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Prompt me: Sententiae Latinae

Because I’m a Classicist and ancient words are a great part of what inspires me, here are some Latin quotes that could make good story prompts. Send me a number and character(s)/pairing to write, and feel free to reblog this if you want prompted!

Caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware.

Brevis ipsa vita est sed malis fit longior. Life is short but misfortunes make it longer.

alma mater, an institution of learning as referred to by its former students, i.e. the school you graduated from. Literally it means “fostering mother”.

Dum spiro, spero. While I breathe, I hope.

Ad astra per aspera. To the stars through difficulties.

Amantes sunt amentes. Lovers are lunatics.

Amantium irae amoris integratio est. A lovers’ quarrel is the renewal of love.

Credula res amor est. Love is a credulous thing.

Omnia vincit amor; et nos cedamus amori. Love conquers all; let us too yield to love.

Nosce te ipsum. Know thyself.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. It is a sweet and proper thing to die for one’s country.

Dimidium facti qui coepit habet. He who has begun has the work half done.

Beneficium accipere libertatem est vendere. To accept a favor is to sell one’s freedom.

Cineri gloria sera est. Glory paid to ashes comes too late.

Damnant quod non intellegunt. They condemn what they do not understand.

De gustibus non est disputandum. There’s no accounting for taste.

Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis. All things change, and we change with them.

Facta non verba. Deeds, not words.

Omnium enim rerum principia parva sunt. The beginnings of all things are small.

Mens sana in corpore sano. A sound mind in a sound body.

That should suffice for now! If this goes well, there are plenty of other quotes for a part two post.

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I love it when anons/guests find my works and kudo/leave reviews, but given the new revelation that Elon Musk is using bots to mine AO3 fanfiction for a writing AI without writer's permission, my works are now archive-locked and only available for people with an AO3 account.

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long story short | Chapter 8: The Sleeping God

read on → ao3 | ff

we’re hanging in there folks.

comments appreciated!

excerpt below

To be honest, my head was only just starting to pound as I swam through the opening (and, of course, my prickles reacted negatively to that). If I had been at full strength, I fully believe I would've made it fine to the light I could see several yards away. I was a relatively strong swimmer, or at least I liked to believe I was, as that was part of training at camp.

However, I was not at full strength. My side was burning now. My prickles were taking up half my mental energy. This slowed me down tremendously. Huixing and Ellery's lights grew further and further away from me. My head began to pound like taiko drums in a theater, to the tune of my heartbeat. My lungs were starting to scream. In a panic, I grasped out for anything that might help me move forward.

It was a small cave-like tunnel, I think, because I slammed my palm into a sharp rock. I nearly exhaled but managed to keep the stale air in my lungs, despite the pressure it put on my chest and the way it made my head pound.

Trying to ignore my now-throbbing hand (on top of everything else), I reached out again, grasping at any hand hold I could find to pull myself forward, trying not to cut myself again.

Still, I wasn't moving nearly as fast as I wanted to.

My vision was going fuzzy. The lights in the distance swirled in a way that reminded me of a kaleidoscope. My body screamed in several different ways—my lungs for air, the new cut on my hand, my side, my pin-pricks.

I slowed to a stop.

I refused to breathe, though. I would rather pass out and hope I drowned while unconscious.

The last thing I remembered was someone grasping my good hand.

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long story short | Chapter 7: The Kind Thing

read on → ao3 | ff

rough week. lost my motivation there for a bit. but i think i found it again? *knock on wood*

comments appreciated!

excerpt below

I wanted to do several things after that short call. Sitting up has exhausted me, so I wanted to go back to sleep. But I also wanted to call my therapist and see if they were able to move my appointment with them up any further because I was reeling at the influx and rush of visions I was getting.

It wasn't so much that Apollo was regularly there, like a decent father should be, but he was there when I had previously believed he hadn't been at all.

His visits were short—he never stayed longer than to congratulate me and Dan on some achievement and then he was gone again. Very occasionally, he would be there when Mom tucked us into bed, but those were rare.

So, it wasn't like he was going above and beyond the call of fatherhood, but I had always believed he had had a fling with Mom and then fled, leaving her a single mother of twins.

I didn't remember ever seeing him during childhood until now. So why now? Why was I getting these…visions? Flashbacks? Memories? Of him visiting us? Of that strange conversation he had with my mom about my Fate?

I needed someone to talk to, and Rowan (my therapist), seemed like the best option right now. They were sworn to patient confidentiality, and they were also able to view everything from an outside, detached perspective. Rowan was a demigod, a child of Iaso (who was a child of Asclepius), so I had no qualms about talking about my demigod problems, either.

That said, I was also feeling gross and sticky from the poultice, so I wanted to take a shower. I also wanted to talk to Apollo—demand what he had talked about to my mom, and ask why he was giving me such strange looks ever since he'd seen me in the woods.

At the same time, I dreaded it. I didn't have the energy or the mental space to get into a conversation about something so heavy.

And then, I also wanted to avoid Will as much as possible, because I didn't want to spend the energy bobbing and weaving around the questions I knew he would have, especially about my fractal burns.

Painstakingly, I put my phones back in my jacket pocket. Maybe I would sleep more.

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long story short | Chapter 6: Godly Perks and Powers

read on → ao3 | ff

Eyy this week was not too hellish and I actually had the energy to write!

comments appreciated!!

excerpt below

Instead of having nightmares like I was expecting, I found myself sitting at a small, hole-in-the-wall café. It was early morning, but already warm. It felt more like summer than the middle of winter. (My prickles rejoiced.) Near me, sat a couple speaking in Italian. That's when I realized someone was sitting across from me.

"Nico," I said, slightly surprised. "Why…" I trailed off, looking around. It reminded me of when he'd taken me for hot chocolate in Italy when the Seven were on their "save the world" mission as the prophecy had specified. They'd picked me up along the way, so I'd been on the ship at the time. (I'd had an episode, shall we say, and had nearly killed myself, but Nico was able to talk me down.)

"Not that I don't appreciate it," I added quickly, looking back at him.

Nico gave me a serious look, eyebrows slightly furrowed. "I wanted to talk to you. Alone. Will refuses to leave the infirmary."

"Right." I deflated a little.

"You promised," Nico reminded me.

"I know."

"Telling me in a dream is probably the safest way, anyway."

"What do you know?"

"Rachel made it to camp," Nico began.

"Oh! Did Herbert and Millard make it back okay, as well?"

Nico blinked. "Oh, yeah. They're a little worse for wear but they made it back with Rachel. They actually helped heal you with some poultice and nature magic. It's currently helping suck out the poison. But when you wake up, it'll be a little…slimy."

I let out a small breath. "Good, I'm glad. Sorry, you were saying about Rachel?"

Nico nodded. "She's been doing research into what could be the cause of…well, everything that's going on in New York. And, well, everywhere, actually." Nico paused, watching me closely. "The Triumvirate. Three emperors that funded the Second Titan War, and have been working behind the scenes for centuries to grow their wealth and power. Apollo also figured out what's going on with the disappearances at camp: The Grove of Dodona. An ancient oracle that's now located in the woods here at camp. Apparently, it's been calling people from camp into the woods."

"Oh. An oracle?" I sat back, frowning.

I hated how little they told me. I hated just having to get orders and follow them blindly. What was their point? What was their game? What purpose did that serve? They were the ones who'd said they wanted me working for them because they said I was powerful, so why did they keep playing games with me? I just didn't understand the angle they were coming from, and it was starting to frustrate me. I felt helpless and like I wasn't all that powerful at all.

Had they said I was powerful when Hargrave and I first met as some kind of powerplay? Or did they think it would stroke my ego? As if threatening to kill my loved ones wasn't enough to make me sign on.

"You didn't know?" Nico asked, breaking me from my thoughts.

I crossed my arms. "No. They don't tell me anything. I get my marching orders and don't ask questions."

"They?"

I sighed and let my arms fall into my lap. "The emperors—" I broke off, realizing my arms were bare. My eyes darted to my shirt—just the tank top I always wore underneath my turtlenecks. Cold dread seeped into my body, my pin-pricks burst painfully, and the dream around us flickered.

"Whoa, Tori," Nico said, his voice low and calm. "What's wrong? What can I do to help?"

"I—" I broke off and instead tried to get my breathing under control, tried to stabilize my emotions (and my prickles) so we weren't yanked from this nice scene and thrown into Tartarus. It took me a long moment but I finally managed to get my brain out of fight-or-flight mode. My heart was still pounding, my breathing a bit ragged, just not as bad as it was before. And, great, my prickles were now trying to be front and center. I could push them away for now. That this was a dream helped a little bit.

"Tori?" Nico asked slowly, eyeing me with concern.

I looked up at him cautiously, nervously, and gently drew my left arm over my right. Nico's eyes flickered to my right and his face cleared in understanding.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he said softly. "I will say, though, Will and Apollo both have questions about it. I don't think I have to remind you, but you don't have to tell them either, you know."

"I know," I mumbled, then muttered, annoyance coloring my tone, "But they probably won't leave me alone until I do. And that's worse."

Nico chuckled. "Will takes after Apollo in that respect, I suppose." His dark eyes sparkled with amusement. "So do you."

I stuck my tongue and made a face at that comparison. "Ew."

Nico let out a loud laugh at that.

I grinned back but sobered up quickly. "I find it easier to tell you things. I don't know if I'll tell Will and Apollo just yet. But first, Triumvirate."

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the feminine urge to fall in love with the villain.

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Types of intelligence for your OCs

What kind of intelligence does your character posses? Based on theory of multiple intelligences, these are some ideas what kind of smarts your characters might posses that aren’t the typical academic or street smarts. 

1. Visual-spatial (space smart)

These people are good at visualizing things, seeing in 3D, being able to imagine how things look even out of sight from the information they have about it. They are good with directions, maps, charts and pictures. Eye for drawing, patterns and puzzles. 

Especially useful for: architects, engineers, artists, pilots

2. Linguistic-verbal (word smart)

The ability to use words well, when writing and speaking. Typical strenghts are telling stories, memorizing information, love for reading, skill with words, debating and persuasive skills, adept at explaining complicated subjects. Also tend to be great at languages. 

Especially useful for: writers, journalists, lawyers, teachers, public speakers

3. Logical (reasoning smart)

Not necessarily but possibly mathematical, these people are great at reasoning, pattern recognition and logical analysis. Enjoyment for abstract thinking and ideas, excellent problem-solving skills and logical argumentation are other common traits. Pattersn, categories, relationships. 

Especially useful for: mathematicians, accountants, scientists, and detectives.

4. Bodily-kinesthetic (body smart)

Great hand-eye cordination, physical movement, often skilled at sports, dancing and creating things with their hands. Learn and remember rather by doing than listening or reading. Sense of timing and mind-body union excellent. 

Especially useful for: dancers, sculptors, actors, athletes, surgeons, crafts people, soldiers, police officers

5. Musical (sound smart)

Sensitive listeners. Thinking in patterns, recognizing rhythms, notes and melodies, good at remembering tunes, these people often enjoy singing or playing instruments. Often show great understanding of musical structure and know quickly when they hear someone going off-key. 

Especially useful for: musical teachers, composers, musicians, 

6. Interpersonal (people smart)

These people are very good at understanding and interacting with others. From verbal to non-verbal communication, they are proficient at assessing motivations, moods and desires of others and seeing things from multiple perspectives. Great communicators, create positive relationships with others easily and solve group dynamics and group conflicts well. Also enjoy discussions, debates and teamwork. 

Especially useful for: psychologists, counselors, salespeople, politicians, philosophers, teachers, managers, team leaders

7. Intrapersonal (self smart)

The opposite of interpersonal smarts is the intrapersonal intelligence, where people are very in tune with themselves and their feelings. They are honest with themselves, enjoy self-reflection, analysing theories and ideals, love daydreaming, and show great self-awareness and assessment of their own strenghts and weaknesses. 

Especially useful for: writers, philosophers, theorits, scientists

Bonus types: 

8. Creative (ideas smart) 

People that show exceptional curiousity, get inspired by little things around them and connect ideas and concepts in an unsual way. It’s a more feeling-based, spontaneous type of intelligence that gets less recognition, but brings immense benefits in all fields. 

Especially useful for: artists, marketers, scientists, concept artists, 

10. Abstract (concept smart)

Drawn to abstract ideas, these people enjoy deep discussions, don’t like to settle on one truth and ask questions that have no easy or no answer at all. Connecting, conceptualizing, analysing, listening and putting things together, they are great at seeing things from a distance, seeing the whole and not just the pieces. 

Especially useful for: scientists, philosophers, researchers, theorists, designers, analysts

Writing advice masterlist

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"But let me give you the dark side of writing groups. One really dark side of writing groups is, particularly newer writers, don't know how to workshop.

"And one of the things they'll try to do is they'll try to make your story into the story they would write, instead of a better version of the story you want to write.

"And that is the single worst thing that can happen in feedback, is someone who is not appreciating the story you want to make, and they want to turn it into something else.

"New workshoppers are really bad at doing this. In other words, they're really good at doing a bad thing, and they're doing it from the goodness of their heart. They want you to be a better writer. They want to help you. The only way they know is to tell you how they would do it, which can be completely wrong for your story."

—Brandon Sanderson, Lecture #1 Introduction, Writing Science Fiction And Fantasy

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Something i don't see get talked about enough is trust for the reader. I've seen discussions about trusting the reader to know right from wrong in fiction without spoon-feeding them, but I'm talking about a micro-scale version, where you have to trust the reader to understand what's going on in the scene without narrating every single action.

When I was in school learning how to produce a short film, my professor said one of the common things he sees from students is they feel the need to show everything. They show the character going from one place to another. They show the character getting up from a chair and crossing the room to go outside. These aren't thing that we should never show; they're things we shouldn't show all the time. We have to trust that if the character is indoors in one shot and outside in the next, the watchers will fill in the gap between the two shots. They'll understand the character got up and walked out without needing it to be shown.

In the story I'm writing, a character buys a hashbrown and sits down in a booth. Originally I was going to write:

"She pulls her wallet from pocket, takes out a credit card, and pays. Then she goes to a booth and sits down."

It seems fine. But it's also unnecessarily long. This is what I actually ended up writing:

"She pays with a card and sits down in a booth."

Because the act of her taking the wallet out of her pocket is not important at all. It adds nothing to the scene, the character, the action. It's just superfluous. If I just say "she pays with a card", I get the same effect. I can trust the audience to put together that the card probably came from her wallet, which is probably in her pocket or bag, and to be frank, it doesn't matter if it came from her bag or pocket. The point is she paid with a card. And that's all I needed to convey.

I've read several books that over-narrate in a similar fashion, feeling the need to describe every single tiny action, and many times at the cost of the prose reading clunky. I don't even think this is something most people think about. But it's something I notice, even in my own writing. Because we all want the reader to experience the scene EXACTLY like how we want them to. We want them to see every detail. But at some point we have to realize it's impossible to make the readers read the book the exact way you want them to. You have to trust them.

And I think it's a little challenging to find the right balance of when to explain and when to just let things slide. I'm a little afraid I'll start paring things down so much that my writing is stripped of personality in the name of being concise. It's something you get the hang of over time. And this isn't not me telling you it's something you should never do. It's me saying it's something worth watching out for. Do what works for your book, and happy writings!

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long story short | Chapter 5: Little Finch

read on → ao3 | ff

trying a new format for fic posting multi-chap. lmk what ya think she said knowing no one interacts with this blog

long weeks, long weeks. not all bad, working on a crochet project for my mom, which takes away from writing a lot SEE IT HERE BC I’M SO PROUD OF IT

comments always appreciated ^_^

excerpt

End of October

The rest of the ride was silent.

We pulled up to a skyscraper that didn't look very interesting on the outside. There was a large news van parked on the curb, and the merc driving pulled the SUV up in front of it. Then we all got out and they ushered me over toward the side of the van facing the sidewalk.

I should've known it was a cover. Everything I ever encountered with Triumvirate was a ruse or a cover or something else.

The side door slid open and I was gently shoved inside. Hargrave stepped in last, and slid the door closed. Inside was more spacious than I thought it'd be, though one half of the van was concealed from me by black curtains.

"That's not your concern," Hargrave said, as I peered at the curtains. His tone had a sharp edge to it.

I turned my back to the curtains and saw the two other demigods that were to be my questing companions, as Hargrave had put it.

The man had short, wavy dark hair and was dressed in a generic black suit with a white button-down underneath. He towered over the woman next to him. She was East Asian, with long black hair pulled back into a high ponytail. She was wearing the same black suit and white button-down as the man.

Hargrave gestured to the man, "This is Charlie." Then gestured to the woman. "And this is Hayley." He paused as if expecting us to shake hands or exchange greetings. We did not. So Hargrave continued, "Charlie is a son of Meditrina, the Roman goddess of healing or health, longevity, and wine. Hayley is a daughter of Tyche; luck." As if I didn't know that.

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ff

another long few weeks XP comments are appreciated ^_^

chapter summary: *pats Tori's shoulder* this baby can fit so much trauma!

excerpt

I had dreams about the forest.

Mostly the same things I'd heard while in the forest: pleas, whispers that sounded like prayers, calls for help, and the name "Castellan" a lot, as I stumbled through trees that pressed in on me from all sides. I kept tripping on knobby roots and scraping up my hands. My head pounded, my prickles roared, my heart felt like it was trying to break free from my chest.

At some point, when I tripped and fell, the forest floor gave way to a chasm of darkness. I knew this dream all too well. I landed in Tartarus. Despite knowing I was going to end up in Tartarus every night, it always felt fresh emotionally. It felt exactly like I was arriving for the first time, every time.

I used to have a therapy pet for this reason. Well, she was really more of a therapy dragon. A small thing (nothing like the size of Peleus), about the size of a cat. Not only did she provide warmth for my chronic pain, but she also woke me up if the dreams became too much, and helped me calm down if something triggered a flashback while awake. After being recruited, to put it nicely, by Triumvirate, she had disappeared.

Some part of me hoped that she had escaped for her own safety, sensing not only the danger of Triumvirate, but also the general danger in the city. But the longer I went without any sign from her, the more I feared Hargrave, or anyone from Triumvirate, had done something to her. I wanted to go look for her, or demand Hargrave tell me what they'd done to her, but to be honest…I didn't think I could handle what they told me. So I had put it off—let myself believe that she had simply left to protect herself, as that would've been the smart thing to do. (Even though I knew, deep down, she wouldn't have abandoned me.)

All that said, I woke with a shout, which woke everyone else in the cabin, as well.

"I'm fine," I quickly assured, because I could hear the question on their lips. "Go back to sleep."

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One-Shot: The Right Thing

Apollo gets separated from Leo and Calypso on his way to Indianapolis.

Apollo stumbled through the cold, dark, damp streets of Columbus, Ohio, his ragged breathing the only sound disrupting the empty alley. It echoed off the wall, amplifying his anxiety, making his heart pound all the harder. Which made his breath harder, which made the echoes worse, which made his anxiety worse, which made his heart pound harder. And so the wheel turned.

And so he was back in a stinking alley.

cont. → ao3 | ffn

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general writing advice, actually: you don’t need an excuse beyond “BUT WOULDN’T THIS BE COOL” to write something into your fic. write things in solely because they make you cackle with the delight of a 12-year-old-boy playing with his dinosaur toys. it’s fun and there’s nothing stopping you or any of us at all any longer.

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doesnt my job understand i have a blooming fanfiction writing career to work on

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the essentials of writing FIGHT SCENES!

I realized that there weren’t a lot of fight scene tutorials on here that addressed a lot of the common mistakes of fight scenes. I have a non-zero amount of experience with Krav Maga and have been told I’m very good with fight scenes so I thought I might as well write out a little advice 

Keep in mind that this is best suited to “nasty hand to hand street fighting” and even then there are probably better people to ask about it. But here goes. 

What’s the One Important Thing I’d have you remember? 

Best piece of fight scene advice I’ve ever heard: Violence is fast. Whenever people are involved in some kind of accident or tragedy, what they say is “It happened so fast!” So no matter what, think fast. The main mistake I see with fight scenes is unrealistic description, and it comes from a lack of understanding of a fight being a very altered state of consciousness, where your character is at the limits of their ability to process shit. So: 

How to Describe a Fight Scene! 

The Language: Go for the strongest verbs you can find and use them. Think slam, crash, smash, pound, grind, shove, ram, claw, rip, gouge, bash…You want very verb driven writing. This is the time to pull out that thesaurus and that list of 500 verbs to use in writing or whatever. Don’t let adjectives and adverbs carry the weight. “She punched him hard in the gut” needs to be “She slammed a fist into his gut.” Or better, let the fist be the subject: “Her fist slammed in his gut.”  If there’s any time to adhere hardcore to active voice, it’s now. Also notice that I shortened “into” to “in”- it’s best to go with language that’s as short and well, punchy, grammar be damned. This is also why I go with “gut” rather than “stomach.” Sentence fragments and em-dashes and such are your friends. Cut out articles and conjunctions wherever you can. And try to keep the subject and verb of every action close together–it’s much more direct and better able to connote that intense aggression that you want. 

So, you might have something like this: “As she tried to throw a punch at his face, he dodged aside, moving in, his body twisting, to kick her in the ribs.” 

You might notice the following issues: The verbs are fairly weak- tried, moving. “Dodged” is good but the others fall flat. There are a lot of extraneous words. And the clause at the beginning makes the sentence feel too indirect. 

So these are the changes I would make: “Her fist darted for his face. He dodged aside. Slipped closer, twisted–his heel crashed into ribcage.” 

That’s the technical stuff out of the way. Now for some more general advice on fights:

In a fight, you really don’t think. There are two things your brain can do: percieve and respond. In such an adrenaline-fueled survival situation, you’re a bundle of instinctive reaction and OHFUCKOHFUCKOHFUCK. A skilled fighter doesn’t mentally remember techniques, the techniques are just the first response that springs out at an attack because they’re second nature. And the thing is, you CAN’T remember techniques in the fight. Adrenaline makes you big stupid. Brain is a faraway land, but body is here, in danger, and trying to stay alive. This is what I mean by your character being at the limits of their processing—they have very little room to think because they’re in survival mode.

That’s why you practice techniques One Fuckthousand Times in martial arts. It’s actually wild how little conscious thought there is to it. I’m always going to remember the time when I, a smol orange belt, was sparring with a larger guy and his fist was flying at my face and I just…wove underneath it. Without even thinking. Pure instinct. I had two guys like, beaming at me and pounding me on the back at the breakthrough but I was confused at the time because it felt like a complete accident. So what you should get out of this is—yeah, no internal monologue! Write what your character perceives and write what they respond.

Description of any kind, but especially visual description, will be highly fragmented. If your character is in a fight with another character, they’re not going to be extensively perceiving their surroundings and noticing the thick curtains of ivy on the walls or whatever. Their focus will be. On the fight. Part of the reason for this is that adrenaline makes you focus hard on threats and kind of cancels out irrelevant data. I want to point out visual description specifically as an area of concern though because for one thing, your field of view is going to be limited as you try to protect your head and face, you’re going to need to pay attention to your aggressor and anticipate their next move, and finally, if you get punched in the face or have anything come close to hitting you there you’re going to be blinded temporarily because you’ll instinctively shut your eyes. NO SCENERY! If your character’s getting pummeled in the face they’re probably not noticing the vicious gleam in their adversary’s eyes outside of a quick glimpse. Imagine the whole thing is being filmed through a panicking amateur’s shaky camera.

Hone in hard on your character’s body in your descriptions. They’re inhabiting their body in a super intense way and most of your description will probably lean toward the tactile. This not only includes the awareness of pain or of being hit, but also the movement and coordination of their muscles and how they are working together, their breathing, potentially exhaustion or fatigue. Martial arts allows you to experience how your body produces force—to percieve the flow of power through your entire torso that culminates in a punch. This feeling can add a lot to a description of a fight. A punch or a kick’s power doesn’t come from muscular strength of your limbs, but originates throughout your body and the ability to coordinate that and draw it together into a single hard point of power involves a lot of consciousness of your body, which also becomes second nature.

Almost the entirety of your character’s focus will be firmly in their body. They are perceiving their adversary’s movements, but that is sharply edged with their own reactions to them.

I feel like people often don’t realize how intense taking a hit in a fight can be. A punch to the face or head is blinding and dizzying; taking a hit to the temple will snap your head aside and put you completely out of it for a second. Descriptions of these things need to be very grounded and intense to feel right. Getting hit in the chest hard enough can knock the wind out of you. Getting hit in the gut WILL make you retch or throw up. A hard kick to the gut is like instant vomit. (There’s another post with really excellent descriptions about what certain blows feel like so I’ll leave this at that.)

Your character will perceive pain, both the force of the blow they take and a sense of the scale or breadth of the pain, but adrenaline will keep them going through it to a degree that isn’t possible when not pumped full of adrenaline. Your character will probably know that they’ve been injured (oh fuck, that was a nasty hit to the side) but AFTER the fight, expect the real pain to suddenly hit (oh fuck, there’s a giant bruise over my side and it’s aching so deep I can barely move).

Adrenaline makes you straight up loopy sometimes. Y’all know how much I hate anecdotal evidence, but one of my former instructors told a story about how he was mugged, got slammed against the sidewalk and briefly blacked out, fought back, and then just…decided to go to work. He thought he was fine. A few hours later, paramedics were asking him questions and he was completely incoherent. He had a severe concussion but the adrenaline rush had caused a delay in the damage really hitting, to the point that he was just like “heh, I can go straight to work, I’m fine!”

Some general facts:

A fight is probably going to be over pretty quickly: Movies are deceptive about this but it’s not super realistic to have two characters tangling with each other for like…ten minutes straight. You get tired. You get sloppy. And there’s only so much damage you can take.

Fancy kicks not recommended: They look nice on screen, sure. But having your leg above your waist for any length of time is one hell of a risk when your opponent can grab it and slam you to the floor like a sack of concrete mix. HOWEVER, kicks can be fight enders. A heel kick will break ribs easily.

Dirty fighting: This is the Kravist in me, but knees to the groin are valid and will completely immobilize a testicle-having attacker. Elbows are also highly destructive, but you tend not to see them in movie fights much. Biting is valid and bites can be very nasty. Gouging eyes is very effective. It’s also easier than you would think to rip the skin off someone’s face with your nails if you’re already going feral. A good punch to the throat might end a fight.

Blocking or dodging blows: Your character can deflect a punch or a knife attack to the upper body with forearms, and your arms will cushion a blow to the head as well. You can also duck your head around an attempted blow to the face. It’s important, though, to think of your two characters’ actions as interlocking rather than alternating—a character going in for a hit will at least briefly have one of their limbs extended instead of protecting the body, and the other character will be taking that opening. Have them dodge the blow and slide into their own opportunity in a single movement.

Shit Happens: A fight is not an equation where you plug in the size and weight of both adversaries and get the result. Again, this is the Kravist in me, but the only law is Murphy’s law. An attempt to land a blow can go sour and break somebody’s wrist. An attacker can trip and fall. Puddles and improvised weapons and getting blood or sweat in your eyes can all be wild cards. An experienced fighter can get fucked up by someone smaller and less experienced than they because of luck. That said, though, experience is what helps you adapt to the Murphy’s-law-ness of everything.

Yeah that’s what I’ve got, enjoy ur violence

[cruelwritersthesis]

ff

yay another chapter

i’ve had a long week, comments are very much, extra appreciated ^^;

excerpt

Sleeping beauty was not awake yet.

When I got back to the Apollo cabin, there was still a crowd gathered. They shifted and murmured amongst themselves uneasily. I noticed none of my other half-siblings were in the crowd, and I wondered what they were off doing. I was also a little surprised, considering they had a much more amicable relationship with our father (if you could call never seeing him but occasionally getting birthday gifts a relationship. Do I sound bitter?). So I just thought they'd be part of that crowd. Of course, since this was our cabin and our infirmary, they could've also just been inside.

I quickly slipped into the cabin without notice, and hung my sword again. I'd taken it out of habit. It wasn't like I really needed it while moseying around camp. I went to the bathroom first, where we kept human meds because, well, children of Apollo. I took four ibuprofen and took a moment to look at the flowers Willow had put in my hair. She'd put them in my braid so that the flowers made a line down the middle of my braid. Somehow (though, she was a tree nymph), she'd managed to wave the stems into my braid, following the flow of my hair. It was so pretty, I was already regretting having to take them out tonight. Then I went through the corridor to the infirmary.

Back in the infirmary, Apollo was, obviously, still unconscious. Will still sat near him in a chair he'd pulled up, but he was leaning over Apollo, his brow furrowed. But they were the only two in the infirmary currently, so my other siblings must've been off doing…something else.

"Is everything alright?" I asked.

Will jumped and looked over at me, his hand curling into a fist. He wasn't a fighter, but camp still taught us combat. It was necessary as a demigod. Not to mention, we'd been through two wars now, so it was to be expected some of us might have PTSD.

When he realized it was me, he relaxed but his eyes still looked tight. I could tell he noticed the flowers in my hair but he must've been too worried about Apollo to comment on them.

"I just thought he'd be awake by now," Will said. Then he turned back to Apollo and took his wrist, checking his pulse. "Maybe the nectar I tried to give him did more damage I can't see." He was mostly muttering to himself now.

I stepped closer. Apollo looked a little pale and a little sweaty. His nose looked like it was healing from being broken, with dark circles under his eyes. I could sense some other bruising on his body but nothing more serious than that. Another child of Apollo gift: we could sense wounds on the body, even internal ones. It came in handy. Of course, there were limits to this power and some of us didn't get it at all, but Will and I had both gotten it as part of our godly package.

"He's fine, Will," I reassured. "I don't sense anything wrong other than some bad bruises."

Will let out a shaky breath. "He should've woken by now," he muttered again, dropping Apollo's wrist, probably not having heard me at all.

I reached over to put a gentle hand on Will's shoulder, drawing his attention to me.

"I'm sure he's fine," I repeated. "He probably just needs a little more time to recuperate. Being human now and all—"

[cruelwritersthesis]

ff

second chapter yay!

it’s late, i’m tired. so not much to say other than comment pls lol

excerpt

I told Liam to pull up to where about the pine tree was. Due to the Mist, and the magical border that protected camp, Liam saw something wholly and completely different than I did. I could've checked, but it was, honestly, kind of exhausting. What I saw was the golden fleece of legend hanging from the pine tree's lowest bough. Protecting it was a dragon, wrapped around the tree's trunk. He blew smoke out his nostrils with each exhale. His name was Peleus.

A few yards away from the pine tree, strengthening the border, was the lost statue of Athena, or the Athena Parthenos. So-called because after Athens was ransacked by the Romans in ancient times, they'd stolen the Athena Parthenos and hidden it away. During the Second Giant War, Annabeth (a daughter of Athena, and also Percy's girlfriend), had recovered it. Reyna, a Roman demigod daughter of Bellona, had brought it to Camp Half-Blood.

I brought out the wad of cash I had on me, split it in half and handed that to Liam.

"Thank you for humoring me," I said.