#cye-fi

ngl that was just a numbers thing, i realized brutus obviously wouldn't be mentoring if they'd just had a baby

at the time i hadn't developed any of the other mentors OR devon so i was like eh and gave the kid to lyme, because why not

obviously the reason why not is they are nothing alike lol but by the time i figured that out TOO LATE!!!!!!!! and it was too much work to go back and change it, butterfly-effect style

this is one of those moments that could have changed everything

because ... yeah, katniss was scared, and vulnerable, and lyme did NOT have the bandwidth so she left her alone and we all know what happened after that. and maybe if she'd approached katniss would have skittered away (she could barely handle comfort from known allies at that point, let alone former enemies) BUT MAYBE NOT

maybe if lyme reached out to her katniss might have reached back. maybe she could have found someone to lean on, maybe they could have bonded, maybe they could have shared doubts about coin and the mission and katniss' position and -- yes -- the missing victors

lyme dies in canon and never finds out about the mockingjay deal, and so she never learns how large coin's betrayal really was. it also means she had no idea she might have stopped it, if maybe she'd befriended katniss and given her more of the info the others kept from her. in the AU the mockingjay deal doesn't apply, so, same

i don't know how it started precisely but i know it involved chess

like most things snow was a man looking for enemies in every corner and adessa was an intellectual challenge but not a threat (until he made her one -- classic!) and for a man who can never relax it was oddly refreshing to chat with someone both frank and ruthless but without any ulterior motives. she wasn't trying to kill him and enjoyed their games for what they were, just games

i imagine it's a bit of a scramble, the best odds are if the original one can go as they're the one who's been making all the sponsor inroads and laying networking groundwork for the past six months or so

LOL NOWHERE SORRY

that's stupidly self-indulgent and only exists in my head in a very specific AU mostly to see if they would work (they do! it's fun)

oh loooooord *squints*

so in the normal universes the trainers pull rowan & blake aside and give them the priorities talk (TM) and rowan says he wants to leave but blake gets terrified that it's a loyalty test and if they both try to leave they'll get killed so he agrees to stay

rowan is of course heartbroken and betrayed by this so they don't get back together once blake ages out (in the main au - in canon there's, you know, The War and it's more complicated so they might, maybe)

(there's some stuff i retconned later, like originally i thought blake was bi and eventually got married to a woman and had a kid -- he ain't! he's super duper gay lol. rowan is extremely bi though)

IN THAT SPECIFIC AU (the brutus and frigga get married one) frigga is a trainer and she sees the rowan and blake thing happening and is like, oh boy, so she convinces blake that this is not a test and they will not kill him / rowan if he says no, and asks him, again, if he wants to leave. he does. he very much does.

so in THIS universe he and rowan both get to leave and go home and reunite and cry and eat popcorn and make a blanket nest and have a weird teen regression because they, you know, sort of got adrenaline-trauma-teen-married at 15 while murdering people and now need to figure out who and what they are as normal ("normal") people