, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, Timey-Wimey, What-If, District 2, Careers (Hunger Games)
Series: Part 37 of We Must Be Killers: Tales from District 2
Summary: Cato and Clove make it to the final two, but the Capitol revokes the rule change anyway. Whichever way the wind blows -- whether Clove strikes first, or Cato does -- this is not a happy ending.

( Click here for terrible, terrible sadnessCollapse )

Summary:

Tiqa's older sister Siska disappeared the night of the winter solstice. Her clothes were found outside the village, torn to shreds and scattered across the snow amid splashes of scarlet blood.

The logical answer is that Siska stepped past the magical boundary that protects the village and was slaughtered by the horrors that stalk the night, but Tiqa knows that can't be true. Tiqa is determined to find her sister and bring her home, even if it means crossing the open tundra on her own with no one but her guide-sight dog for company. Lucky for Tiqa, along the way she meets a distractingly pretty adventurer who decides she can't let the village girl die from rookie mistakes on a journey far too ambitious for her.

Tiqa believes the night horrors took her sister, but the truth of it is much more -- or less -- complicated than she ever imagined. For Siska, the night of the winter solstice is both and end and a beginning, but either way the ancient wisdom holds: you really can't go home again.

Rainbow Meter: Ish! The main ship is f/f but the focus is on the sisters, not the romance. (Think Wynonna Earp levels)

Weird Meter: Again, ish, but maybe less ish than the above. We've got spirits and night horrors and witches and skin-changers, but most of it is built into the world.

Self-Indulgence Meter: Fairly standard for me! I wanted sister feelings and murder feelings and monster girl feelings -- sort of like Wynonna Earp meets Rachel from Animorphs, with magic and all that thrown in. We'll see how it goes!