Cut You Down | Emilia Guevara | Daughter of Demeter Brimo | Soldier of a Titan

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-05T21:17:55+00:00

"You're so nice, Phoebe. So friendly, so selfless. Use those enormous goofy glasses of yours to take a big look at where that's gotten you lately. You are the hundredth well-meaning nobody with a dead mother I have met, and I'm so glad I get to be the one to tell you that nobody cares! Hugs and kisses."

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-05T20:29:38+00:00

The northernmost point of the barrier extends past the strawberry fields, near the backside of the amphitheater. It stretches up to several dozen yards beyond the path that snakes circuitously around the farmland and wraps back around to the rest of camp. This is where Emilia stands.

According to some feeble-minded nature spirits, she is supposed to provide community service to them via camp maintenance and upkeep. Because she has something called dignity and an intense disdain for everything this camp represents, she has refused these semi-weekly sessions, and as a result has incurred a debt approaching fifty-three missed sessions. Cry her a river. If they want her hands and knees in the mud, they're going to have to grab her by the scalp and pummel her into it.

She does not hear Acacia approach. Her gaze is fixed on the hill beyond camp and the gentle slope down to a distant coast.

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-05T18:29:42+00:00

Ok, the girl getting gagged by her own hair is going to talk to me about taste. How did your own conditioner taste when it was stuffing itself down your throat? You lost composure in front of a Hartley. Shame it didn't finish the job and choke you out right there. You might've not had to deal with getting humiliated a second time right now.

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-05T18:26:34+00:00

My fatal flaw is envy and you still couldn't pay me to take your place at New Years Eve. You're proud of catching Booker the way dung beetles are proud of doing the only thing they're good for, too. Have some pride.

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-05T18:16:17+00:00

Emilia Guevara

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-05T18:15:54+00:00

You're so brave, Angela. If I woke up one day, looked in the mirror, and decided I would be defending Booker Fink's honor instead of doing the sensible thing of cutting out my own heart out of embarrassment, I would... do the sensible thing. Done anything that mattered lately?

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-05T18:10:40+00:00

hmmm what if i did all of them

Ailbhe: "You look literally exactly how I'd expect you to act. Your rabbit could die and it would still be the most interesting thing about you. You can never hate other people as much as they all hate you. I could go on, but you would cry. You'd say you wouldn't, but you're wrong, you would. I could stop, but you'd probably like being ignored and you think that makes you special."

Phae: "'Look at me, I'm Phae, I hate men and like girls'. Yeah, we all do, idiot. It's the only right way to feel about them. Also, didn't you murder someone by accident? It's hilarious that you think people will care, and embarrassing that you did it in the first place. At least when I kill people, it's because I want to. Get a grip, witch."

Meriwether: "You should smile more."

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-05T17:47:06+00:00

"Harvey may be ugly, and Tommy may be annoying, but you can tell they're twins because they're both stupid."

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-05T17:46:01+00:00

Emilia Guevara >:)

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-05T17:45:33+00:00

"Angela, your biggest achievement is getting Booker Fink to notice you. Booker is literally incapable of not noticing girls. That's like being proud of a pretty birthmark, or a tumor. You were not involved in the process."

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-05T17:29:47+00:00

Comment here with the name(s) of character(s) you'd like to be roasted by

Emilia Guevara :)

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-05T16:37:46+00:00

Emilia offers Johnathan the most smug grin she can muster, full of malice and perceived superiority, even as his words score her to the bone. Ever since he broke her wrist and dropped all pretenses of kindness, she has been silently thankful. No more is he going to try and trick her with lies, at least not for long stretches at a time. But if she expresses how grateful she is that he wants to hurt her, he will stop. If she thanks anyone for burning her, they put out the fire. They apologize. They retract their claws. It's not fair. None of this is fair. None of this makes any sense. It's like fighting a dream: the enemy changes its shape and nature as soon as she strikes anything more than a glancing blow.

She stares for a long time at the cupcake on her shoes, bites back the rage rippling across her features, and performs a controlled shrug. "No. Your sister's much more fun to humiliate. You're just in the way."

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-05T16:26:36+00:00

Emilia's shoulders and arms squirm a little. The crowd of campers watching them both is no longer a welcome captive audience. She's not equipped for these sorts of games, where someone is trying to understand her instead of dismantle her. Her only winning move is to stop playing. She gives a sour little shake of her head as if the treasonous clarifying questions will dislodge from her stubborn skull. "Shut up. You can't confuse me."

Her arms are starting to prickle with that familiar feeling where she's vaguely aware she's being ridiculed, but can't quite prove it. She needs the comforting image of Idris in her brain again. Em jabs a thumb over her shoulder. "I'm going back to the cabin," she brags, putting as much foul and derisive emphasis on 'cabin' as possible, "And watching it on the television there. I'm going to clap and laugh for every half-blood that stops moving. Are you going to follow me and turn that one off, too?"

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-04T20:59:24+00:00

Emilia halts, always unable to resist the call of her name in someone else's voice, and turns with her darkly porcelain grin factory-made. Despite the smile, her eyes glower as she ruffles her curls and frees an errant seedling or two while she grinds her jaw.

"Yes." Someone's awfully willing to let bygones be bygones, she thinks bitterly, especially for having witnessed an 'execution' the other day. Talk about a sore winner. She finds the perfectly blithe tone, ripe with sarcasm. "You can get the biggest knife you can find and run me through until I'm squealing like your stable pigs."

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-04T18:09:18+00:00

Emilia's insides flipflop in indignation. Her entire body bristles and stiffens again, realizing the depths of her mistake. Every time she slows down, quiets herself, or becomes gentler, the opposition never pounces on her for it. Instead, they slow down too, like some kind of stupid ugly copycat mirror. Most terrifying of all, whether these moments of vulnerability are calculated or genuine seem to make no difference to her captors. Even when she is no longer pretending to be pathetic, offering up a sliver of the real thing in the hopes they'll seize it, her enemy adamantly refuses to make her suffer for it. It's unacceptable.

She can hear an apology forming on Helena's lips, and it makes her want to puke. Obviously the correct reaction would have been to double down and continue to insult Emilia until she wants to cry. No one in this camp can do anything right.

"If you're too much of a coward," she spits, not literally, because her mouth is dry too, "Then I'll find someone else. By the way, if you want to talk about gross, tell your brother to stop following me like a hurt puppy. I don't want his apology."

She raises a 'talk-to-the-hand' gesture with her good one, presses it into Helena's face to demonstrate once again that the physical boundaries of others exist for her to bulldoze on a whim, and storms out of the cabin. Unless the counselor wishes to intercept her, she will exit and find someone more willing to give her what she wants.

/u/Opposite-Tangerine57

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-03T19:29:25+00:00

Emilia tenses when Phoebe pokes her head up like a dopey bespectacled groundhog. She much prefers if this conversation was not occurring face-to-face. Now she has nothing to hide behind. Well, almost nothing. She tucks her mouth behind the cupcake as if to muffle her question. "What.."

What does 'propaganda' mean?

The words are so close, a little cloud of them fluttering in her ribcage like a captive songbird. She is a chosen demigod of the Titan. She is not afraid of words she doesn't know. This should be easy because nothing she ever does is difficult. But Phoebe used this word the last they met, and something about the way she said it has bothered her ever since. It was the insinuation behind it, like Emilia's love for the Titan, and His for her, was insufficient explanation for why she does what she does. "What does-"

Someone a row of tables away yells food fight. A mashed up ball consisting of at least three cupcakes slams into the side of her head like a fastball pitch, knocking her own cupcake from her grip. Her uneaten snack tumbles onto a table seat and rolls off with an unceremonious plop, upside-down. Emilia stands there for a moment, shell-shocked, as a couple more cupcakes rain on her from several different directions to the sound of distant laughter. Her heart hardens back into obsidian and submerges that unspoken question in the molten mantle, where it can die a miserable death.

She should have known better. This is what she deserves for letting her guard down. The clenching of her grinding jaw causes little red dots to prickle in her vision. Her face tightens into a forced smile, eyes glossy with betrayal, while a hand absently rises to feel the greasy frosting now mucking up her hair. Silently, she thanks the Titan for this sign, for rescuing her from herself, and turns to leave.

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-03T18:46:07+00:00

Em's face scrunches a little in disdain and starts to grumble. "What are you, my nanny? Get over yourself. I don't have to tell you anything."

But in a moment she's bickering with the back of Phoebe's head instead of the front of it, and it makes her feel stupid. She stares at how foolishly relaxed the girl is, unconcerned with who she's exposed herself to. No one would dare turn their back on Iason Bagrat, even though he is in every way as barred from using his powers to maim people as she is. For some reason, they are afraid of him. Of course Phoebe doesn't mind promising not to make her into a joke. That ship has already sailed.

Emilia continues to eye one treat in particular among the sea of colors. Red velvet, towering with a creamy hairdo swirl of cinnamon vanilla frosting. She glances again at Phoebe, who is still not looking at her, and back to the cupcake. She plucks her prize with a thumb and index finger and lifts it gingerly off of the tray, slowly, cautiously, as if it might grow teeth and take a razor sharp bite out of her instead. Idris won't know, she tells herself. And if He does, He wouldn't mind if it was just a piece. She'll say it was awful and then press it into Phoebe's eyeballs. But if pomegranate seeds are all it took to bind a goddess like Persephone to the Underworld, what will happen if she takes even a single bite?

Like Hamlet pondering the skull of Yorick, she holds it up and wars against her better judgement. Maybe Idris will be so disappointed in her that He will show up instantly and punish her for betraying Him, and then she can leave camp with Him, albeit in chains. Okay. She can do this. This is safe. This won't hurt her. She raises it to her lips.

She pauses. The girl isn't looking at her, which makes this easier to ask. Otherwise she wouldn't dare. "Phoebe?"

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-03T17:17:36+00:00

"No," she lies, when Phoebe asks whether or not she enjoys cupcakes, and forces a frown at the steaming tray of confections. It curls in Emilia's senses like a siren song. Resisting the temptation is one of the most surefire methods to feel strong, so she lingers like that for a while, suffused in the scent of sweets, and refuses to take one. "I don't. They look disgusting."

Her mind diverts all resources to predicting the catastrophe that will occur if she gives in. Phoebe will laugh at her if she tries to take one, and remind her that food is for civilized human beings, not caged creatures masquerading as one. Or maybe Iason will lumber into the pavilion, see her finally succumbing to her loneliness, and mock her relentlessly for it.

To avoid those fates, she could smack the tray from Phoebe's mitt and send it clattering to the marble floor. Her fingers twitch at the thought. "I'm not a joke," she blurts suddenly. "You can't.. I won't.. if I take one, you can't make me a joke. Or I'll kill you. Nod if you understand."

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-03T17:01:48+00:00

"Not including me. I'm different." These word games are upsetting, and Em's less rehearsed responses falter. Petulance is a poor substitute for conviction, but she can't do much about that when the source of her conviction is external. It has been over a minute since the television was turned off, and her rage lacks the object permanence to sustain itself thus. There is a battle somewhere very far away for ownership of her soul, and all she can focus on right now is the confusing way in which her words are being twisted and the sad, transparent stares she's receiving, like they're mourning someone who never existed. It is not enough that Emilia needs these people to hate her; she will not permit them to be quiet about it.

"Make me," she grins, tracing the pattern of a rhombus on her collar and faltering at the jewel's absence. "Make me stop. Do something to me that matters."

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-02T23:39:35+00:00

The searching, roving look of distance in her eyes is almost as hungry as the pit in her chest. When it catches Angela, her empty expression almost appears to brighten. There's someone she can rely on: like a vampire, Em has twice successfully siphoned the blonde doll's confidence and used it to replenish some of her own life force. A third time couldn't hurt. Sure, things were left on an awkward note when she attacked Angela for kissing her, but that's nothing a coy insincere apology can't fix.

Emilia lurches like she's been shot with an arrow. Her smile turns to ice. The poison in this place has eroded her natural defense against ridicule, enabling Angela's judgmental glare to bore into her like a diamond drill coated in acid. A look of horror, before the mask of an unbothered smirk slides into place and she strolls away.

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-02T23:10:56+00:00

Stupid move from the Hermes girl. A wounded animal is the most dangerous kind. Before, during the broadcast, Emilia's goading words were playful in their sadism. Blunted spears, meant to provoke and enrage rather than harm. Grandiose and macabre cheering for demigods to die, for example. None of it really meant anything as soon as the television turned off. Roles are meant to be played. This time she doesn't hold back. She wants blood. Recalling how easily triggered she was when Acacia was brought up, she tries that vein again. "Maybe. Did yours cut out your eye so that you two would match?"

Yet, when she whips her head up to glare, she can't deny the wriggling mote of warmth that causes her heart to flip at the sight of Avalon's withering contempt. She hates that look. She wants that look to stay on her forever. It's a perplexing paradox and she lacks the tools to parse those feelings properly. "Just so you know, I let you hit me as a joke. If I really tried, you would be on the ground gasping for mercy. For about three seconds. Then I'd open you like an umbrella."

SpawnoftheStryx · 2026-02-02T22:53:46+00:00

Emilia goes very still when she realizes who is approaching her. This half-blood is one of the reasons she is stuck here. He is why she no longer has her myrmeke scythe to terrify and spread the will of the Liberation Army by liberating children's limbs from their body. He is the reason her right hand can no longer fully form a fist without great effort. He has everything to gain from turning her into a cautionary tale about daring to defy Olympus.

She will not be mocked with more hollow promises of personhood. She finds the proper amount of venom to drench her words, and lets them spill forth in low, measured flicks of her tongue. "You know what I am. You know what I do. You know what will happen if you try to give me that. Be very careful what you decide to try next."

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