every time I think about what Ekko must have gone through whenever he had to fight Jinx, I feel... unwell.
can you imagine having to raise your hand to strike the only one who remembers you during the softer times, the one you like to think is the real you, the one you can't seem to let go?
can you imagine what you have to rip out of yourself to do that and go on, and live with yourself afterwards? how you start seeing yourself after that?
excruciating.
we know some of Jinx's demons, but Ekko's shadow must have grown inward, suffocating him,
poisoning him before he got to really know himself.
and yet... love stayed.
as brilliant as it is that this seems to be one of lucy gray's songs that was lost to time, how much do you think snow would have lost his shit if katniss had sung "pure as the driven snow" to peeta in one of the arenas
The Good Place Appreciation Week Day 6: Favorite Lesson/s
✨ Teach me how to look at you. I promise I’ll be a fast learner. ✨
he is also very much alive.
can't convince me otherwise
Thinking again about how Suzanne esentially subverted the "beloved famous man that is actually a horrible person in real life" with Finnick, who is the complete opposite of that.
Finnick has this whole image costructed around him by the people that abused him for years: the Capitol's darling, their golden boy, the sex symbol of Panem, the man that has countless lovers but leaves them constantly and doesn't look back etc. And you would expect, initially, to meet a man that retains at least a part of that persona in his day to day life. But Finnick doesn't, not even one bit.
You see instead a man that is deeply in love and completely devoted to the one woman he quite literally adores, a man that protects Mags, his old mentor and his mother figure, as much as he can, a man that wouldn't leave Johanna behind, a man that gathers whatever strenght he has left to speak publicly about the abuse inflicted upon him at the government's hands; the opposite of what the Capitol's media and reputation made him out to be.
if the only thing you can vividly remember about what love feels like is just that it hurts, you start welcoming pain. chasing it, even.
right, Jinx?
right, Ekko?
*
after she slaps him to get him away, or else she'd jinx him, she never really looks at him. sweeps her gaze across him like a paintbrush, taunts, cocks her head on one side, feigning contemplation, fires at him (or does she, really?), fights him, follows him, spies on him, yet never looks at him.
not really.
not until the bridge.
not until she's sure she is going to die and the acid of vulnerability will never eat away her flesh in front of him, exposing how much she wanted to go back, back, back to where his hands were warm and gentle, just as his eyes.
she knows that for one glorious, excruciating moment, he sees her through. all that longing, pain, guilt, and exhaustion.
of course, he sees her.
of course, she doesn't die after. she is Jinx, after all.
she hates herself Ekko for that.
*
after she slaps him, something fractures in him, and he sucks in a breath, feeling how jagged edges of his broken heart pierce his lungs. she doesn't need him. Powder died, she said it herself, and Ekko repeats to himself, "Powder's dead, Powder's dead, dead." he says it to everyone, to the Firelights, to Scar, to Vi, who got back from the dead.
he looks at her anyway. he looks for her anyway.
eyes blue and mad, braids like snakes, clouds shifting along with her muscles. it's only to anticipate her attacks, he says, clutching his weapon with a sweaty hand.
the chasm in his chest throbs, mocking him.
he fails every time.
every time, until the bridge.
he feels the skin on his face tug as he smirks, his head buzzes, as do his hands, his legs, his stupid heart, hurting, squeezing, somewhere far away from his consciousness, hidden under layers and layers of old scars.
he looks at her and readies himself to throw a final punch and to finally make Jinx disappear so that he can, after all these years, bury his best friend.
and then he sees her. and his heart tugs, and he can't breathe - why is she looking at him like Powder did? why would she do that to him? -
he lowers his fist. doesn't relax his stupid hand that wants to wipe off the blood under her nose. it hurts so familiar, it's almost good.
of course, she decides to die right away.
of course, she steals it from him. she is Jinx, after all.
he misses hates her more for that.
oh yes, i am
frothing at the mouth over Ekko, that is
Ekko's got to be some ultimate form of wish fulfilment. He could be in love with anyone! And he falls for his less then stable, childhood best friend, turned enemy, come terrorist, ender of multiple friends, bringer of shimmer, nightmare of a mobster's daughter instead! You just knoooow all the girlies who think they're unlovable, too much trouble are frothing at the mouth over him.
if you recommend me a good zutara fic ill kiss your cute lil head
Darker times will come and go
Times you need to see her smile
And mothers' hearts are warm and mild
I would rather feel this world through the skin of a child
—AURORA; Through the Eyes of a Child
I am convinced that it happened.
I have an everlark headcanon now, that after their “you love me. real or not real?”/“real” moment, it’s like a barrier breaks for katniss and she can’t stop saying “i love you” to peeta. she’ll put her hands up to her cheeks to feel her smile as she says it. she’ll whisper it to him again and again as they lie in bed. she’ll make herself smile as she thinks it while watching him work and will just blurt it out at random when peeta doesn’t even expect it. she’ll say it in a sing song way, in a hushed way, in a breathy way. she’ll just love that she can finally vocalise what she’s felt for so long and she’ll want him to know it all the time.
experiencing the hunger games renaissance through twitter for the first time is so beautiful