Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
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❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
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@revolutionaes
independent the hunger games sideblog for original character virgilia snow. private. plotting based. semi-active. follows from @capitolhost.
carrd. promo. main blog.
personals coming over from my fanfiction : this is NOT a spoiler free blog!
tentative starter call. hit the like if you’d like a starter :)
❝ Just keep it up until we’re back home and the cameras are off; we should be okay. ❞ (from @revolutionaes)
THERE HAD BEEN NO ANSWER; door slammed shut by the aide and CORIOLANUS gave the capitol crowd another seasoned wave, the smile on his face presenting warmth for the duration, until the vehicle now pulled from sight, and towards the newly established VICTORS BALL; and it DROPPED almost instantly.
with a smile smug at the corner of his mouth pricking upwards he looked over to his wife. " we only have the rest of this evening, MY DEAR. perhaps genuine smiles would be more convincing. " the ice in his gaze softened only to the carefully curated GOWN she'd been wearing; bundle of their greenhouse roses arranged on the pair of them. and he had to admit, as much as he RESENTED the very thought of playing doting husband, which was more so created for the nations favor----she was still very beautiful, in her own way; and nothing like his previous, late-wife, who had been just the opposite.
" you look quite presentable, virgilia. a vision of both elegance and class. your stylist understood my E X A C T requests after all... "
she had used to love him. had kid herself in believing the admiration held for him ⸺ the very doe-eyed yearning replicated from what she had believed to be love ⸺ were truthful. it had taken a while, rose petals dropping from their core, until the years had shed away to give light to the cold snow.
" i'm sorry, " hushed words fall from her lips like an ancient prayer. her gloved hands clasp over one another, finding safety in the lack of exposure. momentarily, she considers an explanation. how the headpiece weighted her down, how the event had her distracted. they die in her throat, coming out in an incoherent stutter. nerves electrified, distraught in place at his comment. " i'm sorry, i ⸺ i will do better. "
a hesitant smile. her heart taking a beat. they are nothing but a tightrope and she best not fall off. a secret revealed, she knew what had gotten livia to fall. and her husband had looked different ever since the secret had made itself at home inside virgilia's head. she bows, a smile growing. " thank you. they picked the roses for you. "
@revolutionaes LIKED for a starter ! ft coriolanus snow
𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐀𝐆𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐓 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐋𝐈𝐏𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓, deep thought. on his desk , which is a deep mahogany color sitting in a lavish, large office space , are a stack of files. the one coriolanus is peering through are options for the upcoming hungry games in just a few months—finalizations , really. usually , the president likes to leave all of that up to the game master but supervision & knowing the playing field wouldn’t hurt anyone ? he hums , somewhat discontent, with some nitty details that don’t feel like they’d suit the capital audience. over the years , he’s managed to reform the idea of the games into more of a spectacle rather than raw , dirty showcase of straight brutality. nothing like his games as a mentor. ; ( he knows the capital citizens yearn for the violence , no matter how they’d want to deny it. & for the betting. but, he also knows he must package it in a way that’s shiny, with a ribbon. ) office door opens & coriolanus doesn’t raise his head. he doesn’t acknowledge whoever has walked in until he sees , out of the corner of his eye , a familiar pair or shoes. head raises, a tight lipped smile: ❛ virgilia , dear , you know i don’t like to be interrupted. ❜ tone is level , but he has a hard time hiding his prickle of irritation. hands clasp themselves & fold against the top of the table. ❛ what’s so important ? ❜ he asks , ❛ as you can see, i’m busy finalizing plans for this years games. ❜
her heart's the flutter of a bird. it's awaiting the hard wooden doors to open, the lingering moment of sheer excitement as the palace guards allow her inside. CORIOLANUS is flooded by the light behind his back. it's tinting his blonde hair in gold, casting wise, deep shadows across the wrinkles between his brows. is this what love feels like ? the raw emotion she had read about, picturing herself between those book pages. knowing that the characters felt a certain way, that they thought a certain way whenever met with their married counterpart. memory mixes with reality, twisting it until the tight feeling in her stomach must be love. it is that they were meant for each other, regardless their difference, regardless the wisdom in his eyes and the youth in her own.
a shade moves across her. it darkens her perception, it blurs the view. he's so pretty when he's leading a country. that's what the people in love think, IS IT NOT ? " you've . . . really, you worked⸺rea-really hard. " she states in her usual stutter, this time worse through the sheer nervousness of seeing him. plainly, a never tired smile perks up. " maybe you'd . . . i thought you'd like⸺enjoy some flowers . . . from your garden. " arms move, revealing the white roses picked out. she has yet to figure him out, to find new interests befitting his own. " we could-could go on a walk, too . . . only if you'd like. maybe you'd enjoy some fresh air as⸺as a break. "
Oh, Cassia had seen it all too. The fall of her grandfather. It haunted her nightmares, along with visions of the arena. Sometimes it was her the people of Panem trampled to death. She always woke up screaming, all alone.
"He was not weeping, he was laughing," she retorted dryly, though her voice was still shaky, "he was laughing because he knew that even in his last moments, he had won."
The rebellion's precious Mockingjay had aimed and shot, killing the impostor Coin and not her grandfather. In truth, Cassia did not really know why. Why, in this moment, Katniss Everdeen had chosen not to kill her grandfather? Was it because of the bombs? Cassia knew her grandfather had not ordered this bombing, she had been with him until the last moments of the war. But even then, surely the Mockingjay had to hate him.
She was unsure how to feel about that. He had died, anyway. And she had sparked the rebellion, burned Panem, and finally, her home. Fire and snow.
"And how will you die, Virgilia?" her voice had the cruelty of youth, but she had gained her composure again. Spine straight, shoulders squared. Her eyes did not leave the woman as she stepped away.
"Nameless and forgotten, a footnote in other people's stories. All you do is leech yourself onto the arms of men, but in the end, you're nothing."
she was fourteen. a child. kicking, screaming, crawling her way against the fall of an empire. her empire ⸺ and virgilia had done everything she could do bring it to its knees. and yet, she was fourteen, eyes lingering on the child's gaunt figure. a few more days, and the empire would never recover.
it's a pitiful gaze that turns to look at cassia. lies, fed from birth til this day. woven into reality, twisting it to befit the image of the man that had haunted panem. ghostlike in his touch, still tracing along. what little she knew, what little had made its way through the bars of the mansion. it had been a dreamlike place, a nightmare come true, and its horrors seemed only true once enough distance had grown between the physicality of the house and the former resident. it's pity that accompanies virgilia's gaze. decidedly, for once, not indulging in the manifestation of one's illusion, entirely necessarily, it seemed, not to shatter apart.
"i will die loved. and happy. and free." her hand touched her other. promises made, worthy more than the ring she had used to carry. a life anew, a life entirely hers. she was free, watching the distress of another, the sorrow of a line burned to the ground. a hint of sympathy for the falling of a young girl, nothing else stares into the end of a line. "good luck, cassia. may the viewers mistake your weeping for laughter, too."
by antonovakseniya
For a moment, Cassia wondered if Virgilia was going to change her mind and leave. She supposed it'd be fair, too. They did not exactly like each other. But she had helped her find an apartment already, so letting her starve to death in it seemed impractical.
Why Virgilia helped her, Cassia didn't know. But if the arena had taught her one thing, it was that survival mattered above all else. So she'd take what the traitor could give her, and she'd survive. She had to survive. Oh, Cassia knew she was no orphan (though she felt like one), but she still believed that the Snow legacy rested between her hands and her hands alone.
But then Virgilia moved towards the stove and started clicking on buttons. Cassia focused on the motions. She was a smart kid, surely she could figure out a goddamn appliance.
"I am watching," she grumbled, "I'm not stupid."
A step closer, squinting at the pot filled with water. No bubbles for now. "And then what? Do I put the pasta in there?" How embarrassing, to be cooking for herself. But then again, it still beat surviving on berries and tree bark in the arena.
a long history of children not hers forced to take care of them regardless. there's contempt for each of them, in the same manner she had watched cassia win the games. not dead, not gone, not wiped from the country's surface like the disease that this family had been for panem.
perhaps virgilia is the same foolish girl who had thought coriolanus to be sincere when he had proposed to her. where her life had seemed pathed in a happy future. or ( and it seemed the preferably thought, otherwise she wouldn't have found this apartment in the first place ) cassia was not that dissimilar to her. a young kid who had been misguided. she didn't look like one, certainly not.
" you put in a good amount of salt. do you have any ? " her tone cracks, turning to the child. blonde hair, eyes empty. behind them, a mind that had been filled by other people. no knowledge sought herself. a lonely child. " and then you wait . . . ten minutes. "
" are you plutarch ? " curious eyes look up, greeting him with a shy smile. his family is one of the older ones, ties into the elite far beyond the dark days. more important was the flutter in her heart caused by the sight of him. endearing. blowing words from her tongue, scrambling them over in her mind. speech is not a graceful experience when HE'S CUTE. " you . . . you dress well. and - and . . . uhm. you look w - well. "
>> @heavensbee
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
THG/TBOSAS MASTERLIST. If you are an independent canon/original roleplay blog from the THE HUNGER GAMES franchise and would like to be added to the masterlist, REBLOG THIS POST. Single and multi-muse blogs are welcome. INCLUDE the following TAGS: # character name # state whether your muse is canon or oc # if you are a sideblog, mention your main blog
thirteen was like a prison. built deep into the ground, the lack of daylight and fresh air was appalling to the youngest hawthorne and she hated it here. only a few other children had made it to safety during the attack on district twelve, so she had to put up with her brothers all of the time, especially because their mother trusted no one and preferred to keep all three younger ones close to her. when the stranger joined their table, vic and posy were currently kicking each other under the table, while having a grim staring contest, because vic had stolen the last bite of bread from her plate. the two of them were only a year apart in age and yet vastly different from each other, which often clashed.
glancing at the woman when she spoke, posy nodded quietly, slightly suspicious as to why she knew her. then again, she had not seen another little girl anywhere around here, so it might have been common knowledge who she was. "i am. and who are you?" probably not the most friendly way to ask it, but posy had grown up with only brothers and slightly adapted to their bluntness. rory and vic rose from the table - not without a last good kick against vic's shin - and left her sitting there, off to do their own thing while their mother worked and would not notice that they had abandoned the youngest. they both believed that at nine years old, posy was capable of looking after herself.
her brothers rose. a faint feeling came with it. she watched them leave, their overalls not quite fitting, but, surely, passed on to the next child once they had grown out of it. they returned a faint memory, a feeling of another time. a brother, blonde as her, seated on the bench outside. his book had been a different one. on the edge of his knee, slipping further away with every move as he scribbled something on a piece of paper. virgilia had studied table manners, and everything was more interesting than that.
table manners were not of any use in district thirteen. scarcely anyone looked at the way she handled a fork and a knife, and much more at her face. their expressions different than posy's ⸺ knowledge. distrust. curiosity. attraction. " i am . . . virgilia. a friend of plutarch's. we are from the capitol. " her smile was faint, faltering quick and aching for the new identity carved. a friend of a rebellion. the wife of the president. if only for a brief moment she could shed the latter. " i ⸺ i used to braid my hair . . . back then. i could try with yours if you'd like. "
Cassia noticed the stutter, the words stumbling on Virgilia's tongue. The information registered in the depth of her mind, as if there was something calming about this, about knowing that her words could shake someone. She used to be a nice girl, but nice girls died in the arena.
But whatever feeling of (fickle) peace she had managed to gather shattered when the traitor spoke again. It was venom. Lies dripping from her teeth. She spoke of disgusting things, horrifying things that could not be true. Was this humiliation not enough? How dared she defile the memory of her grandfather?
And for all her coldness and the rigidity of her posture, Cassia was a child. So, she screamed. It was not a commanding, powerful scream. It was the scream of a little girl, angry and desperate.
"SHUT UP!!!" she howled, "SHUT UP!!!!!"
Her fist fell on the wall, and she would have liked for it to break into a thousand pieces. But it just made a loud, hollow sound, sending shockwaves of pain through her arm.
"You are a liar," her voice was shaking, tears trickling down her cheeks. "My grandfather was a great man, and I am proud to be a Snow. He was the best leader Panem has ever known, and it will crumble into dust without him."
"I will win the Games." Snow lands on top. Snow lands on top. SNOW LANDS ON TOP! It had become a mantra she repeated to herself every night, sobbing in her bed. "Don't compare my fate to yours. I am nothing like you." (@revolutionaes)
virgilia stood. the food left behind, the act of kindness a hollow gesture between them. she shouldn't have brought it here, not for a recipient who carried the weight of this surname by birth through him, who deserved naught least the meagre crumbs of her compassion. hollow, carved empty, gaze gracing along the anger within every fibre of the girl and her raw rage exposed. there was no trace of fear left, absorbed in the blink of a moment, a breath pulling life into her body. virgilia existed in the limbo of fight or flight ⸺ frozen in place ⸺ watching, taking in. it's another breath, and the bird does not take flight. instead :
" i watched him. " her voice resurfaced, a haunting echo of her self. distance, not quite here. otherworldly. if only she would wake up, the girl long gone. " i saw how they kicked him until he bled. i saw them tear hair from his head. i saw them squish him to death. i saw him weeping like the coward he is, reaping the consequences of his self-believed greatness. he was nothing but a weak man who deserved the death he got. "
she stood tall. her hand reaching the braided hair. taming a strand behind her ear. it was time to leave ⸺ they had been wrong. the snow had always been rotten, no matter how pristine it appeared. every snowflake of theirs was. " no truly great man receives that kind of death. " heels clicked as they withdrew from the girl. it seemed in tragic tradition of this repulsive lineage that they managed to persist, survival achieved to the detriment of everyone around them.
⋆ ✰ ⋆ ─── a closed starter for @revolutionaes .
𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐃𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐕𝐄 for the discontent, the shift of the wind, and the mockingjay song on the horizon. It extends beyond just the districts now — it lingers here in the Capitol as well. When Francis listens closely enough, buried just beneath the revelry are low whispers that linger just a little too far out of his reach before dissipating in the breeze. The truth is, Katniss Everdeen has done nothing but made the already present divide more apparent. Roses are out of season, this time of the year. The rumor is that they’ll be dying soon — and then, someone will be left to pick up the pieces. If it’s not him, he’ll be killed as well — it’s crush or be crushed, and he’s not certain he likes either of those things more than the other.
There are many places that he can access based on name alone within the Capitol — but he’s finding that the places he truly seeks are closed to him for the same reason. He’d had a friend from the Academy sneak him into a so-called speakeasy once. He’d gotten drunk, and pored through books that directly contradicted everything he’d known to been true. The second time, he’d found something called a violin, and he’d spent hours learning how to gently coax music out of it. It had filled him with a sense of wholeness that nothing ever had. The third time he had gone, it was as though the place had simply vanished, and his friend as well.
No more doors have opened for him since. But he can’t unlearn the things that he’s learned, he can’t unsee what he’s seen. He thinks about it all the time. And so they sit at the family dinner table — he, and his sister, and his step-grandmother. The President is missing. Probably thinking up new ways to torture that poor District 12 girl. There’s something more to it, he just knows it. “He’s busy rather a lot these days,” Francis comments. He’s older than his sister — old enough to remember properly when the table had been full of family and chatter. Now it’s just as stale as everything else — and everyone's afraid to make a move, lest it be the wrong one. The odds are never in anyone's favor, really.
roots laid out. decades in the making, trees blossoming from what had been sowed. the birds are taking flight, a jubilant exercise to witness. it had not been their first hope. but certainly the most steady one. their breaths had held. the muscles had tensed. the anticipation a worthwhile one as the fires spread across the districts, taking all in their wake. reawakened with a new spirit, it had been joyful watching her husband struggle.
virgilia hadn't thought she would feel that way, ever, her life made out to be a survival of its own. stay youthful against the ageing shape of her husband. stay interesting enough to keep his benevolence. stay quiet enough to never be noticed negatively. a dance on a thin rope, the fall a deadly one into nothingness. plutarch heavensbee had been a security held onto, a steadying on the thin rope until wings grew, taking flight with knowledge and love and a newfound steadiness in her words. the stutter hadn't left, no, the words still a jumble inside her mind.
it had been the reason why the solitary dinners ( those without him, regardless who else joined ) had been anything but a worrisome experience. any word a wrong one. many words too much. her gaze moves upward, head bowing away from the truffle pasta and roasted vegetables. the silence interrupted. her beloved silence, the room for thought gone, the words straining inside her mind. " he's ⸺ perhaps that's not . . . sometimes it's nice to have time with each other . . . is it not ? " she tries, view moving from one to the next. she remembered them, small children, yearning for a mother lost. virgilia had spent as little time with them as possible.
@revolutionaes sent: ❛ If you wanted to be babied, you should’ve asked anyone else.❜ (from V to Cassia? The idea we had? 👀) from: CATCHING FIRE (2013) SENTENCE STARTERS
Frustration troubled Cassia's features. She was almost pouting. "I don't want to be babied," she quipped through gritted teeth, "I just don't- I don't know how to use this."
Embarrassment spread like fire on her cheeks as she gestured towards the stove. She had tried turning it on earlier, but nothing. Cassia was hungry. It was a new feeling, a feeling she hated. The term "hunger games" finally made sense to her. In the arena, hunger had driven some of her friends to terrible, horrifying lengths. Ironic, that the new government had renamed them freedom games.
"I don't have anyone else to ask, all my friends died in the Games, remember?" she snapped at the woman, fighting the urge to kick the goddamn stove. Nothing was said about the fact that she had killed some of these friends.
Cassia didn't want Virgilia's help, but she needed it. No one in her family knew about this stuff, and she wasn't talking to Cornelia anyway. Oh, it was humiliating. But at least, she didn't have to play the part of the sweet, repentant girl around Virgilia. She could be as angry as she wanted, which she supposed was... almost comforting.
there was a halt. words spoken, body unmoving. her gaze had wandered from the child ( parts of her face . . . oh, horrendous features handed down two generations. she could recoil inside her skin ) to the stove. an ordinary one, surely like the rest of them around the larger apartment building. a flutter of emotions that she had held on her first day alone . it had been plutarch's kindness and her friends' patience that the water boiled, pasta was cooked and a basic meal made for her to survive. sometimes she missed those buttons that had a meal arrive.
" right . " brief glance from the side. it lingered, watching the young girl. the helplessness virgilia had felt, too, albeit she had not clawed her way through an arena. was it for better or worse that cassia had survived? perhaps that was for the future. heels clacked on the floorboards.
she pressed the button that would turn the stove on. " watch me, i won't stop by again to show you. " as the lights flickered on, another row of buttons was pressed, selecting the stove top and its strength. she set the pot with water on top. " and now you wait until bubbles start appearing. "
" how are you liking it here ? " her eyes moved from the bean and onion stew, nothing filling the stomach quite. hunger, always, every day. plutarch had already shared some of his, but he had been busy and virgilia was glad to find a familiar face in the crowd. " i know it's only been a few days, but . . . " voice gave out, STUCK. she had wandered the district as part of her job, feet tired more than ever. " they've got me in maintenance. i . . . i've never done anything like that. "
>> starter for @drdumaurier
REVOLUTIONAES:
it had been something she had known. the way their fingers had entwined, the way annie had held onto him as if another wave could crush them apart. there had been a yearning elsewhere, for the safety of another one's arms. the way it calmed the thunderous storms rattling forest crowns and flowers. an unease, seeing a mirror right there, the reflection of herself met with the pain of another. “ hi, annie . ” she spoke, the shiver of a voice, the difficult of every word, regardless of its simplicity. “ i am ⸺ ” the wife of the person who had done all of this to you . and to me . her lips push together, the CARVING FOR A NEW IDENTITY . “ virgilia. one of plutarch's . . . friends. " friends who had held hands every opportunity they got, friends who kissed each other more times than she could count now that they could. that kind of friends.
hers is a face she did not know to expect. she seems somehow smaller, now, than she had when they last crossed paths. seven shots under the sea and standing still amidst a parade of jellyfish who longed to dance in that glowing ballet but not with her, the woman across the ballroom was glimpsed like the tide come to calm just before a storm. but never quite so large as the man by her waiting side: the president's wife. mistress to all their miseries. well, annie supposes she looks smaller now, too.
“ lady snow, ” the warmth of her words betrays her hesitance, like a balm spread over open wound. she offers the slightest smile. after all, there is nothing a gentle ocean could not forgive. “ we need no introduction, i'm sure. ”
making a new watch out of an old one. bringing back life from what had seemingly died within. a slight chance for annie not to remember ⸺ was virgilia not a background character in the story of another ? and yet, failed. hands dig into her own. holding tight onto fingers that aren't his & she so wishes they were there. " i'd . . . i would prefer virgilia if ⸺ if that is alright with you . " her hand aches under the pressure. storms rising, shaking the treetops. crowns that lay colourful behind a grey sky.
" i didn't think you would remember. " to her, it had been one of many invasions into the mansion. to annie, there had only been that one. foolish of her to think one bird's life was that of another. the smile had faltered.
Little fingers clutched into fists, the knuckles turning white. Cassia had never felt a wave of anger such as this before. "How dare you speak of him that way," she said at first, and it was a cold, dripping whisper, escaping her lips like poison.
"HOW DARE YOU?!"
Her voice had thundered, exploding in the room with a bravado even she did not recognize about herself. Sweet, sweet Cassia. Where was she now? Maybe she had died with her grandfather, crushed under the feet of the inhabitants of Panem.
"YOU married him! YOU married in this family!" An accusatory finger was pointed at Virgilia. The outsider. "You wanted status and you wanted power, and when you saw the price that it cost to be a Snow, you crawled to the rebels."
Cassia had never been naive, though she had been shielded from some of her grandfather's madness. But now that he was dead, Coriolanus Snow existed like a totem in her eyes. The only rock she could hold onto. His cruelty was almost inspiring. After all, she was headed for the arena. For many days already, she had been finding comfort in knowing she was the spawn of a murderer.
"My grandfather would have never hurt me, I was his favorite," she spat, sounding more like her age, "but yes, he would have hurt you if he could. And he should have."
Perhaps it wasn't her words, or perhaps Cassia would have never said that a few months ago. But she was lost and all alone, with nothing but bitterness as companion. (@revolutionaes)
perhaps five years ago it would have caused a raging tornado inside, a destruction of mind and heart, an abandoned, hollow feeling in its aftermath. but the war had changed many things. it had been a steady accusation. whispers in district thirteen, rumours after her confessions, gossip following a trial. cassia's screaming was different, a flinching of head and neck, a steadying through her hands holding together. but the words passed, and the storm had not shaken the house.
" f-funny. " her words pause, gather themselves. do not stumble over your own words. do better. " some say the same about you. that you deserve the games for all you ⸺ you have done before. " guilt by association. what a peculiar thing.
another breath. shoulders lower and rise. the food between them untouched. a gift refused, and she was not surprised in the slightest. " i was a few years older than your sister when . . . my parents arranged this marriage for political gains. " head turned, slightly, the creeping silence of the peacekeepers outside of her door. a man she recognised from district eight. his hair had greyed. his skin had fallen into slight wrinkles. " he was . . . around the age of your guard. old. hands between my legs. throwing himself onto me every night. until he grew bored. and i knew what he did to people he grew bored of. i thought i was his favourite, until i wasn't. " neither here nor there, the eye of the storm, staring onto a child. innocence lost, both of theirs. " you wanted to be your grandfather's favourite, no ? then you deserve everything that follows, too . those games . an old guard touching you . people wishing for your death . competitors killing you slowly . or is it not the fault of the people who wanted to gain ? "
