starter blog

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[ttwstarters]

ares-carnahan‌:

@ttwstarters

Ares knew he did all he could for the kids. He didn’t have much faith, but he did what he set out to do. Still, the lack of alcohol was starting to really get to him, as he had cut his drinking back over the last week to try and keep sober long enough to help them to his highest capability. Of course, that had consequences. It started having consequences the second Serenity found out about the nightlock. 

The night before the private training sessions would happen, Ares fell into the bottle. He fell in hard. He drank almost an entire bottle of bourbon before he managed to stumble into the elevator and to the roof with another one in hand. His hands were still shaken to the point he could barely keep a hold of the bottle. As he got into the warm night air, the city lights began to blur together like distant stars. 

In his drunken stupor, he felt like he could launch himself toward them, as if his feet were made of rockets. Like he knew he could fly. So he took another long swig out of the bottle, feeling his chest ache from the pain of the burn before stumbling his way to the ledge of the roof. His tall frame was able to squeeze up until he was sitting along the stone before his long legs dangled over the edge below. He knew there was no way to jump, even if he wanted to. Even in his drunken stupor, he knew the barriers were there. 

Do I want to? he thought.

He never used to, not even in the mountains.

I deserve it for what I did to Sera.

His right leg pulls up underneath him and he somehow finds the balance to stand on the ledge and take another drink from the bottle. When he swallows it, he slides his foot so the toes of his boot are a few inches off of the ledge. His heart was racing. His chest hurt. His temples were pounding.

It was so loud.

Then he heard a voice behind him and the world suddenly stopped. He took a strangled breath and looked over his shoulder at the person who pierced his thoughts.

[pixel-del]

“Geof stays,” Pixel crossed her arms as her escort complained. “We already lost one escort over my snake. We’re not afraid to lose another.”

The woman left in a huff and Pixel smiled victoriously to herself. Her pink python had become a staple at home, and the other Three victors didn’t seem to have nearly as much of a problem with her pet as the Capitolites did. Maybe that was why she loved it so much; irritating Capitolites had become a hobby of hers.

Pixel turned around on her heels, deciding she wanted a snack. That train of thought was interrupted when she was met with the eyes of someone standing behind her.

“Oh, hey,” she said, stopping in place. “Didn’t see you there.” // @ttwstarters

[lael-lu]

Being the escort for District Two was an entirely different experience from Three, Lael was quickly learning. It turned out that when your tributes had prepared for this kind of thing their whole lives, there wasn’t much corralling and herding them places- all they needed were some simple directions and they’d be off to the training centers. No getting lost and finding themselves halfway out a window in the faculty restroom (though maybe Pixel had just been a little too direction-averse for Lael’s sanity).

There were a lot more sponsors to handle, though, and Lael had camped herself out in a viewing room to handle the paperwork while a television personality ran through the statistics and probabilities of each tribute. The curtain of the room was drawn to avoid any unwanted attention (it turned out being on a popular reality show invited more cameras into her life than expected), and Lael felt her heart drop into her stomach when she heard the door open behind her. 

“Oh hi,” she said, painting a smile onto her face as she turned around. As soon as she saw it wasn’t some paparazzi or Capitol influencer, though, she felt herself relax. “Don’t mind me. Just getting some work done.” // @ttwstarters

[fellvasile-blog]

As per usual, Fell had arrived at the Training Center early. It was quiet and there were only a few Trainers around. The Peacekeeper crowd had been thin, too. But as more people filtered into the Training Center, so did the Peacekeeper count. And a small group of them seemed to have their eyes on him, the white uniforms following him to whatever station he went to. Fell had wanted to see if he could meet with the Tributes from Two, but if Peacekeepers were going to be watching him like they were, it was going to be difficult to focus.

Fell had been wrapping up a fight with a Trainer, knocking him down to the mat. He let out a breath, moving to stand and looked over to see someone standing alongside the mat. Over their shoulder, though, had been one of the Peacekeepers and Fell sent a brief glare their way. “You want to try?” he offered, looking back to the person watching him. 

@ttwstarters

[glitterrosseau-archive]

@ttwstarters

Glitter wasn’t going to just sit on the sidelines and observe.  She’d never been that type of mentor, so she’d stepped up to the hand to hand combat station and sparred with one of the other trainers.  She worked them over, eventually getting the trainer down on the mat.  It always felt good to do, despite knowing that she could succeed before she even started.

Once the trainer tapped out, Glitter straightened up and adjusted her ponytail.  Glancing at the spectator, she smirked.  “Do you want to go?”

[dorian-hawthorne]

Dorian couldn’t stand being up in the Sponsor Lounge for too long. Even though speaking with sponsors was essential to earning their sponsorship for their Tributes, there was only so much of the self centered, one sided conversations he could take. Sometimes he wished he had brought Rosie with him just to have an excuse to break away from the conversation, but she was with a babysitter, who had been frantically texting him for ways to try and coax Rosie to calm down. After a phone call and many reassurances that he and daddy would be back for lunch, the texts had calmed down a bit.

He had started to make his way over to the knives station. He watched the person practice a throw, brow slightly knit in observation. “Not bad,” he commented, “might have a pointer or two to help your aim.”

@ttwstarters

[maxaroha]

His fingers itched for a bow, the only weapon that he could use competently. Well, more than competently - top of his class before he dropped out. And whenever he had visited Briella at the Academy after that point, he would practice a little bit, not wanting to lose the skill that he had cultivated so well. 

But, when he walked into the Training Centre he opted to steer clear of the archery station and the medicine station - the two things he excelled at. Max figured he should try and look like a Career and train at some of the other weapon stations, but he also didn’t want to be around people who were going to get cut. He could handle bruises and broken bones and bodily fluids except blood. 

He hated blood. Funny coming from a guy who wanted to be a doctor. But, Max would freeze up and have to really push himself to clean up those wounds. 

So, Max approached the stealth station, something he thought was a happy medium between Career skill and no risk of blood. There was someone already there and he walked up behind them and tapped them on the shoulder. “Are you planning on using this station? I wanted to brush up on my skills,” he said. // @ttwstarters

[solar-arcane]

@ttwstarters

This was the part he had been dreading. 

Every bit of him wanted to go over to the knives and start chucking them at the targets. Every ounce of his willpower wanted to go over to a trainer and lay him out. His father’s words played in his head like a skipped record, repeating over and over to eternity. Conceal your strengths. Reveal them later. Then kill them all.

Solar felt sick. 

He walked into the room when there were already several tributes training. He noticed and knew a few of them from before the chariots, but he didn’t feel like approaching them. He had to pretend to be meek and not understanding what was going on. Solar searched the room for the easiest one to goof up on purpose. As he stood there, he realized that his awkward standing around was probably making him seem even more inept, so he opted to stand there, looking as lost as possible, until someone finally approached him.

Solar looked up, confusion and apprehension etched on his face on purpose. 

“I… don’t know where to start,” Solar said quietly.

[ares-carnahan]

@ttwstarters

Ares put Briella and Max to work almost immediately. As soon as he set them to do the obstacle courses for an hour, he took a seat to get hydrated. His hands were shaking, but he did his best to cover it up by chugging down half of the bottle of water in one go before capping it off and putting it beside him. He’d like to think that training and working out helped him sleep, helped him stop the thoughts and the nightmares, but it didn’t. There was only two sure ways he knew that helped and alcohol was slowly becoming one that he needed to overcompensate for to get the best results. He could feel his body reacting to it but yet he couldn’t admit it to himself that it was beginning to become a problem.

Ares sat and watched his two tributes on the obstacles, analyzing their movements but kept most of his eyes on Max. He wasn’t meant to be a tribute this year. He stole it from one of the top contenders in the Academy. Ares was pissed about it, so he was going to make sure that every little move he made was analyzed and criticized. He wasn’t going to get away with disobeying the natural order out of love. 

Stupid ideology.

He went to take another drink when he felt and heard someone sit beside him. He glanced at them, bottle poised to his lips, wondering why the hell they had to sit on the same bench as him. 

“Yes?” Ares asked.

[vesperantonius]

After the trainer had tapped out on the mat, Vesper had let them out of the lock she had them in. She let go of his arm and unlocked her legs from around his to keep him restrained while she had pinned him down with the rest of her body. But the guy was strong, and it took a bit for her to knock him down a few pegs. She made her way to the side of the mat, red strands of hair falling from the braid she had and sticking to her sweaty skin of her brow and neck. 

She reached for her bottle of water to have a drink, feeling an ache in her shoulder. With a small grunt, she set the bottle down and rolled her shoulder, giving a small grimace. The trainer had tried to kick her legs from under her and she attempted to rebound, but her reaction time was off and she put too much weight on that shoulder going down. “Damn,” she hissed, rubbing out the ache in her shoulder.

@ttwstarters

[dreamsbornofgrain]

Aspen stood there just inside the door of the training center a moment praying she didn’t look too lost. She hadn’t felt this lost at the start of her own training, but then again, no one expected tributes to know what they were doing. Mentors however, they were supposed to know these things. She wished she had someone to ask, but District Nine’s other mentors were quite old and had elected not to make the trip to the Capitol now that they had someone to take their place. Right, she could figure this out.

“Hey…” Aspen said to the person next to her. “I was thinking of heading over to the first-aid or camouflage station, did you want to come?”

@ttwstarters​

[ashtendewitt]

As much as Ashten wanted to take up the axes, she had a feeling it was best to steer clear of them until the private training sessions. That was when her best skills would be put to the test, and she didn’t need to draw too much attention to herself just yet, especially from the competition. So she had wandered around the different stations– navigation, first aid, camouflage. Things that didn’t seem terribly important until the Tribute was dying because they didn’t know how to stitch up a wound or blend into their surroundings. 

But she knew she needed a back up in case she didn’t get an axe in the Arena. Something that would be a good substitute. So she found herself at the hand-to-hand combat station, stretching to warm herself up before she would find a sparring partner or a free trainer. Ashten started to head toward the mat when she spotted someone approaching. “Got any tips for throwing a decent punch?”

@ttwstarters

[cashmerelepointe]

“What do you think you’re doing?!” Cashmere exclaimed as she felt, what she assumed was a rogue dagger, graze the side of her arm. Someone clearly didn’t know what they were doing or got distracted. Novices shouldn’t be left unsupervised or well, allowed to touch the weapons.

“Well?” She asked the person beside her. If they were a tribute she had a lecture prepared. Mentors and other team members needed to be reminded how to look after their tributes and bystanders, well they would wake her side naturally. “Accidentally killing people is supposed to wait until the games start.”

@ttwstarters​

[leta-carnahan]

@ttwstarters

With training begun her days were spent mostly guarding the entrances to the training center and checking the tributes when they left for stashed weapons. Dull work, but also work that was being meticulously looked over by her superiors. Any toe out of line, any slip up and she knew that she would be facing a write-up and then another day of questioning. 

She was out of uniform now though and dealing with another not-so-little annoyance. “No Persephone, I won’t talk to her. I don’t care what she told you. Stop asking me. You weren’t there. You didn’t hear what I did.”

When she hung up she took a deep breath and ran her fingers through her long hair, noticing the person sitting just a few feet. “Sorry,” she said, realizing her voice had been pitched a little high. “Just family business.”

[gemofpanem]

Training, finally somewhere Briella felt perfectly at ease. The Parade had been fine, but she was eager to show off her skills. Naturally she gravitated towards the weapons and quickly picked up a bow and a quiver of arrows. “Want to try?” She asked the person that settled in the space next to her as she shot one of her arrows. An arrow that would have been buried in someone’s eye socked had it been a real person and not a dummy. The second one found a home right in the heart.

“I hear the simulator is a riot, should we try that instead? Is that more your style?” Briella asked because she knew as a career, certain things were expected of her. Sure she should check out some of the other stations, but right now she needed to establish herself as a career.

@ttwstarters

[ripleycoda]

Rowena could’ve won the entire damn thing. Rowena had the physical ability, the mental smarts, the I’m great at making people love me crap. She had everything. Ripley? Ripley knew how to take shit apart with a screwdriver. That was about it. Ripley was smart, but not as smart. 

It had been a process throughout her life, accepting that she was not the favourite child. And that there was a possibility her parents would not miss her.

“Oh, Ripley, I’m sorry, I just couldn’t go-”

“What kind of fake-sibling-love bullshit-” Ripley muttered, storming off around the corner to find a place to sulk in private. As she rounded a corner to try and get away from the lobby, she noticed another person there and smiled, stopping her quiet rant in its tracks. “Hello, just exploring,” she greeted, trying to cover her tracks of just wanting to escape from all those people in the lobby. 

She didn’t have the energy for a fake smile. // @ttwstarters​

[ashtendewitt]

As soon as she was done in the Remake Center, Ashten wanted out.

Not that she minded being clean, but the shaving and waxing, the scrubbing and poking– it was too much. Had they just left it to her to handle, then it wouldn’t have been a big deal. But other people were touching her and she just wanted out. So once she had her hair cleaned and everything, Ashten slipped out to go and get something to eat. She had to wait for her stylists to come and figure out what kind of tree they were going to style her up as this year. Seemed to be the same get up year after year for Seven.

She had approached the table full of food, snatching up a small sandwich when she noticed someone walk up beside her. She glanced over at them and then down at one of the plates of… something in front of her. “Any idea what that is?” she asked, pointing toward the mystery food.

@ttwstarters