Brutus & Sexual Frustration

[lorata]

With het forbidden, most kids in the Centre have a gay phase. Brutus tries, but some people just ain't cut out for it.

(Warnings for weird consent -- he agrees but he doesn't like it, and he's not very nice about it -- and for later mentions of blood lust/sexy lust conflations.)

Comments

[trovia]

Aw man, your writing is so so good.

It's not respectable, that's all, and that's what the Program is all about, being good, honest citizens training to do their duty

Oh geez.

Except that Dad used to say some boys can't tell the difference between wanting to kiss a girl and wanting to make her angry

Subtle Ways Of Creating A Rapist, thanks dad. Fortunately, Brutus is much too sweet to turn out that way, although I laugh at myself for calling the guy who delights in breaking wrists sweet.

It's -- pretty terrible.Awwww Brutus

[lorata]

Ha to clarify (because I feel bad for Marc), Dad wasn't saying its a good thing. The whole conversation is the parents saying that boys are dumb-ass animals and Brutus better not turn out like that, but I cut it out because he wouldn't actually get that far here without cutting the memories off. If I put it on AO3 I'll make it a bit more clear that Dad isn't endorsing it.

I'm glad it made sense to you, and you're absolutely right actually -- he's doing it all wrong. After he wins and talks to his mentor about it, Odin is like ..... well ffs boy, there's your problem! He eventually manages to separate it out ice he tries it with girls for real, which is one hell of a relief. (I mean, not that it's that simple, but there is that moment of fuck yes THIS instead of the awful struggle with boys.) I might write the post-Arena companion to this, though it's really difficult to write because for some reason nobody ever does.

[deathmallow]

(tries to not play the "You Had a Bad Day" song because it might make Brutus want to kill things, because it makes ME want to kill things

[lorata]

Oh, that's fun! For me that's exactly why the Program didn't do that. They're only sending two kids per year to the Games -- better to risk a few having secret het sex (which, let's be real, but they're all on birth control and it's more important not to get caught) than have a whole bunch of emotionally compromised kids be screwed up on intimacy. :) The post-Centre dorms are all about detoxing and are basically an unofficial match-making time for the kids who aren't going on to be Peacekeepers.

Basically the Program in mine is not actually about building Volunteers exclusively, to the extent that it'll screw over the other kids. That's not practical. They SAY it is, but it ain't. They're also building strategists, trainers, and -- actually -- politicians, doctors, police, etc.

YAY DIFFERENT HEADCANONS :D

(There's also the whole sparring culture thing which I have feelings about but don't want to, like, go crazy.)

[deathmallow]

I think we differ on that I think most of the late "fails" (past age 15 or so) do become Peacekeepers, because they see that as the next most honorable option, and most closely in line with what they've been trained to do. For a warrior culture, the chance to be a police officer/solider would be seen favorably, and they'd be hesitant to "regress" away from what they fought so hard to achieve and become a doctor, politician, etc. It's a way to most directly acknowledge what they accomplished at the Academy.

[lorata]

Most of the washouts in mine go on to the Peacekeeping Academy I think, though a fair chunk come back as trainers (not a lot of trainers can make it past 15 years without the guilt setting in, and I think 20 years is the cutoff before you're asked to retire or moved to admin) or Centre management/recruiters/strategists/PR people/etc. The number of kids who become doctors is probably low, percentage-wise, and that's a lot the kids who come out of it with guilt issues and need to atone. (Centre infirmary doctors, or exit/trauma counsellors, for example, are fairly common alternatives for the few who don't want to go into Peacekeeping)

It definitely works in yours, and it feeds into the characters you've created for Lyme and Brutus and Enobaria and makes sense in that context (especially since your Twos are sold, and if they're taught to divorce sex from intimacy then it would make sense how that would work).

[deathmallow]

ALSO Haymitch totally wants to shamelessly enable Brutus to say "ain't."

"Only dumb people say 'ain't', Allemand? Now let's think about all the people I outsmarted this last year." (Said in his thickest possible Appalachian accent.)

[lorata]

Hah that would upset my Brutus soooooo much because of course it's not that dumb people say ain't, he was just trained to speak District Standard and that meant losing his home accent (lots of ain'ts and double negatives and 'don't' instead of 'doesn't' and all that stuff). He's not ashamed of it, but it's a ...... vulnerability for him? He was supposed to represent the whole district, not just the quarry town he grew up in, and that meant losing all his verbal quirks. But it's still connected with home and parents and he's a blue-collar boy at heart and would get so upset to hear that kind of accent disparaged and alskfjs;ldkfjs;ldkfjdlkjf CONGRATS YOU BROKE THE BRUTUS-BOT

(also if my Brutus drops his grammar around you, that means he trusts you, so)

[deathmallow]

I have Enobaria as the one from poor quarry lineage, but Brutus is first-generation Peacekeeper (his brother, actually) so his parents were insanely proud that one son became a Peacekeeper (and is a Peacekeeper trainer after he got his twenty years in) and one is a victor. His parents were from lower middle class, and from one of the more hardscrabble parts of Two--like, not much better than Twelve in some aspects, and "lower middle" there was basically other places' blue collar--so he was considered something of a "hick". That feeling of having to strive doubly hard to prove himself does feed into his shame/inferiority complex later, along with how he was actually #2 in his year and only got the chance because Remus Thread, the golden boy from an illustrious Peacekeeper family, got called up because of the Quell and died there, and then Brutus' victory wasn't exactly stunning, etc.

No wonder he secretly likes Haymitch. ;)

[lorata]

Yeah I find your Brutus fascinating because he's basically the polar opposite of mine (poor boy who made good, solid win, talented mentor, popular at home & in the Capitol etc), but they still manage to have common points (MARRIED TO HONOURRRRRRRRRRRR, lack of snobbery, etc) and that's fun to see, kind of? \o/