#where soul meets body

[frankie-idk]

odesta is such a criminally underrated ship.. like annie as a character is too but they! are! so! perfect!

[creationcitystreet-em]

Me: wow a full weekend off? I can actually study and get some much needed work done!

My brain: what if you reread the entirety of “Where Soul Meets Body” for the first time in like 5+ years and stayed up until 6am doing so instead??

[ssmhhh]

basically this is the tip of the iceberg that is a whole sprawling thesis in by brain of why katniss and gale should pay for their crimes and that these two were done dirty by everyone involved on a level that is quite frankly unprecedented.

[stephsycamore]

To anyone who followed me for hunger games content - sorry ur in the wrong place.

I only have one more thing to say and that's read where body meets soul by ellizablue

Not only is it the best odesta i have ever read, it is the best fanfic i have ever read and i think its better the hunger games books. I'e reread this fanfic more times than the book and there's a version of it from finnick pov (where body meets soul is annie's pov) that i havent read yet because i am not ready for that level of hurt

Like truly this fic is my roman empire and has been for like a decade

And if anyone else has read and wants to cry about it with me plz do

[ellizablue]

is it crackheadery to update something 6 years after the last update and 12 years after it was first published? maybe so. maybe so

[the-sun-and-the-sea]

confession: I’ve become such a career annie truther that i don’t think i can read where soul meets body anymore

[65thgames]

i read where soul meets body for the first time half a year ago and STILL think about it daily. I swear to god i have NEVER shed more tears over something ever.

[avoxrising]

Just read Where Soul Meets Body for the first time and I don’t think I’ll ever emotionally recover

[fullmetalneverland]

"There's something to be said for why the spot inside of me that used to house my optimism is now empty.

I guess that's growing up, along with accepting that you really know nothing at all and you probably never will, and that no matter how hard you try, you can't protect the ones you love from pain."

-Ellizablue, Where Soul Meets Body

[fantasybuff96]

The best Odesta fanfic I have ever read!! It’s canon compliant starting from Annie’s reaping and ending after Mockingjay. If you love Annie and Finnick as much as I do then you have to read this! 💔🥺❤️

[zahrareadsstuff]

No fanfic made me go feral the way "Where Soul meets Body" did bc how can you not go feral with Finnick and Annie

[itsyourcalling]

[sorryiwasasleep]

fuck yes fuck yes fuck yes new hunger games content, 50th games centered (2nd Quarter Quell!), focus on the idea of implicit submission, governance of the many by few, and propaganda, and FUCK those are TIMELY as she ALWAYS is and i cannot wait for another poignant as fuck political commentary and I sincerely hope that that messaging ACTUALLY gets through to the readers/viewers/reviewers who continue to ignore the commentary in her work or play it off as hyperbolic fiction in a dystopic future that will NEVER happen and not what it is— a distorted mirror of our reality, highlighting the most ugly brutal and violent aspects in gorgeous prose.

i literally do not even care what point of view this book comes at us from, I’m so fucking excited

[ssmhhh]

close the door

lock me in this room

a window to face the view

you say nobody cares about you

safe up here

alone in the way that you were

watching the turn of the earth

to take away all of the hurt

eyes like babylon

with eyes like babylon

you see right through

I want to be yours without consequence

letting my body sink in

I’m leaving my body

hope to see you before I go

swimming in the black sea

surrounded by the afterglow

[annabell3606]

I need it to be known that I have never cried over a single piece of media in my life, until now. I don't cry at movies, I don't cry at books, I've never even cried at a funeral - but right now, at ten past midnight I have just spent the late 20 minutes hysterically sobbing at chapter 13 of Ellizablue's odesta fanfic 'where body meets soul' and I am begging any hunger games fans to read it, it is incredible.

[ellizablue]

Lil sneak peak from the upcoming new chapter of The Anchor Cast Below (an old odesta throwback, iykyk):

I’m hunched over Mags’ kitchen table, my head throbbing and heavy, when the phone begins to ring.

It’s shrill, demanding: I wince and then feel irritation spark inside of me, quick and volatile, and I close my hands over my ears, hoping it’ll work for me like it works for Annie.

I still hear it.

I let it ring, ring, ring, ring— stop. And then it starts again. Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring— stop. Again. Ring, ring, ring—

I lurch up from the table, furious now, and wrench the phone from the wall.

It’s Mags’ phone, so I’m expecting Seeder, Woof, maybe Haymitch or Chaff. They’ll be calling to see how the newest addition to our sad little species is settling in to her new home, her new life, her new prison. Later, as the Victory Tour draws nearer, it’ll be Annora and Annie’s stylist phoning, needing to plan and prepare. Not now, though. Not yet. And after what happened— after how completely Annie’s mind snapped away on that shore following the loss of her family (my fault, my fault)— maybe never. She may never come back to reality, to the world (to me). She’s been lost ever since I carried her shrieking and begging up to Mags’s guest room, utterly unreachable.

“Hello?” I snap, not able to fully mask my irritation. It’s only the knowledge that none of this is my fellow Victors’ fault that keeps me from greeting with, “Shut the fuck up.” Though right now, my heart as raw as it is, I wish pretty much everyone and everything outside of Mags and Annie would shut the fuck up for all eternity.

There’s a brief pause. I notice first that the phone call sounds remarkably clear— there’s usually quite a tangle of static in the background to calls from other Districts, particularly 12, so it’s certainly not Haymitch on the line— and then the caller greets me.

“Good morning, Finnick.”

I feel my stomach plummet, my entire body tense up. I automatically turn and look around the kitchen, seeking Mags instinctively— for her guidance, her input, her comfort— but she’s upstairs with Annie, trying to wash the wounds she gouged into her arms in her sleep last night.

My eyes fall on a piece of paper resting on the small table beneath the telephone. It’s the phone directory for Victor’s Shore. Mags, Caleb, Fisher, Meredith, Pike, Dowell, Irving. Finnick. Annie. Her name has already been penciled in on the blank line underneath mine. The next Victor’s Shore house and phone line to be assigned. The next game piece in this twisted power play of Snow’s.

He doesn’t take kindly to my extended silence.

“I said good morning, Finnick,” President Snow repeats, his voice cold now, intolerant to my rude lack of response.

But it isn’t a good morning at all. There hasn’t been one since I was fourteen years old. And Annie— sweet Annie, who truly did nothing to deserve any of this— will likely never have one ever again as long as she lives, however long that may be.

I can think of only one thing to say.

“She did nothing,” I hiss. I grip the phone tighter. At once, my rage swells and crests. “She did not challenge you— she did not defy you— she did nothing!”

Snow’s voice is calm and level where mine is shaky and swollen with emotion. I hate him even more for that.

“Precisely. She did nothing. Her task was very simple— and yours, as her mentor, even simpler: sit through Mr. Flickerman’s interview, engage in the recap, smile and be grateful for her good fortune to still be alive. I was assured you would both deliver, and you delivered exactly nothing. Beyond confusing your lovers and the Capitol public with your over-ardent defense of Ms. Cresta, and her unsettling comments about feeling like she’s being punished…truly, Finnick, I’m not sure you’ve ever failed so spectacularly before.” He pauses for a brief moment, long enough for his words to sink in, and then he continues. “Her ungrateful comment reeked of confusion, so I thought I would set her right. She wasn’t being punished before. This is punishment. Now she knows the difference.”

The list of Victors and their phone numbers is blurry behind tears.

“She didn’t even know what she was saying,” I manage to whisper, my voice twisted with grief and frustration and anger. “That comment wasn’t rebellious or intended to— to be insulting, it was just…” honest, real. Pure. Annie. “She’s unwell. She’s hurt. To her, wounded as she is, everything feels bad. Everything feels like a punishment. She didn’t mean anything by that comment!”

I’m unsure why I sound so desperate for a moment. What do I think I’ll achieve by making Snow realize this? Do I think he’ll somehow pull her family from the morgue and revive them? That he’ll apologize?

No. I’m trying to protect her from future punishment, future pain, though right now I’m not sure what’s left for them to take. They’ve already stolen her mind and her family.

Just her body, I think. Just her body. That’s all that’s left. And I don’t even have that— they took my family, my mind, my body.

(What a pair we make, Annie and me.)

Something about my comment angers President Snow. He sounds less composed now.

“Then you failed, Mr. Odair. You failed as a mentor. You were supposed to prepare her so when she got on that stage she said what needed to be said, she did what needed to be done—”

“She’s not—”

“Do not interrupt me!” Snow booms, and I fall silent immediately. I’m surprised that he’s raised his voice. Yelling somehow seems beneath him. “You wanted her. You cheated and lied and manipulated her way out of that arena. You did that— you chose that. Did you not?”

I say nothing. We both know exactly what I did. I slept with the Gamemakers, I manipulated the Game, I rigged it and cheated and made that dam burst. And because of that, Annie won. Annie came home. And I did want that— her to come home. I just never intended for her to come home to this.

“Answer me.”

I blink hard, and I feel tears— hot and bulbous— capsize my eyelashes and roll down my cheeks. I watch one drop land and splash over Annie’s newly-penciled in name on the directory.

“Yes.”

“Yes,” he repeats harshly. “And so all of this is your responsibility— she is your responsibility. Everything she does, everything she says. She’s yours, Mr. Odair. How do you find her? Is she everything you hoped? Everything you wanted?”

I think of Annie, lying lost in the bed upstairs, her nails caked with dried blood and her green eyes empty and echoing. And I think of her before the Games, laughing with twinkling, sharp eyes, so there that she saw through my defenses instantly. More tears slide down my cheeks, and there’s a painful pressure in my chest, like my sternum has been pried open. Like something inherent to my survival has been scooped out and stolen. Maybe it has.

I don’t know what to say back to that. He doesn’t really care what I say, anyway.

“You think I am cruel,” he says. He does not ask. “But I know well what I am asking of you. Once, it was asked of me.”

The implication that he has ever had to deal with anything like what I’m dealing with does more than anger me— it offends me. I clench my fists and feel my sorrow turn hard. I forget to watch my words. I forget to watch myself. Flung carelessly and cruelly from bed to bed, my body not even my own, my life, my identity, my words, and now, my heart—

“You know nothing about what is asked of me,” I bite. “Nothing! You know nothing about what I have to deal with, what I have to carry—!”

I’m talking about so much more than Annie, but he’s buttoned up and focused on the issue at hand.

“I’ll remind you again that you chose this. You asked for this. All you had to do was let her die in that arena, but like a fool, you chose your own heart and your own feelings over your duty—”

“I’m not talking about Annie anymore!”

“You should be! You’ve made such a mess for yourself, Mr. Odair. I doubt you even realize how much of one. And because it is your mess— she is your mess— you will clean it up. You will take care of this problem, and you will do so in whatever manner maintains your public persona and maintains the Capitol’s good opinion of the Games. You will control your mentee and her loose lips, you will control yourself and your fondness for her, or I will handle her. And Finnick? You don’t want me to handle her.”

No. I don’t. I want him as far away from Annie as possible.

He continues, anger still writhing between his cold words like serpents.

“You are a young, naive boy— barely a man, despite what your lovers would contend. You act without thinking and you think without acting. I know well what it costs to mentor someone. I know well what it costs to do one’s duty. You’ll do well to never forget that, Mr. Odair.”

Before he ends the call, he adds one last threat.

“You’ll be relieved to know your lapse of judgment at Ms. Cresta’s recap didn’t impact your economic value. You have quite the lengthy list of patrons lined up for Ms. Cresta’s upcoming tour, including some of your particular…favorites.” A swell of nausea. I set my hand atop the small telephone table and lean against it. “Give Ms. Cresta and dear Ms. Flanagan my love. Congratulations again to District Four.”

He ends the call, but I don’t move for a minute or so. I hold the dead receiver and stare down at Annie’s name, now hazy and blurred from the tears that have dripped onto the paper. All I can think, over and over again, is what have I done?

My first instinct is to run to Mags, but she’s upstairs tending to Annie, and I can’t risk Annie hearing about any of this. I don’t want her to know. I don’t want her to worry. Perhaps she’s already too far gone to even comprehend the full gravity of this situation, but I can’t risk it. So I take a moment to compose myself, I gather a few more bandages from the cupboard over the sink in case Mags needs them, and I go upstairs to see if she needs any help tending to the damage that is, as Snow so accurately put it, my responsibility.