GLADIATOR AU!!!! 👏👏👏me too, honestly ;u; it scratches so many fun itches OwO
i can't remember if I shared this full opening scene with you or not... 👀 here it is regardless:
Blood drips from his split lip in a searing trail of molten ichor, failing to consecrate the sand where it falls. This is not a holy place.
The ocean-roar of the crowd would suggest otherwise. They’ve crowded into the stands of the arena to bear riotous witness. Between bites of roasted boar and lamb, above the stink of sweat and sun-drenched dirt, they jeer and jostle, here to see Jason sacrificed in the name of some hopeful politician’s long-dead son. A magistrate slaughters pigs and trades the coin of his life to buy their votes, and calls it an observance.
The funeral games are the closest to a temple service Jason has attended in years. But he does not bleed for the gods.
Jason bleeds because he was cut. Nothing more, and nothing less.
Sunlight blinds him. It makes his opponent over-confident, knowing the sun is in Jason’s eyes, that Jason’s net lies useless in the dirt behind him, severed from it’s line by feverish necessity. Jason has watched him on the practice grounds. He knows what to expect.
Boasting six victories and only one defeat, Jason’s opponent is a favorite of today’s sponsor. They pit him against Jason because they were certain Jason would lose. He’s a large man, larger than Jason, and prone to smiling. He grins over his ration as they eat in the barrack; he grins when he is praised by the training master in practice; he grins when he executes prisoners of the state in a mockery of true combat. Jason does not care for him, but he cares for the training master even less.
Drunk on first blood and grinning under his helmet, the man intended to be the instrument of Jason’s execution overextends.
Jason darts past the flashing blade, feels it scrape against his arm guard in metallic protest— and stabs three gory wounds into the exposed meat under his opponent’s arm. With a sharp twist of his trident, Jason throws him to the ground and pins him down with a knee to his sword arm. He flails, caught, like a fish in a trap, but it’s already over.
The referee stops him before he can take his dagger to the man’s throat; he hadn’t seen the plea for surrender. His life is not Jason’s to take, though Jason fought and almost died for it. All eyes turn to the sponsor.
The magistrate will decide, swayed by the masses and their approval; or else by the senators and political rivals who sit beside him in the sponsor’s box, whispering behind the backs of their clean hands. One of the attending senators, his hair black, his frame slight, cocks his head as if in thought. His eyes are too far for Jason to meet. The lot of them look down on the bleeding gladiators in the pit, men play-acting gods as they decide the fate of the grinning slave who had only half a year left on his sentence.
Jason hates them all.
Damnatio ad ludum gladiatorium. Their lives are not their own, if they ever truly were. Only two paths remain to them: fight well, or else die well.
Okay what would Jade's YouTube channel be? I feel like she'd just make like hour long videos ranting about how much she loves dogs and other videos that she shows off her plants
yeah!!!! i think her channel would just be like a whole bunch of different kinds of videos probably mostly vlogs of her hanging out with her friends and showing off her dog and her garden!!!
