Doing My Own Thing, Running on Excitement

Robert is left in confusion, but is grateful he can actually be vaccinated now thanks to SDN doctors and his shiny new medical insurance. He had too many medical close calls to not get vaccinated.

Then comes the malarkey that is wrangling the members of the Z-Team(probably one at a time), dragging them to the doctor's office, then marking them as vaccinated while they're getting jabbed and promptly moving on to the next team member.

The first one that came to mind was the Jabberjay scene in Catching Fire. Either they could both be hearing loved ones' voices, or Chad's the one that gets tortured by the birds. More voices to torment him, while Robert probably only has Chase at this point. Not to say Shroud using Chase's voice with the Jabberjays wouldn't devastate Robert, of course it would. But Chad... Chad having more family around leaves that evil man with options for the psychological warfare he's waging.

... That's the only one I thought of so far. On the comedic note! AKA the kiss to this brick!

The CF interview. The "If it weren't for the baby" moment. Imagine:

Chad: ...If it weren't for the baby.

Crowd: ...

Other Victors: *side-eyeing Robert*

Robert: 0_0;

Shroud: ...

Host: ...

Literally everyone: ...

Host: Wait, one of you can do that?!

Cue the uproar. Is it because someone just got outed, or because the Capitol dares to send a pregnant person into the death arena? No one knows, Chad is just revelling in the chaos he just created while Robert is questioning his fake-but-not-really fiance's thought process. At least half the rebel team are trying to figure out if they need to rework the plan(later followed by realising one of these two maniacs may actually kill the entire arena, and then some, if the other dies).

Anyways, that's my current brain wave.

Hahaha imagine the Jabberjays talking in Robbie's voice 👀 haha imagine 👀👀

Chad will be obviously devastated by the voices. If it talks in his nieces voice, he's gone. He's trying to rip his way out of the arena to get to her, to save her. Robert needs to wrestle him down and keeps yelling that it isn't real. He tries not to think about how the Jabberjays learned her voice.

Bonus mind wrecker for what I'm thinking so far! His niece is a toddler in this timeline. Katniss hearing Prim's(who's thirteen in Catching Fire) voice was bad enough, imagine hearing an actual toddler! Especially, like you said, having to think of how the Capitol got access to her voice. That and hearing her crying would cause the worst spiral, it'd be a damn miracle if they didn't have to knock Chad unconscious!

And Robbie, oh, Robbie being one of the voices picked for Robert! Because if he's a victor, the Capitol absolutely has enough videos of him to program the Jabberjays, whether he's dead or alive! And instead of making Robert think his father's being tortured, Robbie's voice makes him spiral into self-doubt. Telling him he shouldn't have gotten out of the 74th arena, that he should have died and let Chad be the only victor(Excellent set-up for further psychological warfare in Mockingjay! Shroud is not letting Robert catch a break).

I was talking about the various possibilities of how "If it weren't for the baby" would go in this AU with an IRL friend. We agreed it goes one of two ways:

Either Robert comes out to Chad in private(kind of a "We're probably dead anyways, might as well lay all the cards out", definitely not a show of trust or anything intimate like that!), Chad drops the baby bomb, and Robert freaks out like, "Chad, I told you that in confidence! The Capitol is already violating our autonomy! Run things by me before you tell the entire nation you got me pregnant while simultaneously announcing I have the parts for that!" The ensuing argument is very valid. The Z-Team assumes it's a crack in the ruse. Any Capitolites that overhear assume it's a marriage spat, and mostly fuelled by Robert being hormonal. Meanwhile, Robert's trying not to strangle his fake husband. Chase is trying to strangle his little brother's fake husband through the TV with his mind.

Or Robert comes out to Chad(still in private), and Robert is the one to propose the pregnancy trick. "Hey, this sucks that this is an option because it's a teen pregnancy, but maybe the idea of a fetus getting hurt will get this Child Death Arena crap called off." And Chad just rolls with it because he learned to trust Robert's strategic mind last year. I think of this one purely for the image of Chad needing a second to reason with himself why Robert is sharing this information so close to the interviews. Chase is still trying to mentally strangle Chad when he claims Robert's pregnant

And also, the hilarity of the rest of the Z-Team having to remind Robert, "Hey, mind the baby. Because you're pregnant. Can't be lunging for throats all willy-nilly, because you're pregnant." either way. None of them are paid enough to deal with the mix of lovesick fools and feral maniacs that these two are for each other.

Movie Spoiler-ish below 👇

1. Catch and restrain a much more manic and prepared Robert, preferably without getting stabbed, strangled, bitten, or otherwise injured, maimed and/or killed.

2. Reverse the spell, and get their dispatcher back to his normal self. And get a therapist for him, this entire shindig probably messed him(and everyone else even remotely involved) up.

Poor Robert's probably fighting that magic with everything he can, and also insisting they just kill him before he escapes and actually manages to kill someone. If he hasn't already.

Some extra rambling under the cut.

Another option for the reverse the spell is that...(Spoilers stop reading here if you care.)

So how would proven magical influence affect how someone is charged, in a world where it is real and a part of life? Would it work similarly to an insanity plea? It would probably depend on the type of magic, as well as its effect and intent.

Going over your spoilers under the cut, because they're good!

Movie Spoiler-ish below 👇

1. Catch and restrain a much more manic and prepared Robert, preferably without getting stabbed, strangled, bitten, or otherwise injured, maimed and/or killed.

2. Reverse the spell, and get their dispatcher back to his normal self. And get a therapist for him, this entire shindig probably messed him(and everyone else even remotely involved) up.

Poor Robert's probably fighting that magic with everything he can, and also insisting they just kill him before he escapes and actually manages to kill someone. If he hasn't already.

Some extra rambling under the cut.

It's Shawn Mendes. I assume that's the singer you're talking about. His name is spelled Shawn Mendes.

But yes, I can see him in the Flambae Yearning Playlist. That is the important part. Flambae definitely has at least 3-6 Mendes songs there.

Coupé:

Robert: No, I do not want you to torture him… and no, that does not mean I want you to kill him painlessly, either

I'm writing a fic where Flambae speaks a lot of Dari (might also have him speak Pashto as well, since I looked up what languages Afghan people speak and it mentions Pashto as another language that is spoken a lot in Afghanistan), and I wanna know what other terms of endearment there are besides Azizam, as I want Flambae to use as many terms as possible

Aziz-am(the one we all know, which means "my dear")

Jigar tala(directly translates to "golden liver" but it's affectionate.)

Eshgham(means "my love")

Aziz-e del-am("dear of my heart")

Joon-am("My life"/"My soul")

Jāné del-am("Life of my heart")

Sheereen-am("My sweet")

Hamsar-am("My equal head" Kind of a poetic way to refer to someone as one's other half)

ātashé del-am("Fire of my heart" Fitting for the man who calls himself the fire and flame?)

Delbar-am("The one who has my heart")

(Moosh) Moosh-am("My (mousy) mouse")

Jeegar-am("My liver")

Nāzanin-am("My sweetest")

Omr-am("My life")

Nooré cheshm-am("Light of my eyes")

As a note, some of these can be used in romantic, familial, and platonic love. There's also "khoshgelam" Meaning "my beautiful" But that is reserved for women, often used from mothers to their daughters, so I left it out of the main list.

I also found some phrases, too!

Asheghetam(strong version of "I love you")

Dooset daram(less strong version of "I love you")

Kharabetam(Literally means "I'm ruined for you", and is commonly used to say the speaker is crazy about a person and would do anything for them)

Divunatam("I'm crazy about you")

Miboosamet("I kiss you" Very handy for long distance relationships(or a simple comm line? ;3), usually to end a phone call)

Fadat besham("I am willing to sacrifice myself for you" Wait until Robert gets a translation of that one!)

Eshghe mani("You are my love")

Here's my sources, BTW. I hope they're accurate, but I can't guarantee it. If they are, I will graciously accept corrections. I am not of this culture, and only began picking up a small amount of Dari specifically to write Flambae and his family, so any information from someone who has a better idea of what they're saying is encouraged to offer their two cents to the discussion as well:

Source 1

Source 2

You mentioned cutting Sonar in your playthroughs(same, lol). That's already a stellar gateway into a great story, if you ask me. Like, exploring his dive back into his addictions(yes, he still does coke in the bathroom if you don't cut him, but it's probably even worse if he's cut bc Malevola isn't necessarily there to potentially reign him in). As well as making him reflect on how he handled being cut, and his part in Robert's torture in episode 7. And his guilt for it, especially if you let him back on the team afterwards.

Even if you go with a story where Coupe is cut(or no one is...), I still think his addictions could be a great starting point. He has a problem, he needs to work on handling it better than he is. Again, the bathroom scene in episode 5 comes to mind. I think Robert only didn't catch/mention it because he was both concussed and in a high adrenaline situation where calling Sonar out on breaking his sobriety is far from his top priority.

But Sonar having people who believe in him, and trying to curb his addictions because of that belief, could make an interesting story, if you ask me. You have Malevola as his sponsor, Robert(and probably Blazer) as his boss, his other teammates. Maybe explore possible reasons why he got addicted(AdHoc gave us crumbs, and I will openly admit to smushing it into some headcanon frosting to make stories... Most of them angsty), or his and Mal's sponsor-benefactor relationship. If you keep him cut, the guilt could make him desperate to relapse again, and he's fighting that.

It would involve a lot of research, but it's not something I see explored super often when it comes to Sonar, surprisingly. Addiction recovery is not linear, like most recoveries from mental stuff, and I'm sure that's a big reason for support groups like NA and AA(among others).

You mentioned cutting Sonar in your playthroughs(same, lol). That's already a stellar gateway into a great story, if you ask me. Like, exploring his dive back into his addictions(yes, he still does coke in the bathroom if you don't cut him, but it's probably even worse if he's cut bc Malevola isn't necessarily there to potentially reign him in). As well as making him reflect on how he handled being cut, and his part in Robert's torture in episode 7. And his guilt for it, especially if you let him back on the team afterwards.

Even if you go with a story where Coupe is cut(or no one is...), I still think his addictions could be a great starting point. He has a problem, he needs to work on handling it better than he is. Again, the bathroom scene in episode 5 comes to mind. I think Robert only didn't catch/mention it because he was both concussed and in a high adrenaline situation where calling Sonar out on breaking his sobriety is far from his top priority.

But Sonar having people who believe in him, and trying to curb his addictions because of that belief, could make an interesting story, if you ask me. You have Malevola as his sponsor, Robert(and probably Blazer) as his boss, his other teammates. Maybe explore possible reasons why he got addicted(AdHoc gave us crumbs, and I will openly admit to smushing it into some headcanon frosting to make stories... Most of them angsty), or his and Mal's sponsor-benefactor relationship. If you keep him cut, the guilt could make him desperate to relapse again, and he's fighting that.

It would involve a lot of research, but it's not something I see explored super often when it comes to Sonar, surprisingly. Addiction recovery is not linear, like most recoveries from mental stuff, and I'm sure that's a big reason for support groups like NA and AA(among others).

(Also, I'm on the Dispatch train too, lol! ;P)

Ayyy congrats!! That’s huge!!

Followers, this is the fic the lovely Ruby is referring to- she’s spent years working on this project and it’s got such wonderful prose. I’m currently rereading it (on chapter 4 😎) and I fully suggest everyone else give it a read if you like demon slayer and/or role swaps!