#from achille's perspective

[sealrock]

decembhyur, day 8: market

the girl I saw in the marketplace that day with baba... that was you, wasn't it, paris?when you looked at me, I saw that you was crying and bein' pulled to wherever your mama was taking you to; she was stompin' through the streets like someone I ain't ever seen before. she was gripping your wrist so hard my own started to hurt. baba never did that to me... I never saw you again after that, but your tears—your sadness. it... it got stuck in my head for years. I wished I coulda done something to make you smile. if I wasn't scared outta me wits I would've gave you that cookie I had. I didn't even eat it afterward, I felt terrible. ... I don't think I ever seen you smile. you don't cry much no more, either. — ♫

[prolibytherium]

The Song of Achilles is one of the most garbage books I've ever read and I kind of want to talk about it but I'd have to reread The Song of Achilles to do that in a cohesive manner, which is garbage

[baejax-the-great]

7, 16 to get to know the author?

7. How do you choose which POV to write from?

This all depends on what you're trying to accomplish. There was a post going around recently about how you should choose the person with the least amount of information. The Locked Tomb series utilizes this one, coming up with new reasons every book for the protagonist to be completely ignorant of the world she lives in. It keeps the mystery up and thus keeps the reader guessing and involved.

Fanfic is more frequently focused on the relationships between characters, so rather than mystery, the goal is often to see development. The POV is frequently from whoever is finding the moment more meaningful. Agua Caliente from Zagreus's POV would be a lot of Achilles staring into space and then wandering off somewhere, which actually sounds kind of fun to write now that I said that, but is a totally different vibe.

Other tactics include who would be the funniest person for the scene, either because they don't care about what's going on at all, or they don't understand what's going on, or they are in their own story right now and the goings on the audience cares about are completely peripheral to their life... lots of goofy reasons to make someone a shitty/funny narrator. In ensemble fics like Void, it helped keep the scenes fresh for me, too. Writing the big family dinner scene felt very boring to me until I made the most oblivious dumbass in the room take the reins (Thanks, Poseidon).

16. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?

I answered this already, but I should add I have some prompts that I'm planning on combining with Patrochilles Week Prompts and I'm hoping to get a couple one-shots down for that event =)

[minhosimthings]

Do you ever just think about Thetis for a moment?

Imagine you're a sea nymph, the daughter of the sea herself, and one day when you're just enjoying yourself in peace, a mortal king comes up to you and practically rapes you and then you're forced to marry him and bear his child? And then you watch that child tear himself apart for the death of what you thought was a mere mortal, for someone who belongs to the race that ruined your life in the first place? And then that mortal's spirit comes to you, and you feel a bit peaceful at the end when you realise that maybe love can exist?

Because I do and I cry about it.

[gangplanksorenji]

Kinknuary Day 17: Brat Taming 

Pairing: Choi Yena x Male Reader

Word Count: 5,832

[Kinknuary Masterlist]

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You can’t always get what she wants and she can’t always get what she needs—these two clauses never contradict as it's different in each way yet aimed towards the same intent: fulfillment.

Choi Yena is a girl you’d watch yourself into, as she’s the living definition of a brat, in your own words. Not really a specific brat, but she really tends to be selfish all of the time, and that isn’t really ideal considering how you’re always making her change but always ends up defeated and your advances deemed to be useless against her.

She has an iron wall that’s tough to break, but under specific circumstances, there’s always the Achilles’ heel to be used against it.

“Well, this sucks…” Yena chides boredom, sighing deeply as she’s deeply restive within the supposedly delicious food in front of the table and with her discontented countenance, you advance to confront her as you’re confused on why she’s acting like this.

“Don’t like the food, princess?”

“Nu-uh. It’s bland and soggy—look!” Yena grabs a minuscule sample of spaghetti with her fork, presenting how incredibly unacceptable it is on her own perspective as she voices out her frustration with it, and you, absolutely stunned with her complaints as you don’t see anything wrong with the food presented.

“Oh yeah, I forgot—should’ve treated you to eat some gold, huh?” You batted out a joke towards her, in which she took it a little seriously, punching your shoulder playfully as her pouts emanated such strong channels of chagrin, not satisfied with the meal she’s been supposedly enjoying.

“Yah! I’m not like that, but I’d like to eat something way better than this…”

Of course, she’ll be luring you into another set of her tricks, opting for you to fall down of her trap but with two years and a half of being with her, you knew exactly what she’s up to for you to fulfill her wants. You read her mind like a book but of course, you’ll choose to play along with her game to bait her and let her be the victim of her own medicine.

“Like what?” You feign such fake innocence, in which Yena takes as an opportunity to voice out her naughty desires and just like that, she stepped into your trap.

“Like daddy’s—” You tighten the grip of her wrists under the table, making her wince in pain as you stop her from her advances of such dirty talk in public.

“You know what Yena, just eat your goddamn food and we’ll get out of here, okay?” You grew impatient with her own antics, making her opt to the possible endgame before the anticipated climax soon.

“But I don’t like it! I don’t like it!” Yena whimpered as she didn't like the words that came out of your mouth and knowing that you’re setting her up to further make her miserable, she stepped up and voiced out her frustrations towards you and you’re not absolutely having it. “I won’t bother finishing these—”

“Alright then, Yena…” You averted your attention onto finishing the food on your plate as your demeanor became stern and commanding and Yena’s face suddenly feigned fear and anxiety, not wanting what may happen next. “It’s just fair to not reward my princess something if she didn’t finish her food.”

Yes, you read her like a goddamn book and guess what, it’s working more than well. Knowing how insatiable you are for her that can’t bear to not be rewarded with your load for a day says a lot, and she’s willing to do everything just to get that desired prize of hers that you would love to use as an advantage against her—Yena’s kryptonite that will flick a switch inside her, making her reevaluate her own selfish decisions.

“Okay then, daddy…”

Well, if she’s willing to provoke the sleeping beast inside you, then you’ll let her, because at the end of the day, you know that she’ll regret it and will absolutely be damned to be punished and used, like the slutty brat she always became, all for you.

---

Royalties and class, two things that exude Yena as every movement of hers is either sophisticated, intense disgust or her own primal needs taking over her. Limited choices yet it doesn’t matter, because it will revolved around that and it will never change—maybe when you’ve fucked something out of her, then maybe the stars will re-align but chances would be slim to none.

There’s no fucking chance in this planet she’ll be able to make others bear her bitchy, bratty attitude and you are the only worthy to handle her as you know exactly how to make her be yours and to tame that living beast inside her, even if it means to do the nastiest things to her.

Well, that won’t be the case for now but knowing how she’s luring you into a challenge, really makes everything inside you be in that state of fury as her words captivate you and turn you on, and it’s damn dangerous to be this riled while driving on a high-speed highway.

Guess the feelings are mutual between the both of you; she can pick the locks inside you as much as you can with hers, and it’s not even close to exert much effort.

“Yena, you know we can’t—not here, princess, alright?” You peacefully pointed out how risky and not suitable for you to really do this, let alone doing such a sinful act on a highway even though it’s just the both of you that will be blessed by the sight.

Not really surprised about her responsive actions of your denial, and you’d love to see that knowing how her frustration and the needy sounds she makes sends you into a state of delight. “Come on, daddy! You’re no fun!”

Yena pouts as she faces you, frustrated with your own selfish acts of your definition of fun as she crosses her arms right after, letting you know how she seriously wants this.

“If you want us to crash because of your selfish needs to blow my dick, then sure, Yena.” With your encouraging words with sarcasm laced on it, Yena faced you with a glare as you can see it evident on your peripherals. As much as you don’t want to, you might just give it a shot and to maybe even risk your life in terms of a pleasurable service and to literally just make Yena shut up with your own length inside her bratty mouth.

“You’re just playing with me, daddy—I know you—”

“Do you want to blow my dick or not? ‘Cause I’m getting pretty impatient, Yena.” You stated, your tone demanding and laced with subtle rage as you continue to drive, unfazed with her own presence that will soon draw onto your own treasured prize and given the green light, she acted up immediately and didn’t waste any of your time. Drawing her attention towards your clothed nether region, her hands then hastily finds its way onto the button of your pants while carefully not hitting anything, and with her subtle touch makes you lose a hint of focus yet you fight it as the last thing you would want to see is crashing on a highway. Carefully unbuttoning your pants and bringing them onto your knees, her eyes lit up in excitement as she can see your member getting erected and that’s all because of her.

“Ooh, getting turned on I see, hm, daddy?” Yena delightfully mocks you as steam comes out of your nose, a bit annoyed with her current antics as there’s no in any planet you would deny how it’s not her fault that you’re getting this hard.

“Then do something about it and don’t kill us, Yena.” She then resumes her advances of undressing your final clothed defense, finally freeing your throbbing length from its prison and she is met with your member, her eyes now lit in awe yet a click of your tongue makes her stop. “Five minutes only.”

Yena whimpers as she looks at you deeply with her signature duck pout, making you rethink your decision as she persuades you with all her might. “Please, can it be longer, daddy? Please, please?”

Even if she bats out her hundred of pleas you will just ignore it as a brat doesn't deserve such reward—she should be grateful instead of complaining but you know that girls like her will be rewarded truly if they earned it, and this is probably just one of the few tests you have in plan.

Guess, you’ll be just the judge while your mind’s focused on driving straight for the both of you to not crash and god, you’re really fighting for it.

Maybe you’ll be the one who’s going to be tested as it’s all deteriorating once she laid her soft lips onto the head of your shaft, as you give in the pleasure yet focus on the highway.

Five minutes—five goddamn minutes.

---

“Kneel down, princess.”

“Yes, daddy…” Yena immediately obliged your command as her face anticipates what you may have in store, her eyes glistening with need and lust that no one can define, maybe not even herself can.

Of course, she won’t be leaving your place without a load dumped inside her or painted on her because of how addicted she is to you and how she’s always a victim of indulging towards her primal desires the second you’re within the vicinity of her sight.

She’s crazy about you as much as you are towards her but Yena’s just on a whole new level—way above the charts of your expectations and it’s not really surprising at this point.

In most terms, she’s always been a pain in the ass the deal with, even with your entire length plunged inside her, she can’t seem to really change her bratty demeanor, like it’s glued onto her by default and it’s bittersweet—bitter in annoyance and sweet because you love taming her, getting the absolute value of each others’ needs.

Even without serving her desired prize on her speedway blowjob earlier, her eyes are still refulgent with anticipation and eagerness—not to mention how she complains so much when her time is up and without a load deep down her throat, completely opposing her current needs for you.

“You better finish what you’ve started earlier alright, princess?” You relax onto the cold, marble wall as Yena nods eagerly, and then advance her way onto your fully-erect length as she eyes it like her favorite meal and with a mischievous smirk planted onto her mouth and her evil eyes, you know exactly how she’ll start this off. You moaned almost inaudibly once her soft, plump lips became in contact with your swollen head and right from the start, her masterclass is absolutely at its peak finest.

Her mouth is one of your treasure features of her, not just by the fact that you could embrace yourself to initiate such a torrid kiss with her but it’s just the fact on how soft they are that it’s just sculpted perfectly to service gratification to you, not even including her sinful gags and the vacuum-like suction that makes up the elements of a mind-boggling blowjob that she always excels at.

Speaking of oral talents, she has it all, and maybe even multiple.

“Keep doing that, princess… Keep t-that mouth all the way in.” Even if it spirals out of control, you’ll be cursed to encourage her ultimately as she takes your whole length slowly, ensuing a leisure bobbing that aims to build up the pleasure and your own libido. 

She didn’t gag, not yet, as she continues to reach new depths, making herself accustomed to your whole length and the inevitable snaps, gagging prematurely as she tried to keep it in without pulling out but was not deemed successful, coughing a little right after her former struggles.

She wouldn’t let herself disappoint you as she grabbed your already saliva-sheathed cock as fast as she could and directed it inside her mouth, blowing you rapidly as her thrusts in quick succession never fails to set yourself on a blissful trance. Her hands find themselves onto the porcelain skin of your thighs, caressing it to voice out how comfortable she is and the other, fondling your sensitive balls in order for better stimulation and better quality of pleasure. Simultaneous gags, drool seeping out of her mouth, tears running down her cheek and her rapid pace lives up tot eh epitome of a blowjob—and she’s cursed to be great at this.cheek and the cherry on top, her rapid pace that adds up to the filthiness of a sinful image she’s been into and god, if you could just take a picture of this, let along record this as a video, you’ll absolutely do it but getting occupied by Yena’s soft lips and tight throat would be just better than anything that can bother you in this world, and you leave it as it is.

Her head frantically bobs like she’s set to hypnotize you as her techniques really live up to her title, every movement she does to stimulate you is making you feel way better than the previous, and it’s really working more than well. She constantly slurps as more drool seeps out of her hungry mouth, also a way to voice out her utter satisfaction with being rewarded with an insatiable candy that she can’t get enough of. Because of her great work between your legs, you dive into the inevitable bliss as your hands find their way to her vibrantly pink locks, grabbing a fistful of it to form a makeshift ponytail in order for you to have such strong leverage to guide her and fight for the utmost gratification.

Of course, she knows what you’ll end up into once she felt your hands on the back of her constantly bobbing head: she could only anticipate it as you hips will gradually thrust into her suffocatingly tight throat, craving for more to the point that you’ll give in and fuck her face rapidly.

She knows you and reads you like a book—again, feelings are mutual, as well as your needs towards each other.

There’s no point in not giving in to using her mouth like a fleshlight, because it’s literally what she’s built for: to take the entirety of your length to the point of no-return and absolutely giving everything you want—what your hips can muster.

“I might need to fuck that bratty mouth of yours princess, you wouldn’t mind it, won’t you?” Your sinister tone makes her apprehensive yet nonetheless, she trusts you with all her might—and you won’t dare to break that—as she nods eagerly, her eyes begging for the absence of your mercy in order to use her mouth with what might you can as she wants it badly. 

“Oh, so you want it this badly, huh?” With her slow bobs, you groan with the pleasure she’s giving yet time wouldn’t be wasted as you grip her hair and make her look up at you, your tone now laced with the utter need of voicing out her primal desires. “Then say how badly you want this, princess”

With more greedy bobs onto your rock-hard shaft, she immediately pulls out as so, and let her lips release such wanton profanities that absolutely will arouse the living beast inside of you. “I w-want you to ram on m-my slutty throat, daddy—”

“How hard, princess?” It was a sudden response, aiming to mutter up an answer escaping her lips on her possible wants of your treatment towards hers.

“Want you t-to fuck my throat like h-how I deserve it…” She trembles between divisible of her own lustful words, the utter nervousness and adrenaline kicking in as she continues stating her needs. “Want t-to feel daddy’s c-cock ramming on my t-throat because of how m-much of a slut I am.”

Good thing she knows what she is and what she came to, at this moment. Given on how sincere she is in every word she says as her tone really pleads you to service her throat, states on how she badly desires her close-to-an-ultimate prize (punishment on you own perspective) and without wasting any second, you opted to give her what she wants and to full indulge to your own carnal desires.

“Okay, princess, hands behind your back—” You command her as you grow impatient with her lustful talks, wanting to make her struggle in the best way possible—also, you would not want to hurt her in the process—and to build up the rising climax of her anticipation. “—and your head up.” Of course, your hands aren’t idle enough to just appreciate the beauty of her waiting to be ruined, as you hands force its way onto the back of her head again yet this time, you grip onto her semi-disheveled pigtails, wanting to use them as handlebars and a leverage on what you're about to do to her—maybe she purposely tied her hair this way, knowing that she’ll maybe get her mouth fucked half open.

If this is what she wants, then she’ll get it but you should let her know why this all started: it’s all because of aiming to tame her properly and if your words can’t do it, then sure, maybe your cock will do the talking.

You don’t even need to command Yena to open her mouth as she does it involuntarily, begging you for more until it was all unable to beared and contained, letting everything but indulged within and you can just see your whole length being submerged into the depths of her mouth, taking more and fully encouraging you to even go deeper. The incredible suction of her cheeks never fails to bewilder you, let alone diving deeper as every inch of her walls results in marvelous groans of pleasure because of the warmth and the right tightness of it. You gave Yena’s mouth few thrusts to get herself used on your whole length again—in a better view, she doesn’t really need that since she’s sucking and getting her mouth used by you very often that it’s started to molded onto the shape of your cock—wanting her to feel every inch of it brushing down her throat as she gags when it hits the back of her throat. She fights it with all her might this time, and when you notice her gag reflex calming down, now’s the time to use the pliant princess’s heavenly throat like how she deserves it.

How does she deserve it? Well, it’s only a matter of time for her to find out.

With now a better feeling from both parties, your hips now ensued such a breakneck pace, catching her off-guard. Yena almost breaks herself free but knowing that if she does, she will be in big trouble and be prone to a worse punishment in which she wouldn’t want to. With that in mind, she fights herself onto your rapid usage of her whole throat as drool inevitably seeps out of her mouth, coating everything in its vicinity with her saliva that further adds to the lubrication with your ruthless advances. You tighten the grip on her hair, causing to add more mess to her already disheveled locks as you continuously rammed her throat like you want to prove something—you don’t need to prove anything but rather, prove herself worthy of your mercy.

“Is this what you fucking wanted, Yena? Your f-face to be fucked like a-an animal?” It’s a rhetorical question but an evident nod ensued right after, noticing it even with your rapid pace trying to open up Yena’s throat as you could find yourself getting harsher with one goal in mind: to tame her and possibly, fuck that brattiness out of her brat mouth.

You didn’t just mindfully thrust your hips like you’re in autopilot, but rather set series of forceful deepthroats, filling every inch of her slutty throat up to the brim, balls-deep and then resuming back onto thrusting—it repeats like a cycle, and that’s part of the plan: foreplay, to be build the suspense and then suddenly go berserk. You playfully tug her hair in order to force her down and then taking your entire length with thrusts ensued on a quick succession, each oscillation hits her saliva-sheathed chin with your own balls as the audible sounds of such skin clapping is arousing you even further.

“Fuck—this bratty throat feels good—can’t wait to even feel more of you, princess—fuck!” You continue to give her ruthless thrusts, breaking the velocity barrier your hips can muster as you pull out of her mouth and not surprisingly, she gasps for heavy breaths and multiple coughs because of your harshness down her throat.

“G-God, daddy—t-that was s-so good—hah, y-you’re going t-to make my throat sore…” Yena muttered between catching breaths and a broken voice, truly making you admire the masterclass you’ve done that she surely loved.

“Of course—need this fucking throat to teach a lesson.”

“A l-lesson? Am I the n-naughtiest student you’ve ever seen, d-daddy?” Yena seduces you with her vixen capabilities and her honey-laced words dripping with lust, and it forces you to sully her again, specifically her mouth.

“You know the answer to that, princess.” Yena looks up with you with a smirk, her mischievous plan starting to come together as she bites her lips and moaned uncontrollably, your hands finding its way on caressing her perky yet voluptuous mounds as you aimed to weaken her until she’s about to be fully submissive. With her hands still on her back, she can’t help herself to fight the pleasure as she can only just whimper and close her eyes, letting the serotonin course down her veins as every second that passes is fully treasured by the bratty princess in front of you.

“I would have used your throat more harshly but bad brats like you don’t deserve to swallow my cum—not even a single ounce of it.” Your hands then palmed her cheek as your fingers caressed it right after, admiring the sullied countenance of Yena’s face that deserves to be at the hall of fame on how it perfectly depicts the oxymoron, “the ruined goddess”.

“Brats need to be punished for being such a bitch and if my words can’t tame you—” Your suspenseful tone is intimidating her, sending chills down her spine as every word you say is laced with sincerity and full on lust. Her mouth shivers when she feels your hand teasing her cheek with your throbbing length, and it’s just becoming better for now considering how you’re building up such a stupendous anticipation that anyone can hook onto, even the both of you. “—then maybe my cock will.” 

You slap your length onto her cheek, making her yelp a little as you command her to stand up, her immediately obliging to your imperative advances, even with a visible struggle because of her lack of balance. 

“Sit here and wait for me, okay? I’ll get something and don’t you dare move away from this position.” You glared at her as she nodded slowly, her mouth curling up onto a smile as her eyes glistened with her own desires, only thinking further of what you may have in store for her.

---

“Wear it, Yena.”

“But don’t I look silly, daddy?”

“Just fucking wear it—it’ll be good on you…” You grow impatient with her complaints as she does what she’s requested to do, as she wears the belt-like leather collar around her neck, her hands trembling probably from her nervousness and there’s nothing to worry about it, knowing it’ll fade faster than the speed of light. With her collar now around her neck, you commanded her to go on all her fours on the bed and again, she quickly obliged, not wanting you to wait any further. Greed consumes over you, finding its way to succumb onto your lustful needs as you line your swollen head within the emanating heat of her lower lips as she moans in every tease you do, fueling up each others’ libido. 

As much as you want to tease the living brat out of her, your aim is to fuck it out of her and you’ll do exactly what you need to.

Not wasting any second, the climax of the show starts as you penetrate her with your whole length and in response, she screams in delight because of how big you are inside her, feeling that you may destroy her guts. You easily fill her up to the hilt, burying your entire shaft inside her and then withdrawing to slam back in hard, making her cry for your mercy and to further fuck her like an animal.

The comeuppance starts, and you’re willing to teach her a lesson she wouldn’t forget—you may have done this to her a lot of times but this time, it would hit differently and you would end this session making her know who you really are to mess with.

Grateful to the helping aid of lubrication with her juices coursing down, and around your shaft, you start off with a relentless pace and don't give her time to get used to your length, wanting to make her feel your wrath and how she deserves to be treated. She further moans in every withdrawal you do as the collar helps for a better leverage onto ramming into her tight core repeatedly, and as the cherry on top, you like the muffled sounds of her chokes every time you pull the chain of the collar, you could hear her broken moans and probably, even asphyxiating her—one of her kinks is you choking her, and you’re glad to be innovative and creative on fulfilling that and knowing this, Yena appreciates this truly as she voices out to even ruin her further.

“D-Daddy—r-ruin my slu—slut pussy! I d-deserve t—to be treated l-like this—oh gosh—holy fuck!!”

You continuously do as so, and with her repeated pleas, you grew annoyed with her ebullient noises and stated your frustrations towards her. “Just s-shut the fuck up and take my cock well, princess!”

With your further attempts of silencing her with your ramming clashes against her tight pussy, you vent out your frustrations and channel everything onto your thrusts, causing her to repeatedly plead and moan because of your aggressive actions. She wanted this deserves this, so she just deserves to be fucked like a true animal. Her arms grew weaker, unable to support her upper frame due to the constant overloading of pleasure she’s been feeling and wanting to bury her head with her advances, you won’t let a single trick up her sleeve be deemed successful against you as you pulled the collar towards you, making her compose such broken melodies that reverberated around the room, and around your ears.

You can hear her cries in every thrust you do, as it’s all starting to come to the point where she’ll fully succumb to her needs and submissiveness, which is your goal before this steamy session ends. It wasn't long before you gave her round, bubble buttcheeks the hardest spanks it deserves as it became frequent all of a sudden, making her yelp and cry because of your harsh actions against her constantly-rammed backside. With now your hands fully occupied to treat her like the slut she is and like the brat she deserves, Yena can’t help but just think of your cock ravaging her tight, little cunt rapidly as it clouds her, same repeated, wanton moans are the response of your actions and knowing she wouldn’t last long at this time and with her cunt constantly clenching, you double the efforts on fucking her onto oblivion as the lustful drive in you takes over. 

“You’re about to cum, right, Yena?”

She mutters a stuttered “yes” as she nods frantically before resuming her constant moans of pleasure. “But what if I don’t want my princess to cum? Will she not cum for her daddy or will she be punished for good? Because—” You let go of the tight grip on the chains of the leather collar as you inch closely onto her ear and whispered with venom, “—if you didn’t follow me, there will be serious consequences and you won’t like that, won’t you, Yena?”

Yena’s apologetic cries can be heard laced in her agreement, scared that she may provoke you that will make her needs be deprived. “I w-will do anything f-for you, daddy but p-please—-ahh!”

You kiss her nape, and then her neck, showing your affection towards her as you worship the musky scent of her body emanating sweat, perfume and sex as you respond, “Please what, princess?”

It took seconds for Yena to respond, the gratification becoming too much to handle as she composes herself, and pleads for you. “P-Please let me cum, daddy…”

A side of you is fainthearted: wanting to not make herself be lost and want her to engage on her high as much as possible but she needs to be punished, and your conclusion with that? To fully ruin her.

Thanks to the constant lapping of her juices, it didn’t became a struggle to lubricate her puckered hole as you insert your thumb in it, opting to stimulate her further as you continued to fuck her mercilessly. It wouldn’t take long before she reaches her high with of the kinky stuff and the most stimulating advances being done all in one session as she lets out whimpers, and knowing that her high is near and you know it’ll blast like a volcano, you wouldn’t put her to torture as lean in again to her ear and then whispering again, “Then cum on my cock, princess—let it all out.”

Giving her the final thrusts with her collar as a leverage onto a greater quality of such mindless abomination of fucking, she clenched tightly as you groan because of it and within a second, she’s in her own blissful trance, moaning out your name as she voices out her ecstasy.

“D-Don’t s-stop fucking me, d-daddy—oh fuck—I’m c-cumming so h-hard—fuck!!”

As requested by her, you continue ramming her pussy as she climaxes beautifully, voicing out series of ecstatic moans as she forms a rivulet around your shaft, dripping it all over her thighs, your balls and some even on the bed sheets which soon will be changed because of how filthy and messy it would be after the both of you are done. You continue oscillating at such an incredible pace that you didn’t mind making her recover on her high, making her yell in pleasure and utmost sensitivity. With a ruthless pace, of course, you didn’t ignore the chains as you pulled

“Are y-you close, daddy? Please c-cum inside m-me—fuck, p-please, daddy—ahh—mmfh-ahh!”

“Don’t tell me what to do, slut!” Of course, after her ephemeral orgasm, you resume onto your harshness, spanking and fondling her mounds as you draw circles down her taut buds, making her whimper because of the pleasure and sensitivity. You grew frustrated and enough of her bratty actions of eternal need as you choke her a little with the collar, further ramming into her tight cunt repeatedly as her thighs now quiver, her limbs growing weaker and letting herself succumb onto your own spell, hypnotizing her with the rapid sounds of bodies clashing together that adds up to the sea of sinful sounds that’s been kept inside this puny room right from the start.

Now chasing your own orgasm and to further commit onto fucking that living brat out of her body, you gave in to your primal desires, fucking each other like animals as within a few thrusts or seconds from now, it won’t be long until you meet yourself onto the promised land—in the possibly eternal state of bliss.

Now, having enough of the collar, you pull her hair as you draw yourself closer to your own orgasm, wanting to make sure that you’ll have one hell of a climax. You repeatedly spank her to further arouse yourself onto the hypnotizing jiggles of that porcelain flesh, making you indulge and draw yourself onto the red and soon enough, it wouldn’t be that long to meet it.

“I’m going to fucking c-cum in this tight, slutty, bratty pussy, alright, princess? Be sure to take it all because fuck—t-this pussy is literally the best!”

“Yes, da—daddy! Please c-cum in me—finally, p-please—ahh—mmfhh!” You continue your rapid thrusts as your fingers coursed its way onto her mouth, making her suck it as she wantonly savors your fingers like it’s your beloved shaft, sensually licking every inch clean as you buried your whole length in her, unable to pull back but just give in.

Series of thick shots flooded her velvety walls, causing her to moan on your fingers as she can feel the warmth of your semen coating each inch of her flesh white and god, she’s also in a state of bliss on how well she is filled by you. She continues sucking and you continue depositing, even thrusting slowly to extend your orgasm further and as it dies down, you leisurely pulled out—and of course, Yena whimpered because she feels empty without your whole length ravaging inside her—of the tightness of her core, a little exhausted because of your harsh work against her sopping wet cunt and what an incredible sight it bestowed you: her freshly-fucked folds full of your cum, some of it even leaking out of her due to the stupendous amount of volume deposited in it.

Guess her highfalutin came down on a sullied conclusion; it was an incredible display of a steamy session, much likely to be cherished as the once boisterous, sex-filled room has now toned down onto tranquil and silence—mostly just heavy breaths can be heard but it is close on silence.

Yena falls limp onto the bed, her back rests as her lips tremble within her voice, “Y-you c-came so much, daddy—i-it’s so thick a-and warm—hah…”

“Now, are you satisfied, princess?”

“More than t-that, daddy…” Yena voices out her utter satisfaction as her needs are now fulfilled by you and right after, she beams a bright smile onto you which makes you faintly grin in response due to her contagious happiness. 

“Also, I’m s-sorry about acting like that earlier, daddy…” You know her apologies aren’t sincere but at the same time, they are—it’s not sincere in a way that she’ll act like a spoiled brat again someday, but now, you’re glad that you’ve fucked your way to teach her a lesson—living the new, ephemeral disposition of hers that’s down-to-earth. You would treasure this truly, but Yena, on the other hand, isn’t in the same shoes with you.

“I want some more, daddy—we can experiment on anything we want, tonight because—” Yena’s hands averted onto your jaw, making you face her as she continues, “—I’m all yours, daddy.”

Seems like she needed more than what you’ve given her and with that, you’re giving her anything to the point of no-return.

[lovelybrooke]

Yandere Self Aware Hades (Hades 2018)

So I'm about 5~8 completed escapes in, so please don't spoil anything for much later into the game. If you're worried, please just label your request as potential spoilers when sending them in.

Also this is written from the perspective of the characters, not you the player, so they're rationalizing you as some sort of omnipresence.

masterlist

---

Zagreus first felt you when his escape attempts started, leaving the house for the first time in a mad dash, feeling something deep pulse beneath him that was even greater than the deep beating of his heart. It was harsh, and strange, but warm and welcoming. At first, he didn't know what to do, accept the feeling and move on, or reject in, and suffer the unknown consequences.

But, strangely, you gave him a feeling of strength, even after he was brought down time and time again by his father henchmen, the feeling never went away. And eventually, he excepted you, and recognized you as something deeper. You weren't just a feeling, you were a companion of sorts, like his distant relatives, you were there, aiding him on his journey, and he couldn't be more thankful.

HIs feelings started off small, but grew as he felt you more and more within him. He began to crave your presence, despising anytime when you weren't there with him. Eventually, he began to notice when he'd be most likely to feel you, waiting patiently for you so he could attempt to escape once more, when he's at his strongest.

You must've been rubbing off onto his relatives, because slowly but surely, they began to notice you as well. Whenever Zagreus would pick up a boon, they would mention feeling something stirring within him, fueling his escape attempts. Depending on who it was, their words were more or less straight forward, but it wasn't like Zagreus could explain anything to them. Deep down, he wished he could've kept you to himself sooner, but the Gods were smart, so there was no hiding you from them.

And Zagreus soon came to learn that their was no hiding you from the others of the house, whether it was Orpheus, Achilles, or even his father, they all began to notice something change with him. Achilles was the first to bring this up with the prince, asking him who he was talking to when coming out of the pool of styx. Zagreus didn't have the heart to lie to Achilles, as spoke about you for the first time. For some reason, this made you more real to Zagreus, and in a way, solidified your fate as an obsession to Zagreus.

Zagreus often found himself wondering who you were, and his wondering often escaped his mind and exited his mouth, making him wonder if you could somehow hear him. He speaks to you often, mostly during escape attempts, but gets no hint that you are responding, making him wonder if his attempts are in vain. But he's reminded of his relatives, who are only able to sense a small bit of him, his presence growing stronger as he gets closer to the surface. Maybe, in a way, you're the same, maybe he could find you on the surface. That becomes his next goal in an instant. Find his mother, and then find you and thank you for the strength you've given him.

This isn't all to say that Zagreus is the only one seeking you out. The Gods upon Olympus are very curious about you, how you're able to make contact with their distant relative and leave very little of a trace. It's fascinating, but currently, with Zagreus tied to that horrible realm, there is no way of figuring anything else about you. Their only hope is to attempt to contact you through Zagreus, mentioning you when he picks up a boon. It's not much, but it's their only hope.

The people of the house also become interested in you. Some, like Megaera and Thanatos are more weary of you, believing you are something attempting to manipulate Zagreus, even though nothing of the sort has proven to be so. Others, like Orpheus and Hypnos are more welcoming to you, asking many questions to both Zagreus and you directly.

Even Chaos, the oldest being known to all mankind, is curious of your presence. They can sense something in you, something they're not even sure Zagreus is even aware of. It's funny, in a way, watching the Son of Hades attempt to find you, figure out who are, only for you to not be of this world. They wonders how long it'll take for him to dive himself mad from obsession, and it if it's already completely consumed him.

Once Hades gained awareness of you, he attempted to snuff you out from his son's mind. He thought you were a distraction, fueling his son's frivolous attempts at escaping his realm. He realized it wasn't going to be easy, nothing was easy with his stubborn son. But he hoped that if he was able to rid you from Zagreus's mind, that he'd forget about his hopeless quest of finding his mother.

However, eventually Zagreus slays his father, leaving his realm and entering into the cold, strange land of Greece, were he's able to find his mother, Persephone, but there were no signs of you. He could feel you as he entered his mother's hidden abode, but he knew you were no where to be found. And as he collapsed and reentered his home from the pool of styx once more, he knew he would have to continue his journey. He felt you, you were real, and he would die over and over and over again if it meant that one day he'd ba able to find you.

---

A/n: don't wonder how I got this out so fast, this has been boiling within me for so long. I really hope you enjoy it.

[trans-cuchulainn]

"Grief is closely allied with anger. They are expressed with similar sounds: moans, groans, shouts, and screams. Like anger, grief responds to a terrible loss or terrible harm done — but without any sense of the possibility of reparation. Anger turns the pain outward, against others; grief turns it inward, to the self. People subsumed by rage try to replicate the wrongs they have suffered by hurting others. Those consumed by grief long to turn their own bodies into that of the dead loved one, by lying down in the ground, cutting the hair, scratching the face, and rolling in the dust. The enraged want to humiliate, hurt, or kill; the grief-stricken want to be dead and to inhabit the perspective of the dead.

But grief is different from anger, because it can be expressed and experienced collectively. Through the funeral rites and games for the dead Patroclus in Book 23, Achilles shares his loss with other Greek warriors, just as the Trojans in Book 24 are able to share their grief at the death of Hector. Even enemies, like Priam and Achilles, can share a moment of grief. Anger drives communities apart; grief brings them together, over a shared acknowledgment of irredeemable loss."

Emily Wilson's Introduction to The Iliad, p. xliii

[avelera]

thesis about the sea peoples you say? may i request an infodump about the sea peoples?

Heya!

So, basically in college (undergraduate) I got really obsessed with the questions around the Collapse of the Aegean Bronze Age, mostly because I wanted to set my big Magnum Opus historical fiction novel in that time, and the deeper I dug into the rabbit hole the more it appeared that no one, absolutely no one, actually knows why the civilizations around the Mediterranean all fell from a state of pretty sophisticated internationally-trading civilizations to literal Dark Ages (all except for Egypt which was substantially weakened and never really recovered), all at once around 1200-1100 BCE.

The Sea Peoples are the names of the only contemporary (Egyptian) account we have that names who might have been responsible if this collapse was due to an invasion. It's a popular theory because a viking-style invasion is a much sexier reason for a civilization to collapse so we all gather around it like moths to flame. But the thing is, there's a lot of contradictory evidence for and against and shading that hypothesis.

Suffice to say, literally no actually knows what happened and almost every answer comes up, "Some combination of these things, probably?"

But what makes the Collapse even more interesting from a modern perspective is that if there was a historical Trojan War (and I think there was) as fictionalized in the Iliad and the Odyssey (and Song of Achilles, for the Tumbrlistas), then it would have taken place within a generation of the entire civilization that launched the Trojan War crumbling to dust.

So like, if you're Telemachus, your dad Odysseus fights in the Trojan War, some even manage to get home, and then like... everything goes to shit. Catastrophically. And doesn't recover for 400 years.

Seriously, they lost the written word, like how to actually write things down and read them and it took 400 years to get it back. That's how fucked shit got during the Collapse of the Bronze Age.

So my thesis was asking: what if these two things were related? What if the Trojan War either led to the Collapse or it was part of the Collapse or it was a result of the Collapse? Because the timeline is so unknown and muddled that it really could be any of those and again, that's if the Trojan War isn't entirely fictional (which I don't think it is, but many academics disagree, it used to be a whole thing up until Schliemann dug it up, and many doubted it was ever a historical event even after that.)

Ok, so at the risk of writing 75 pages on this again, let me just say:

My conclusion (more of a hypothesis proposal ultimately since there are so many gaps in our knowledge) was that the Trojan War took place before the Collapse of the Bronze Age. But, it might have been launched in response to a wider breakdown in trades routes and resources, causing the Greeks to launch the campaign basically as a bid to replenish their own coffers because they were getting squeezed by what they didn't know was the first rumblings of a global domino effect.

Therefore, since taking out Troy didn't solve those larger trends and forces, they all went home and then got slammed by the REAL problem, which was all the people who had been displaced from further away by this rolling drought or invasion or whatever that was disrupting these delicate international trade routes.

But the Greeks might have been part of the Sea Peoples too! Our only record of the Sea Peoples is from the Egyptians in a highly propagandistic text which makes them sound like this big fearsome foe but that might have been because saying, "We slaughtered a bunch of desperate refugees at our border who were looking for shelter," didn't sound as cool. If the Greeks (or Achaeans or Ahhiyawa) got swept up in this slow-rolling collapse/displacement of people, then they absolutely could have been among those refugees who crashed against the shores of Egypt.

A lot of my evidence was based on looking at how Troy was sacked (it was stripped literally down the nails and there was a lot of evidence of a long-term siege, like what we read about in the Iliad) vs. how Mycenae (Agamemnon's city) or Pylos (King Nestor's city) was sacked, where they were burned and stuff was stolen but they weren't stripped, it looks more like a standard looting hit-and-run type thing. Which led me to believe that it was different turmoil that rocked Mycenae and Pylos than what led to the sacking of Troy, despite the fact these things happened within about 20 years of each other. (Helen being a made-up reason for a resource-driven war would only be the oldest trick in the book, as far as propaganda goes, after all.)

But really, the craziest detail I'll leave you with is: we just don't know! And then it gets weirder. Because the Hittites fell at the same time so the Hittites scholars say, "Nah, the Sea Peoples weren't Hittites, they were probably Greeks." And the GREEK scholars say, "It wasn't us, it was probably the Hittites or someone else. " and the EGYPTIAN scholars say, "Yeah it was someone north of Egypt, maybe the Hittites or the Greeks." and the LEVANT scholars say, "It wasn't from the Levant, we know what was going on there, it has to be from somewhere else."

Literally every single possible source of the Sea Peoples has the scholars who specialize in that location saying it's not them and it must be the guy next door.

It's maddening!

And then there's a big ol' gap around Bulgaria and the Black Sea because, oh yeah, the Soviet Union forbade archaeology in those areas to quash any local pride so those places that were behind the Iron Curtain are decades behind on scholarship that would allow them to say, "Oh hey, it was actually us! Yeah, the invaders came from Bulgaria and got pushed down by a famine." or something to that effect.

We also have some histories from the time saying that the Sons of Heracles returned not long after the Trojan War to lay Greece to waste! And it's really evocative and sounds like it fits what we've got of all these burned cities that happened right after Troy fell! Except that's in doubt now too!

The latest theory is that it was climate change that led to a massive drought. You can read about it in the latest and most popular book on the subject, 1177 BCE which I highly recommend because if it had existed when I wrote my thesis, I wouldn't have had to write it.

But I disagree with the conclusion! Or rather, I'm skeptical. Because very decade, the problems of the day have been hypothesized as being the cause of the Collapse. Like, in the 60s, there was a theory that maybe it was internal strife around a labor strike, like the French Revolution. And y'know when there's a world war, they think it's an invasion. And there was a theory that it was 'cuz of an earthquake (I think that one is nonsense, Mediterranean civilizations famously bounce back quickly from earthquakes.) And now that climate change is on our mind, I'm a little weary to see that it's the new theory because it feels way too much like we're just projecting our problems onto this giant question mark.

Was climate an aspect! I think so! I think it might have contributed to the break down in trade routes that made everyone in the Mediterranean really stressed out and hostile and warlike and led to a lot of displacement. I'm not sure if it's the only reason though and I think the book just kinda reiterates everyone else saying, "I think it was this but in the end, we just don't know, and it was probably a lot of things." which we've known for ages so it's just repeating all the same conclusions. *sigh*

... Like I said, I wrote my thesis on this so yeah, I could go on for a while lol.

[ineffectualdemon]

The Illiad and the Odyssey are two very different but very compelling narratives with deep themes about humanity, violence, grief, war, regret etc

And I would absolutely kill for an adaption of either set in an children's primary school in a small village where the various gods are teachers, administration, and the parents and the mortal characters are children

The skeezy principal is Zeus who has had affairs a number of mums and staff members

The Illiad is set during sports day and competition between two particular classes after Helen changed classes and started sitting with Paris at lunchtime when she used to sit with Menelaus

Patroclus gets a sprained ankle and has to go to the nurse and Achilles who has emotional regulation issues chases Hector until he gets a bad Asthma attack and has to go to the hospital

All the deaths are kids taken out due to injuries

The Odyssey is set after sports day where Odysseus and his friends just want to his house to play video games but he and his friends keep running into bullshit. Either delayed at the school or at the park etc (people dying is kids going home)

Like it's clearly kids at a school in all the imagery and especially from the perspective of the Adults/Gods but its still super dramatic from the kids pov, like not anything to suggest it's not kids at a sports day but dramatic lighting and angles and music etc

Meanwhile all the dialogue stays true to the source as possible

Like I just think that would be fun

[3d-wifey]

And They'd Find Us in A Week - Chapter 12

Pairing: Finnick Odair x Reader Word Count: 8.4k Synopsis: Here! Playlist: Listen up! Tag list: - @melancholicmelanin, @yvy1s, @glomp-me, @honethatty12, @swftlore, @hashcakes, @antoheartit, @finnickodaddy, @lilifl0wer, @antoheartit, @kermitcrimess, @persophonekarter, @aawdrea, @obaewankenobis, @xyxlyn, @meandurdaughtergotaspecialthing, @innercreationflower, @kisskittenn Chapter Summary: There's a certain kind of pain in reading or watching something from the perspective of a character who doesn't know about the tragedy ahead of them. It's like watching a scary movie and going, "No, don't go to sleep! He's behind the door!" Like in The Song of Achilles, we all know how the original story ends. We know how the actual prophecy plays out. We know that the moment Patroclus's heart stops, Hector and Achilles fates are set in stone. You wince whenever Achilles says he has no reason to kill Hector because "What has Hector done to me?" You want to tell him that Hector will do the unforgivable to him. You want to tell Patroclus not to go on the field. Tell Achilles to get his damned head out of his ass as he disguises Patroclus as himself because he is at risk of losing something far more important than his pride. You hold your breath as Patroclus is speared in the back and as Achilles realizes the consequences of his actions. You knew it was coming, and yet, you still read the story because a part of you hoped. You hoped for the hopeless. All this to say that knowing and still having hope regardless is crueler than complete ignorance. A/N: I imagined your stylist as Anne Hathaway in Alice in Wonderland.

Past (xiii) - You [22 & 23] - THE CAPITOL

If you were from any other district, maybe it would have surprised you how attached Rue is to you. But the sense of community in Eleven breeds this need for kinship. You’re social creatures; you’re not meant to be on your own. Certainly not in a place like the Capitol. It’s how you end up hugging your knees to your chest, an unnamed ocean projected on your wall as you try to get lost in the tides the night before the tributes will be marched into the arena.

No one talks about this part, or maybe they just don’t want to think about it. The part where being forced back into the room you slept in during your own Games eats at you—that anxiety that courses through your veins and leaves your body thrumming. Because no matter what you tell yourself, your body isn’t entirely convinced that you won’t be the one entering the arena tomorrow. You close your eyes and suddenly you’re fifteen again, gripping the sheets so hard you could tear holes in them as you fight the vomit threatening to ride the wave of acid reflux.

Sleeping beside Finnick helped. He reminded you that you weren’t fifteen and alone and wishing you’d die in your sleep so you wouldn’t be slaughtered live. And now? Well, at least there’ll always be the ocean.

There’s a knock on your door, so tentative that you would have missed it if you weren’t already so keyed up.

You pause the projection of the ocean, assuming the sound woke someone up. You get up and go to open it, only to see Rue. Suddenly you’re shamefaced and embarrassed, like you’ve been caught doing something pathetic, even though it’s doubtful she even knows what the sound was, let alone the significance of you listening to it.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. Was I being too loud?”

“No.” She shakes her head, shifting from foot to foot. “Um, I couldn’t sleep. And I just—I saw that your light was on and thought maybe you couldn’t sleep either?”

That may be true, but you don’t think it’s the only reason. Rue is the oldest of six and they all live in Shacktown. With all those people in one house, you’re sure Rue’s never slept alone a day in her life. It makes you wonder how she managed these past few days.

You’re an only child; your dad was killed before your parents could have any more, so you can’t say for certain that you understand what she feels. Yet, you reminisce on the fact that you’ve never really gone through a year of mentoring without Finnick being within arm’s reach.

She stares up at you with those big, pleading puppy-dog eyes, and you twist your mouth to the side.

“C’mon.” You move so you aren’t blocking the entrance anymore and you nod your head towards your room. “How ‘bout you sleep in here with me tonight? You don’t have to, of course, but we might as well stay up together.”

You know you’ve made the right choice when she grins big, rushes in, and takes a running start to jump on your bed. You shake your head fondly as she scurries to get under the blanket, lying down with them pulled under her arms and getting comfortable like she belongs there. The door slides shut behind you and you twist the dimmer until the only light comes from the projector. You settle into your bed beside Rue and you can’t help but snort at how she keeps smiling at you.

“So…What were you watching?”

“Uh.” You pick the remote up to unmute the device and the sound of crashing ocean waves fills any remaining silence. “The ocean.”

She looks over, seemingly transfixed by the drag and pull of the water. The nearest ocean to Eleven is the one that rests just outside of the towering fence and only serves as a deterrent for escaping. This very well may be her first time seeing one outside of a textbook. “Why?”

“Well, I,” you let out a weighted breath, "I thought it would make me feel better. Help me sleep.”

“Oh.” Says Rue and then she looks at you. “Why?”

You let out a surprised laugh. “Um. I guess the ocean reminds me of my friend and—I don’t know. It’s just easier to sleep with him around."

“Is he your crush?” Crush? Such an innocent question feels surprisingly weighted considering your current relationship with Finnick. Or lack thereof. Is it a crush now that it’s unrequited?

“I love him.” You tell the wall and it’s the sad truth. You still do. You wouldn’t be so hung up if you didn’t.

"Whoa. You like like him.” Like like. It’s been years since you heard that. It brings to mind how young she is. It’s not as if you needed another reminder. “It’s okay, I won’t tell. I like someone too.”

“Oh? And what’s his name?” You smile. You both flip over to face each other. You picture little you and little Sage, shyly holding hands during downtime, and find yourself hoping this boy liked Rue back.

“You can’t tell anyone.” She narrows her eyes and makes you swear, which you do with a pinky promise. “Coriander.” Her voice goes all quiet and timid as she hides her face and you wonder if you’ve ever seen anything cuter.

“Ah, I think I might know him.” She looks at you with wide eyes as you tease her, peering out from between her fingers.

“Nuh-uh, no way.” She denies it as you tap a finger on your chin and pretend to think about it.

“No, no. I think I do. He’s got pink hair, no teeth, and walks with a waddle, right?”

“No!” She giggles and you can’t help but giggle along with her. You take a moment.

“Finnick. The boy I like.” You provide when she looks confused. “His name is Finnick.”

“Oh! Oh! Is he that boy from Four? The victor?” It’s hardly shocking that she recognizes him. He’s one of ‘the greats’. You nod and she gasps like that’s the juiciest piece of gossip she’s ever heard.

“He’s pretty.” She whispers.

“He is.” You laugh.

“Is he nice?”

“The nicest,” you say without thought or contempt. Finnick’s indeed been nothing but kind to you since you’ve met him, current behavior not included. You find that even when you’re mad at him, you can’t actually disparage him. And you don’t want to lie to Rue. “He made me this." You lift your wrist and show her your bracelet. You’ve been wearing it around your ankle while you’re out in public, but when you’re on your own, it goes back to its rightful place.

“Cori made something for me too.”

She pulls her necklace up for you to see. It’s woven grass attached to a wooden charm shaped like a flower—you squint—or maybe a star? Definitely the handiwork of a child. Adorable. It reminds you of Cane.

“Your token?”

“Yep. He gave it to me when everyone came to see me off after I was reaped. He ran all the way home and back to give it to me. He almost didn’t get back in time, but I waited for him. I knew he’d come, and that’s why it’s good luck.”

“Makes sense.” You nod and she nods with you, like she’s happy that you get her logic. “He must like you a lot to go through all that.”

“Yeah. He’s sweet.” She smiles, fidgeting with the charm.

“I bet he is.” You push some of her curls out of her face. Just two doomed girls talking about their equally doomed crushes.

It’s silent for a moment; ocean noises make your eyes feel heavier with the pull of each tide. You watch as the shadows cast from the projector paint the ceiling in a series of swirling blues. You think you can see Finnick’s favorite color hidden amongst the other shades.

“Were you scared? When you went into the arena?” Rue asks and you still can’t find it in yourself to lie to her.

“Terrified.”

“Really? You’re so brave though?” She sounds so genuinely confused that you have to hold back your laughter. You don’t want her to think you're making fun of her. You appreciate the vote of confidence. It’s more than you have in yourself.

“I think…being brave means doing something even if you are terrified.” You look away from the ceiling to make eye contact. “It’s okay to be scared, Rue. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, I know.” She mumbles like she doesn’t actually believe it.

“I think you’re incredibly brave.” You know she regularly went foraging for food for her siblings, and she took on more hours than what was required of her. Who knows how many times she’s entered her name for Tesserae?

And she’s still so young.

“Really?”

“Oh, definitely.” You laugh at her skepticism. You’ve laughed more with Rue in the short time you’ve had with her than in the last two years combined. Sadly, there hasn’t been much of a reason for you to. Realizing that this is the last night you two will laugh together is devastating. “I was fifteen and I felt like I was on the edge of breaking down the entire time. How are you so calm?” She’s only twelve years old—not even a teenager. If you were in her shoes, you’d have dehydrated yourself from how much you were crying.

“I am scared, but…" She drags out the ‘uh’, then shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t feel real.”

“Hmm. I get that.” You don’t tell her that it won’t start feeling real until she either wins or dies. It’ll only make her feel worse. She closes her eyes and you two are quiet for a time—so long that you think she’s fallen asleep.

Her voice is small when she asks, “Can I hold your hand?”

“Of course.” You hold your right one out for her to take, and her little fingers lace with yours. Her palms are callused too. Not as much as yours. No, she’ll never have enough time to catch up to yours.

Rue moves closer to you and you wrap your left arm around her. You feel her say your name more than you hear it and you hum in response. “Thank you.”

You pull her closer to your chest, your linked hands resting between you. “Of course, sweetheart.” You say this into the crown of her head, wishing that you could have done more for her and Thresh—wishing you weren’t so helpless.

But you can do this. You can give her this last comfort, this last embrace from home. You hold her tight as you both fall asleep and you only let her go when they come to take her away in the morning.

You do not cry.

-

You miss him, you decide one day. You thought you hated him after you got through your self-pity, but the words "hate" and "Finnick" are too oxymoronic to ever stay together for long. You were so angry at yourself, angry at the world, but you sat with that anger long enough to know what it truly was. Grief. You miss him the way you'd miss a limb. You're so used to having it that you only remember it's gone when you notice the space it used to occupy and feel the phantom aches of what it used to be—what you used to have and took for granted.

Chaff has described in detail the pain of losing his hand. But, he said, nothing hurts worse than remembering it’s not there.

You've never taken Morphling and you don't know anyone personally who's gotten hooked on it, but you imagine this is what withdrawal feels like. You haven't seen him since before he sent that letter, and it feels like he's actively avoiding you. You said years ago, after Annie's Games, that you could handle just being his friend if he decided he didn’t want you anymore. But he never gave you the chance.

That’s alright. It’s perfectly fine. You know when you’re not wanted around, you can take a hint.

Maybe it's for the best. There’s no telling what you would do if you ran into him again. Something pathetic, probably, like begging him to take you back. There's a specific moment when you really feel your loss. A few days into the 74th Hunger Games. Chaff is finalizing the transaction with the money Eleven gathered to send bread for Rue and Thresh, so you’re on your own. 

“Your girl is something else.” You tell Haymitch from where you stand beside him, arms crossed, as you split your attention between him and the Games.

He cocks his head slightly, glancing at you out of the corner of his eye, then returns to watching Katniss and Rue rehearse their strategy. “I can say the same to you.” You hadn’t expected Rue to team up with anyone, but you can’t say you are surprised that it’s Katniss. The girl did volunteer for her little sister, after all. Primrose, was it? But you’re concerned that your little speech about being brave by doing things that terrify you may have swayed her to come out of hiding and help Katniss.

You can’t take full credit, though. Rue—well, she’s far too kind for her own good.

You look him over, a glass of something alcoholic in one hand while the other remains buried in his pocket. Honestly, you’ve never seen him this invested in the Games before, but you could hazard a guess why. You weren’t just blowing smoke up his ass about Katniss. She’s honestly got a pretty good shot of winning, if not making it to the top five. She’s already a fan favorite, along with Rue, Peeta, Glimmer, and Cato. She’s exceeded your expectations, along with Haymitch’s. No wonder he’s been networking his ass off. If she’s actually got a chance at surviving this, he owes it to her to try.

That’s when it happens.

Rue’s screams echo in your ears as Katniss races through the forest. Something has gone wrong—she's been captured or the Careers are using her as bait, or—you wipe your sweaty hands on your dress and then recross them, wanting more than anything to bite at the skin around your nails. You hold your breath, hoping beyond hope that she’s saved from whatever fate has befallen her.

She’s by herself in the clearing. Caught in a net, but not hurt. Katniss manages to get Rue out and your muscles begin to untense, but the relief is incredibly short-lived. 

Marvel, that cocky little boy from two, throws his spear with deadly precision, lance soaring past Katniss to pierce Rue in the abdomen.

Your hands are numb as they cover your mouth, but then you remember where you are and drop them just as quickly. She pulls the spear from her chest and you want to yell at her not to, that taking it out will only make her bleed quicker. Like it even matters at all when she’ll bleed out regardless. You think you need to sit down.

Katniss catches her before she falls. You’re lightheaded.

Katniss sings to her after she whispers something that the mics can’t pick up and it feels like your heart is being wrung dry. You think of Rue’s mother. You think of her six siblings, who all look up to her. You think of Coriander. You think of how small she felt in your arms and how tightly she held your hand. You think of a lot of things in the time it takes for her heart to stop beating.

The cannon fires and all eyes go to you. Ranging from curious to pitying. Some are even tearful. She was a fan favorite, after all. Mentors and Capitols alike split their attention between you and the screens to catch your reaction, but your face is deceptively blank. You stare ahead silently, your eyes unseeing as they remain on the screen.

You will not give them the pleasure of seeing you break down. Katniss will leave and Rue’s body will be airlifted out and that will be the end of it.

This is nothing new for you. You’ve gone through this twelve other times. Why would she be any different? She isn't. You tell that to your shaky hands and they only tremble further. You tell your heavy lungs and they only get heavier. You try telling your chilly skin, but all it does is make you feel colder. Why is she different?

You want to close your eyes as Katniss grieves. To be able to save one little girl but not another, it must weigh heavy.

“I’m so sorry." Someone comes to stand beside you, some Capitol elite. “One less chance for your district to win.” You look at him from the corner of your eye and Haymitch scoffs on your other side. For one stupid moment, you thought he was offering his condolences.

“Right. Well. There’s still Thresh.” He nods along to your words, thoughtful, like you’re talking about the likelihood of a horse winning a race.

“Yes, he’s the big one, right? I have money riding on him or Cato winning.” Of course, he remembers his name and not Thresh’s. You close your eyes before they can roll out of your head. “I’d like to send him something to eat as a sponsor. I worry—what is she doing?” You open your eyes to see what tribute has captured his attention, only to see Katniss again. But she’s still with Rue, kneeling next to her body with an armful of flowers—

“She’s giving her a funeral.” You bite your bottom lip to keep it from trembling. Rue rests on a bed of flowers—white daisies and lavender. She tucks a bouquet of daisies in her little hands and you wonder if Katniss knows the significance that being surrounded by flowers has for your people. Or maybe that’s something your two districts have in common. All that’s missing is fruit and it would be a proper Eleven funeral.

A funeral for a little girl. Your heart grows heavy with that realization and your mouth curls into a scowl.

You shouldn’t think about how she clung to you before she was sent into the arena. You shouldn’t think of Coriander’s childish hope dying with her. You shouldn’t think about her family watching this. You shouldn’t think of how her mother woke up this morning with six children and will go to sleep with only five. You shouldn’t, you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t—

“Oh, how sweet.” The man coos.

“Yes.” Katniss faces the camera, kisses her three middle fingers, and salutes the cameras—salutes District Eleven. You don’t think of Coriander sprinting to the train clutching a grass-woven necklace with a good-luck charm that wasn’t very lucky. “Very sweet."

On instinct, you reach to the left for Finnick, but there's no hand to hold other than your own.

You need Finnick, and he isn’t here and for the first time since you've become a mentor, you have to brave the games by yourself and shoulder your grief alone. 

“Kid…” A flinch rolls through you at the unexpected voice, and you look to your left at Haymitch’s face as he goes through a range of emotions before settling on sympathy. No. Empathy. For a moment, you forgot he was beside you. But he hasn’t forgotten you. 

He does something that surprises you again. He places a big hand on the nape of your neck, warm and callused, and squeezes. You exhale sharply, your face twisting minutely, and it’s the closest thing to crying that you’ll allow yourself to do. He pulls you into his side, and it’s a battle not to burrow into him—a battle you lose. Your image will allow you to do this much. Allow you to be comforted while many of the other Capitols in the room do the same thing because it’s all very sad. You wrap your arms around his waist from where you’re held tight against his side and his hand goes down to rub your back soothingly.

No words are said between you two, and that’s enough. It has to be. Past (xiii) - Finnick 

[22 & 23] - DISTRICT FOUR Finnick has never felt worse.

The sky is clear, the stars are bright, and Finnick has never felt worse.

It’s a particularly quiet night on the beach. There’s no one walking along the shore, no bonfires, no night swimming. There’s only Finnick. 

He sits with his legs crossed under him; the coarse sand is warm against the exposed skin of his legs and feet. He’s always been able to come down to the beach to think and unload any weight on his shoulders. With how heavy his heart feels, he’s never needed that release more. A cool breeze carries the smell of the ocean, but it’s not as comforting as it should be. 

He reaches into the ornate box sitting between his thighs and just rests his hand there, letting his fingers ghost over the pages upon pages of parchment paper. He’s kept a tight lid on this box, hoarding your letters and your scent inside like a corvid. Even now, outside on the shore, your smell wafts around him—concentrated and stiff. He blinks past the tears in his eyes.

He doesn’t look inside; he doesn’t think he can handle it. To see the length of your relationship measured by words on paper, to know he’ll never be adding to this box again—it’s too much.

He pulls out a letter at random. 

His eyes have already readjusted to the darkness as he uses the moonlight to read. He traces the looping lines of your handwriting. 

This is the letter you sent along with that pretty picture of yourself in case he forgot what you look like. A beautiful sentiment, but largely unnecessary. Finnick knows your reflection as well as he knows his own, if not better. Even now, with all this space, time, and hurt between the two of you, he could draw your portrait blindfolded. Not that anything could ever live up to the real thing. Nothing can compare to you.

He sighs, twisting his bracelet around his wrist absently. He feels the cool grooves of the fish charm between his thumb and pointer finger as he looks at the stars. There are more stars than there are grains of sand. Each tiny, flickering dot is a blazing inferno, the likes of which he can hardly comprehend. They don’t shine nearly as brightly as you do in his memory. 

He just…he just wishes he could have told you that.

Unconsciously, his eyes fall on Cassiopeia. Punished for boasting about the beauty of her daughter. It’s not fair. Her only crime was loving her child, and for that, she was forced to give her up for the safety of her kingdom.

Sacrificing someone you love for the greater good. He can’t tell if he wants to scoff, scream, or cry. Maybe all three.

Are you looking at the same sky as him? Even now, are the two of you still connected? Is it cruel to hope for that? It has to be, but Finnick has found that he's grown rotten in his misery. Rotten and incredibly selfish. 

Over the past year, you’ve sent him letter after letter and he read each one with ravenous eyes—desperate for you in any way he could have you. You were angry, you were hurt, you were confused. You alternated between begging him and demanding him to reply. So he did. Of course, he did. He could never deny you anything.

He just never sent any of them.

He kept them stashed in a drawer, locked away so he didn’t have to look at them—wouldn’t have to look at his bleeding heart. It wasn’t healthy; he knows that, but still. He just wanted to pretend, just for a little while, that everything was back to normal. That he hadn’t ripped out his soul by tearing yours apart. 

Those letters had been a constant staple in his life for nearly seven years, and—he was going to wean himself off of it, off of you, really, he was. 

But he never got the chance to before they stopped coming a few months ago. They just stopped.

He should be happy about that. He should be pleased that you're moving on. He should be a lot of things that he's not, but, as it turns out, he’s getting pretty fucking sick of performing for an empty audience. You've given up on him, and you have every right to, but— 

God, it hurts.

It’s for the best. It’s what he wanted—no, it’s what he needed to happen for both of you. And it’s certainly better than the alternative Snow offered.

Knowing all that doesn’t make it hurt any less; it doesn’t make the pain any easier to bear.

He takes out another letter, and it’s…it’s the first one? The first letter you left him after you spent the night in his room. He remembers waking up on the floor, tired and raw from that conversation on the balcony. He was fully prepared to act like it never happened. He was a little disappointed to wake up alone, but he was sure that it only proved that you wanted to forget about it too. Imagine his surprise when he rolled over—not to the empty space he was expecting, but to a note on your pillow.

I really appreciate…

Thank you for…

Just thank you.

He was left floored. He was seventeen years old and he couldn’t remember the last time anyone thanked him for anything.

Finnick brings the note to his nose and your perfume floods his senses, drowning him in memories. Memories of long train rides home from the Capitol, his only company being the smell of you on his clothes.

And try as he might, he can’t forget. He can still feel the blood caked under his fingernails and flaking at his wrist. Can still feel the warmth of your beating heart in his hand after he ripped it out. That’s his punishment. Remembering it all, good and bad.

He’s broken from his musing by the crunching of sand approaching him from behind.

“You’ve been out here for hours. Aren’t you cold?” Annie's soft-spoken voice is almost lost in the wind. No. He isn’t. He’s the exact opposite, actually. He’s scorching from the inside out. He’s burning bright and hot and one day he’ll implode under the weight of it all like a supernova. The only respite he can imagine is the cool relief of your touch. He’s scared he’ll forget what that feels like. 

She sighs when he doesn’t answer. “We know you’re hurting, Finnick, and we’re worried. You can talk to us. You don’t have to just…talk to your letters. We’re here for you.”

He doesn’t look up; he doesn’t have the strength to, but he nods anyway. Of course, they can tell he’s hurting. A blind man could spot his suffering from a mile away. He hadn’t bothered to hide it outside of the Capitol.

“...Try not to stay out here too long, okay?

Annie squeezes his shoulder before walking back up the beach, leaving him alone, and he's thankful. She shouldn't have to see him like this. She shouldn't have to see him break down. 

I'm allowed to, he thinks, I'm in mourning.

But how can he mourn something he killed?

He reaches into the box one more time, pulling out a stray scrap of paper and a pen. His hands shake along with his shoulders, his handwriting so bad that only he and you would be able to understand it. He writes:

Dear Heart,

I don’t know who Finnick Odair is without his love for you.

Every day, I think I can’t possibly miss you more than I already do. And then another day passes and I prove myself wrong.

Is there a fate crueler than this?

I just want to see you again. I just want to hold you again. One last glance, one last smile, one last laugh, one last kiss. If I knew the last time I saw you would be the LAST time I saw you, I never would have blinked. I’d have made the moment last forever. But forever isn’t nearly enough, is it?

Do you think you could ever forgive me?

-I love you I love you I love you,

Finn

Present (XI) - Finnick

[23 & 24] - THE CAPITOL; ELEVENTH FLOOR

“I thought I’d find you here."

“Haymitch.” Finnick leans in the doorway of your room, wiping sleep from his eyes. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep. He wanted to stay awake and bask in the little time he had left with you, but he hadn’t slept next to you in so long and it felt like he was lured in.

“Listen,” the man rubs at his scruff, “it’s not what I came here for, but I’m happy you two figured out whatever the hell…” He trails off with a particularly constipated look, waving a hand vaguely in the direction of your room.

“...Right. Thanks.” Finnick clears his throat. “I’m, uh, I’m happy too.”

“Yeah…Anyway.” He sighs. “There've been a few last-minute adjustments to the plan.”

That wakes Finnick up, his mind running over what Haymitch has already told him to do in the arena. “Oh, should I wake Star—”

“No, no. This is just for you. We realized you’d have no way of knowing when you should be heading to the pickup point, especially since things out here can change on a dime.” He steps closer, burying his hands in his pockets. “Once all of the necessary players are gathered in the arena, a sponsor gift will be sent down, probably some kind of food. Pay attention to the district and the amount that’s sent.”

Finnick squints. “Why?”

“The district tells you the day we’re coming and the amount tells you the hour—do not get the two mixed up.” Haymitch raises a hand, staring Finnick down until he nods. 

“Alright, I won’t. And the pickup point?”

“When in doubt, Beetee will know.” He sighs, running a hand through his hair. He’s sure working behind the scenes and acting as a messenger is harrowing work, especially with Snow on such high alert. “Our girl managed to get in Peeta’s good graces. Not that I’m surprised; they probably bonded over how ‘fun’ and'rewarding' it is to help the less fortunate or something. Having her plus Beetee and Wiress will definitely give Johanna and Blight some credibility in Katniss’s eyes. You, on the other hand, are gonna need to rely on something other than your good looks and Mags.” He fishes a flash of gold out of his pocket—some kind of bracelet.  

Finnick takes it gingerly, examining how the light makes it shimmer.

“Take it into the arena as a token. Show it to her, preferably before she shoots you between the eyes. And, shit, if that doesn’t work, ask her…tell her to remember who the real enemy is.”

He wants to ask what that means outside of this very specific context; he wants to know what this bracelet means to him and Katniss if just seeing it will be enough for her to make him an ally. But he doesn’t. He feels like it’ll bring on more questions than it’ll answer.

“I’m gonna need you to hold onto something for me then.” He reaches into one of the deep pockets along his billowy pants until he feels the familiar shape against his fingers. He’s almost hesitant to give it away. When the Quell was announced, he was sure he would die with it on him. But it’s a part of you and he can’t take the chance of it getting destroyed. “It’s, um. It’s a photo she gave to me a few years back, I always carry it on me—”

“You don’t need to explain.” When it’s handed to him, Haymitch takes a moment to look at you. Finnick feels a little self-conscious of how faded it is from years of him running his fingers along your face—faded from years of being well loved. “I’ll make sure she gets back to you.” He’s careful when placing your photo in his pocket and Finnick feels relieved that there’s someone on the outside who wants to get you out of the arena just as much as he does.

“Good luck, kid.” He squeezes Finnick’s shoulder and hesitates. His eyes shift to the walkway that leads to where you’re resting. “When she wakes up, tell her…Tell her I said…” He trails off, his face severe, and Finnick understands painfully well.

“I will.” He promises. Haymitch purses his lips before giving a nod. Finnick watches his back as he leaves and wonders if that will be the last conversation he has with the man, one of his oldest friends.

Present (XI) - You 

[23 & 24] - THE CAPITOL; THE ARENA “Your tracker.” The Peacekeeper yanks your arm up wordlessly and waits for you to pull your sleeve back. You squint around the sharp pain as he jabs the needle into your forearm, burying the tracking device under your skin. You glare at his back and rub at your now-raised skin. 

You grip the straps of your seatbelt as the hovercraft begins its ascent.

As relayed from Haymitch to Finnick to you, Peeta brought you up as an ally, and, luckily enough, Katniss wasn't against the idea. It might have something to do with the conversation you and she had before the Chariot Rides or maybe it’s the fact that you're the only person Peeta suggested. It hadn't been your intention to get on his good side when you offered to train him, but you're glad you did. It makes your job that much easier.

“It's a very breathable, lightweight material, so I’m thinking of a humid environment, maybe tropical. Large bodies of water for certain. Have you decided on a token?" Your stylist pipes up from her seat beside you.

“Oh. Yeah.” You lift your hand to show her the blue bracelet sitting snugly on your wrist. She gasps and you pull your wrist away, looking around the carrier for anything that could be the cause of the sound. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing!” She waves you off with a flippant hand. “It’s just, I didn’t think I’d see you wear that bracelet again. I know Finnick never took his off, but—” You yank your arm back against your chest, holding your bracelet almost as if you can hide it.

"Wha-what..how do you, how…?”

“Us stylists confide in each other, and, well, those of us behind the scenes thought the two of you were just so cute together! I never saw you without that bracelet for five years straight and then one day, it was just gone. Poof! Oh, we were worried sick something happened with you two. But now it’s back!” She cheers, clapping her hands.

You gape at her. “You…you knew? All of you? And you never…?” Never leaked the gossip to the tabloids? To Snow?

“What? Heavens no! We're not heartless, dear. It wasn't our place. Besides,” she leans over, her crimson-painted lips pulled into a smile as she pats your thigh. Her eyes are glossy enough that you’re almost certain she’ll start crying. “You two deserve to be happy.”

You nod stiltedly, rocked by this new information. Did Finnick know? No. If either of you did, you would have been a bit nicer to your stylists. You’re quiet for the rest of the flight as she talks to you. This time around, you do try to listen to what she’s saying, nodding along at the right moments to show you’re paying attention. It’s a bit late, but you feel like you owe it to her.

She walks you down to the tube that’ll take you to the arena.

“This is it, my dear.” She sniffs, raising a hand to her mouth as she actually starts crying now. “Oh, I’m a mess. I’m sorry.” She apologizes, fanning her pale face. You don’t think about it too hard; instead, you step toward her and pull her into a tentative hug.

“It’s okay, Shimmer,” you comfort her. “And for what it’s worth, thank you.”

“It’s not okay. It’s not fair at all.” You let her squeeze you tight, allowing the hug to go on longer than you normally would. She inhales and then pulls away. She holds you by your shoulders and takes you in. “It’s been an honor working with you, my dear.”

“Same here.” You smile, but it feels more like a grimace.

You step onto the platform.

The door slides shut behind you and you start feeling sick as you rise. Sick enough that you worry you might vomit before you even make it into the arena. Your heart beats in your teeth. It’s starting to dawn on you, you realize, just how fucked you are. There’s the revolution, but there’s no guarantee you’ll even live long enough to be saved. You’ve been training like crazy, not that it was that hard with the way you grew up. It’s one thing to use your skills for physical labor; it’s another to use them in a fight to the death. That wasn’t how you survived your Games.

You hold your breath, gathering and reminding yourself of what’s important. The plan. And the plan hinges on you getting to the Cornucopia and surviving.

Your stylist tearfully waves you off as you rise, her elaborate and puffy white gown the last you see of her. You look up at the hole of light as you approach it, your nails digging into your palm.

The drastic temperature change makes you shiver and squint, raising your hand to block the blinding rays of the sun. This heat is different from the kind you’re used to. Heavier, somehow even more humid than Eleven’s muggy summers. The sun disorients you and the little wind that comes through carries the smell of salt. You push through the fog of your senses and force yourself to see.

There’s water—a shit ton of it. Saltwater if your nose is to be trusted. Shimmer was right.

The first thing you do is look for Finnick. You can’t help yourself; the need to know where he is is stronger than your need to acclimate. Your gaze bounces from tribute to tribute in your search for him. Sweat is already gathering on your brow when you finally find him. You see him, but only barely, on your left. He’s about three sections away, close enough that you make eye contact with him. It’s brief and fleeting, but long enough for your stomach to settle and your heartbeat to slow. 

You’re all divided by rocky strips of land that protrude from the island the Cornucopia rests on like the spokes of a wheel. And in between each spoke are two tributes. That would mean there are twelve sections.

Mentally, you try to map out where everyone is. You note that Finnick is standing beside Chaff.

On your immediate left is Johanna, sectioned off from you by the long line of rocks. You nod at each other and relief courses through you knowing you won’t have to search for her. Beetee stands with Cecilia in between Finnick and Johanna’s respective sections. Was this placement intentional or just luck?

With half of your group near you, your eyes rove around for the missing two and—

“Shit.” You curse. You’ll have to go looking for Wiress. That’s the first part of the plan: Johanna gets Beetee, you get Wiress, and Blight waits for the four of you away from the Cornucopia. You’re lucky to be placed next to Beetee and Johanna, but it would have been nice if Wiress was a little closer. Or within your line of sight, at least.

“Let the 75th Hunger Games begin. May the odds be ever in your favor.” 

The sound of Ceasar’s cohost echoes throughout the arena and you rush to gather more information. On your immediate right is the woman from Nine, about the same distance from you as the strip of land on your left. You know she never stepped foot in the training center, so you’re confident in the fact that she isn’t a threat. A little further down are Peeta and the man from Ten. You do a double-take. You hadn’t expected him to be so close to you and you have to force yourself to ignore him. You beat back the instinct to watch him like a hawk; that isn’t your job right now—it’s Mags and Finnick’s. The next section houses Woof and Mags and beside them are Enobaria and the female morphling. That’s as far down as you can see.

Your muscles tense up when he begins the countdown. 

You take stock of your surroundings. Before you is the Cornucopia, and behind you is a beach and a deep forest—no, a jungle. The large body of water surrounding your platform looks pretty clear. Nothing but fish and plants, you’re sure. It’s doubtful they’d put anything deadly in there. Not when so many of the tributes can’t do anything more than doggy paddle. And certainly not this early into the Games. What an odd choice to have water this deep. Especially considering how rare a skill swimming is in the districts.

You watch the red, rotating cube as it flashes down to one, your muscles poised like a spring as you prepare to jump. You take a breath and dive in.

Deep in the woods behind the shack your family used to call home, there was a lake in an area the Peacekeepers seldom patrolled. That’s where your dad taught you to swim. You haven’t done it in a long time, not since before he was killed. You’re more than a little rusty and you wish you had aimed a little more to your left.

The cold water is a shock to your system, but you don’t have time to stay idle. You don’t sink to the bottom like you think you will; you’ve forgotten how much lighter water makes your body. The salt in the water burns your eyes every time you try to open them so you squint and swim towards where you think the strip of land is. It’s a battle. The distance, while a problem on its own, is nothing compared to the strength of the waves. 

You’re panting by the time you make it there, shaky fingers grappling with the wet rocks as you pull yourself up, thanking your forethought to focus on training your upper body strength. The woman from Nine had jumped in the opposite direction, aiming for the beach instead of the Cornucopia. Smart. You’d do the same, but you need a weapon and you need to find Wiress. You push your water-laden hair out of your eyes, getting your feet under you and taking off towards the Cornucopia. 

You're surprised when you make it across without slipping. You have to make the split-second decision between getting a weapon or looking for Wiress first. You glance behind you, and no one seems that adept in the water on your side. Johanna is just now clawing her way out of the waves. You guess there aren’t many reasons to swim in Seven. You make a run for the mouth of the Cornucopia with the sound of cannon fire chasing you and you hope to God that no one sets their sights on Wiress. You glance to your right, and you can blurrily make out Finnick, Katniss, and Mags helping Peeta out of the water.

You skid to a stop, your legs freezing without your actual input.

“Finnick!” You yell, and his head whips up before you fully get his name out. The water weighs his hair down, turning it a darker blond than you’re used to seeing it. You aren’t entirely sure why you called out for him. Maybe it was more for his comfort than yours; he’ll need to know that you weren’t the cause of one of the cannons firing. 

“Star!” He grasps his trident tighter, scanning your surroundings for potential threats. When he sees none, his shoulders relax but his trident remains poised in anticipation.

He looks from you to his group and back again. You shake your head to stop him from taking that step forward. It was only three hours ago that you last saw him. And before that, the two of you stayed up talking about nothing until you fell asleep in each other’s arms. Nonetheless, the desire to run to him is strong. You can see him fight that same impulse you do. When the cannon fires again, Finnick leaps into action, nodding at you with an uncertain gleam in his eyes before placing Mags on his back. 

You watch them all run for the jungle before getting your weapon. You spot a scythe propped up with spears and tridents and can tell immediately that it was planted for you. You take a second to analyze it distrustfully. A metal handle and a deeply curved blade, undoubtedly for show rather than harvesting. You won’t take it. It’s big and cumbersome, and it’ll slow you down in this kind of terrain. Plus, the strength needed to wield this in an actual fight is beyond you. Someone like Chaff or Brutus would get far more use out of it. Maybe even Finnick, if his trident ever fails him. It’ll just tire you out.

Instead, you opt for the twin sickles hanging next to it. They’re also bigger than any you’ve seen in Eleven. With their thick, smooth wooden handles, the blades are sharper than any you have ever used. Their weight will take some getting used to. When you notice more tributes orienting themselves on the rocks behind you, you decide the time for contemplation is over. 

You sprint to your left, eyes scouring the water for a small brunette woman. Wiress is on the other side of the Cornucopia, more floating in the water than swimming.

“Wiress!” You call. She waves her hands as if you can’t see her and you nod, weary of attracting unwanted attention. Luckily, she’s been in the water for so long that the waves have carried her towards the island. It doesn’t take much to pull her out.

“You, you’re hurt?” She speaks in her usually broken speech pattern, gesturing towards you, and you’re quick to look down, thinking you’ve been hurt without knowing it. When you come back with nothing, you look back at her, confused, and she gestures again. You realize it’s a question, not a statement. 

She seems tunneled in on whether you’re hurt or not. Drenched with water and frustration, you spin around in front of her. “I’m fine, Wiress, I’m fine, but we have to go.” She’s a lot more amicable now, allowing you to corral her back to where you saw Johanna last. The bodies littered around give you pause. In front of you lies a woman who is half-submerged in the pinkish water. Taking a deep breath, you step over her and drag Wiress with you.

When you get to the mouth of the Cornucopia, you spot your two allies locked in a fight. That is to say, Beetee huddles behind Johanna as she fights, clutching a spool of wire to his chest as if it were the only thing between him and certain death. Johanna and the man from Nine are locked in the most dangerous game of tug of war you’ve ever seen. They both have their hands on an axe and if this were a game of speed, she’d have him on his knees already. But he’s bigger than her, stronger too, and just as unwilling to let it go.

Her teeth are bared in exertion, legs almost buckling under the strain. He has the blade pushed alarmingly close to her neck and you don’t think about it; your body is pushed into action before you’re even aware that you’re moving. Later, you’ll think back on how easy it was. You’ll think about how quickly he stopped being a human being like you and instead became an enemy—a threat. You’ll think about it—about who he used to be before he became a body—and you will come alarmingly close to crying. For now, you kick the man in the back of the knee and he goes down with a grunt. Johanna uses the leverage the new position gives her and snatches the axe out of his hands with a huff.

You lift the sickle in your dominant hand high in the air, putting your full weight behind it as you drive the blade into the top of his head. The collision of metal against bone ricochets up your arms, leaving your muscles vibrating. He falls forward with a heavy thud and you stumble backwards. Your hands feel like they’re vibrating and the adrenaline coursing through you puts a stop to any panic before it can begin. 

You move forward and have to place your foot on his back, grunting as you use both hands to yank your weapon back out. He makes a keening sound in the back of his throat—the guttural moans of a dying animal. You’re not used to being the one on this side of the slaughter. He’s still alive, but he won’t be for long. You won’t wait for the cannon to go off. 

“Let’s go!” The four of you sprint towards the beach, glancing behind you in case the Careers decide to give chase. There are still plenty of tributes on their platforms, too scared to brave the water. They should hold their attention long enough for your group to get away. Running away as the Careers lay claim to the Cornucopia makes you feel like prey. 

“Blight!” Johanna shouts and your head whips around, searching until you find the burly man a few yards away, waving you over. You all run to him and you take another mental stock.  

Between the five of you, you have an axe, two sickles, a machete Johanna grabbed, a spool of wire, and two brilliant minds. That should be more than enough for the plan. Johanna hands the machete over to Blight and you and her share a glance before wordlessly booking it into the jungle with your charges. Blight leads and you carry the rear. 

You really hope it doesn’t take long to find Finnick.

A/N: ┬┴┬┴┤(･_├┬┴┬┴ Heyyyy, are you mad at me? I hope you didn't mind that rant in the summary. I felt like Rue's death from this perspective hurt a little more bc you know it's coming, but Star doesn't, and sometimes I get carried away with writing my thoughts. ┐(シ)┌ More Finnick audios in the next chapter to make up for the shortage in this one. Come yell at me!!!

[what-even-is-thiss]

If I’d known that the song of Achilles was told from the perspective of Patroclus I would’ve read it sooner.

[satanghostface]

I was reading discourse on achilles yesterday and I'm still thinking about some people calling him a r*pist and others saying that other books they've read that are from a woman's perspective completely shifted the perception they have of TSOA's Achilles. And to me that makes little to no sense.

Here's what I come from: Achilles is a character from the Illiad, and the poem itself is pretty much fanfiction. I mean, the person and warrior that Achilles is based on probably existed, and it might have been called Achilles even, but i think we all agree that the rest is dubious.

Since the illiad is like the OG story, people tend to look at it as if it's canon and we'll go with that logic. You have the canon work and poets go off on their own versions of these characters writing tragedies, more epics, thesis, all sorts of stuff, and it goes on for centuries until we reach The song of Achilles and Percy Jackson and all the other 100s retellings coming out which are fanfiction of fanfiction.

And you're letting one fanfiction distort another fanfiction? It's bonkers to me because as someone who has to read the classics and grew up on fanfiction, I don't see that happening elsewhere. Between academics, if we're discussing a myth, we mention the different versions, and we can choose one to go on from, sure. But even so, I never saw someone sound so affected by different perspectives on the same character in class.

And if we're talking on the world of street fanfiction, I most definitely don't find people going "Oh this fanfiction of hermione betraying the order and marrying voldmort changed my perspective of Harry Potter's hermione" you know? -- if that sounds like a stupid example, it's because it is. It's just to show that my whole point is that it's insane to me to let a book ruin another book when the authors are creating different versions of the same characters, which basically turns them into different characters with the same names. Especially since you know, it's all made up. And this isn't real criticism to the people forming their opinions or the authors, respect to all of them.

But it’s a little maddening watching people roll into arguments to discuss what piece of fiction is more real and relevant when they're all in the same level of glorified AO3 works.

I hope this makes sense to someone else

[baejax-the-great]

WIP Wednesday

in which I make the most random iliad reference yet

~

The flat is fragrant when he walks in. Fragrant with meat. Spiced meat. Thanatos peers in the kitchen to see Zagreus and Achilles’ boyfriend hovering over the stove.

“Than!” Zagreus bounces toward him, but stops before touching him with a glance down at his grease-spattered apron. “Patroclus is teaching me how to cook.”

“My way of apology,” the man says, leaning on Thanatos’s counter. “Especially after Achilles informed me he had been teaching Zagreus to cook. Thirty different kinds of smoothie will only get you so far in life.”

“We’re making lamb. And homemade bread. And a salad. That last part’s easy, I already knew how to do that one. Bread smells amazing though, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Thanatos says, his voice coming out entirely flat.

[juupiterfig]

It doesn't matter whether or not Achilles and Patroclus were "lovers".

When I say this, I mean in the sense of whether they were sexual lovers. There's so much debate in modern interpretation about whether or not Patroclus and Achilles were platonic friends or romantic partners, but I think in some of the desperation surrounding rooting through ancient texts for proof of whether they were homosexual or not, we lose the real essence and beauty of their relationship.

I don't think it really matters whether or not Patroclus and Achilles were sexual lovers. Whether or not they were intimate in that way does not change the depth and extent to which they cared for each other.

I can only speak from the perspective of one homosexual person, but I don't think the peak of true love needs to be measured in terms of sexual intimacy. Regardless of whether or not they had sex, Patroclus is Achilles' poly philtatos, the most loved by far.

At the end of the day, the reason there is contention regarding the nature of their relationship is because Homer did not explicitly describe in The Iliad whether there is a sexual aspect to their relationship. However, their story is just a legend and anyone can interpret their relationship in any way that suits them. I think it's beautiful just the way The Iliad described them to be. Their love is clear and it is deeper than life and the will of gods.

If there was a sexual component, I think it's only another way by which they could have shown their love for each other. It would neither exalt their relationship any further, nor could it ever diminish it. They are already the epitome of true love.

[depresso-espresso-theatre-kid]

okay can we talk about 'achilles come down' by gang of youths

it sounds like it's from patroclus' perspective. firstly the music itself is godlike. it is so beautiful that it makes me want to cry in itself. and then the lyrics come along and punch me in the throat, then kiss me while i'm wheezing

[astrojulia]

Scorpio Sun + Moon

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ੈ♡˳ Aries Moon: The Aries Moon bestows upon you a robust and unyielding character, always ready to confront life's challenges headlong. Your emotions run deep, and within you simmers a fervent impetus that fuels your determination. This fervor, however, can occasionally manifest as impatience and intolerance towards those who don't share your unwavering resolve. Yet, it is precisely this tenacity that empowers you with a vast reservoir of courage, propelling you to surmount hurdles and accomplish exceptional feats that others might shy away from.

ੈ♡˳ Taurus Moon: The Taurus Moon casts a sensual and artistic hue upon your persona, endowing you with an affinity for life's finer pleasures. Your tactile senses are finely attuned, drawing you towards creative pursuits such as horticulture, where your ability to nurture and cultivate beauty shines. While your grounded nature ensures a steady and reliable presence, there's a tendency towards stubbornness, a trait that can sometimes hinder your willingness to embrace change. This innate obstinacy, however, is balanced by an unshakable trustworthiness that makes you an invaluable friend and companion.

ੈ♡˳ Gemini Moon: With a Gemini Moon, your life's tapestry is woven with threads of curiosity, intelligence, and a touch of melancholy. The early chapters of your journey may have been marked by a sense of loss or turbulence, fostering a skeptical lens through which you view the world. Yet, this very skepticism has honed your keen intelligence, allowing you to perceive truths that often escape others. Your intuitive grasp of human nature is a remarkable gift, guiding you through the intricate web of emotions and motivations that shape our interactions.

ੈ♡˳ Cancer Moon: The Cancer Moon casts a gentle glow upon your demeanor, endowing you with an aura of approachability and empathy. Your perceptiveness is uncanny, enabling you to read not just the words, but the unspoken emotions that dance in the eyes of those around you. This heightened sensitivity extends beyond the realm of humans, as you find yourself in tune with the silent language of animals. However, the ebb and flow of your inner emotional tides can be your Achilles' heel, leading to occasional bouts of instability that challenge your otherwise calm and collected facade.

ੈ♡˳ Leo Moon: With the Leo Moon's radiant influence, your emotions burn with the intensity of a sun's embrace. This luminescence grants you a magnetic presence, drawing others into your orbit with ease. While your fixed nature ensures unwavering devotion to your family and loved ones, it also casts a shadow of rigidity when faced with contrasting viewpoints. Your passion is infectious, but it occasionally transforms into drama, especially when minor details are blown out of proportion. Your gift for theatricality is matched only by your ability to bring matters to a resolute and satisfying conclusion.

ੈ♡˳ Virgo Moon: The Virgo Moon has bestowed upon you a measured and pragmatic disposition, forged through the crucible of a challenging childhood. Solitude may have been a familiar companion, a factor that has honed your intelligence and sense of duty. Your analytical mind is drawn towards the intricate complexities of the medical field, where your meticulous nature can thrive. Yet, beneath your composed exterior lies a yearning for connection and trust, a vulnerability that requires careful nurturing to fully blossom.

ੈ♡˳ Libra Moon: With a Libra Moon, your essence exudes a captivating blend of charm and intellect, creating a symphony of diplomacy and ambition. Your attractiveness isn't merely skin deep; it's woven into your very being, casting a spell that draws people towards your magnetic presence. This combination primes you for a potential role in the political arena, where your knack for balancing competing interests and perspectives can be a formidable asset. However, this quest for balance extends beyond the realm of governance, occasionally leading you to choose between asserting your dominance within the family dynamic or sacrificing it at the altar of your professional aspirations.

ੈ♡˳ Scorpio Moon: Under the enigmatic gaze of the Scorpio Moon, your emotional landscape is akin to a tempestuous sea, both captivating and unpredictable. Passion courses through your veins, igniting a relentless zeal that propels you towards your desires with an intensity that borders on obsession. Dominance comes naturally to you, and you possess an uncanny ability to attain the unattainable through sheer force of will. This fervor can be a double-edged sword, empowering you to conquer challenges, yet also threatening to consume you if left unchecked.

ੈ♡˳ Sagittarius Moon: The Sagittarius Moon illuminates your path with a beacon of wisdom and perception. Your intellectual faculties are sharp, complemented by a deep understanding of the human psyche. This potent combination equips you for roles that demand keen insights, be it in the realms of law, business, or investigation. However, it's your irrepressible sense of humor that acts as a compass, guiding you through life's labyrinthine twists and turns. This ability to find joy even in the face of adversity ensures that you remain grounded, regardless of the challenges that come your way.

ੈ♡˳ Capricorn Moon: With the Capricorn Moon's steady gaze upon you, your emotional landscape resembles a bedrock of determination and responsibility. You approach life with a seriousness that commands respect, embracing challenges with a resolute spirit that leaves no room for surrender. Success is your constant companion, as your unwavering commitment to excellence ensures that you excel in any endeavor you undertake. However, this unyielding pursuit of achievement can sometimes relegate personal matters to the background. It's only as you mature that you learn to strike a harmonious balance between ambition and emotional fulfillment.

ੈ♡˳ Aquarius Moon: The Aquarius Moon infuses your persona with an air of independence and innovation. Your bright and inquisitive mind is constantly in pursuit of new horizons, and your intuitive instincts guide you towards uncharted territories. Decisiveness is your hallmark, allowing you to navigate life's choices with confidence. Yet, this very decisiveness can occasionally manifest as intolerance and brusqueness, qualities that add a touch of spice to your multifaceted personality.

ੈ♡˳ Pisces Moon: Under the influence of the Pisces Moon, your emotions flow like an ever-changing river, weaving a tapestry of intuition and creativity. Artistic inclinations are your forte, particularly in the realm of music, where your soul finds solace and expression. Your innate desire to alleviate the suffering of others or contribute to the healing arts is a testament to your empathetic nature. However, when confronted with adversity, you have a tendency to withdraw into the sanctuary of your thoughts, seeking refuge in quiet contemplation.

Extra Sources: Drawing by Destina Eroland; Template by dayslily on tumblr

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