open rp post
Dec. 2nd, 2012 06:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wunderkind
an open rp post
(it is what it says it is)
-1-
pick a character
-2-
leave me a comment. maybe a scenario, maybe an AU scenario, maybe a picture, maybe a word,
maybe a request to resume old game canon, maybe just a comment.
i don't care. do your worst.
-2a-
helpful note: i am currently obsessed with the Hunger Games and Christmas. can you combine those into one tag?
-3-
let's get it on
disclaimer: we probably won't get it on
+ there are no promises i will take this seriously
You're lying
Date: 2013-12-09 10:58 pm (UTC)I'm not your Mentor. Indeed, so far as I am concerned, the moment we are through speaking on this topic, we are enemies, because next year you will be training your Tributes to kill mine. So you may disregard my comments, you may decide that I am a liar - and, indeed, that is simply logical, as I have no reason to help you. But your own Mentor will not prepare you.
[And it's the right thing to do.]
The reach of the Capitol extends out into the Districts, Johanna. Your home in the Victor's Village will be peppered through with cameras. In six months, you'll be right back here on your tour; in a year, you'll be back again; and all throughout, the sponsors will want to see how their investment is doing.
[He's quiet a moment; he glances off to the side.]
It won't happen for a while yet, but a time will come when you will be called back to the Capitol merely at the pleasure of the President or the sponsors. You will have to come then. It is how you will survive.
i absolutely am not
Date: 2013-12-10 07:46 pm (UTC)Because he has to. Because it doesn't end. In the Arena, Johanna had stood on the edge of the cliff--the cliff which had climbed out of the ground in front of her, one moment flat and the next a sheer face of rock thrusting out of the earth--her toes had curled on the thin dirt. She could hear screaming. They were killing each other. And standing there, the world was infinite, but she knew there was an end, that the Arena ended somewhere, and she would go down there to the floor of the forest and kill whoever was left. The finite space of the Arena would lift, and she would be allowed to go home.
Home, where space was finite too. A Victor is a celebrity. Johanna doesn't want that. She doesn't want anything but to be left to herself, that was what she fucking fought for, not so she could be called anywhere for anyone's pleasure. That wasn't her.
But she knows he's right. This--stupid Victor, with his glasses, and his folder, and his information--he knows, of course he knows, because he's lived it. And Johanna feels dizzy, sick in a way she never felt in the Arena. It was just work, in the Arena. It wasn't a game. And this isn't a game, either, this is her knees growing weak, again; this is her stomach twisted around itself, and she knows she's wearing emotion too plainly on her face, but that knowledge is just a dim thought.]
I don't have to do anything.
[She says it through her teeth. And she means it. Every bit of her means it. They'll say she has to, and she won't. She won. She's the fucking Victor, that has to mean something.]
but vegetables are the best B(
Date: 2013-12-10 08:21 pm (UTC)They are enemies, now, but that doesn't mean that there need be incivility.]
There is no one without weakness.
[He surveys the Capitolites, all of them in fripperies, absurdities. Leaves are all the rage at this party, in celebration of District 7's victory; wreaths of laurel sit atop pompadours, and pasted maple leaves scarcely cover breasts, and shed pine needles litter the ground for the Avoxes to clean up. Comandra isn't the only Victor to have taken the Capitol's fashions, and so it's hard, at times, to pick them out - but there's something in the way every one of them moves. Even drunk, even laughing and simpering for the Capitol, there's a wariness to every one of them. There's a nervousness.
Brutus is, not atypically, standing by himself, looking away. Edgeworth half-nods to him.]
He had considered himself independent, once. He had assumed, as the Careers always do, that once he won he would have a happy, easy life. As I understand it, his parents both fell deathly ill - then made a miraculous recovery as soon as he became obedient.
[In another corner of the party, Sully stands laughing gaily, surrounded by admirers.]
She, over there, has no one to lose. She was an orphan to begin. But during her period of resistance, they played off the acrophobia she had acquired during her Games. As you can see, she is now quite obliging.
[He looks back to her.]
What they wish you to do, you will do. Everyone always does.
i agree! just not sprouts/cabbage/tomatoes alone. (ps nothing is better than bacon)
Date: 2013-12-11 05:44 pm (UTC)With the Games, it had been different. Earn sponsors, that was the way you played. Johanna had gone in nearly entirely without, thanks to her act. But once she started killing, the support had come in droves. She had done what they'd wanted her to do in the Arena--but only because she'd wanted to do it too, because she had to, in order to win, to get out.
So she doesn't feel any surge of gratefulness when Edgeworth touches her on the arm, nor when he looks way, to give her a moment of collection. She doesn't feel anything at all, nothing except the raw panic, and her gaze goes where he indicates, taking in the look of them, these Victors--her peers--
And she wants to say no. She wants to have some better word of protest than what she has right now. Somewhere in here is the strength to dig out of this. She doesn't owe anything to anyone, not to Comandra, not to her sponsors, she won all on her own and she will get out of this--
When Edgeworth looks back at her, her expression hasn't yet cleared. Getting there, but not there yet. Next year she will be better at that, she swears it to herself; she is not going to be the weak girl she pretended to be. She is so much more than that.]
Then how are you so self-aware?
[She spits it out. Her own self-loathing is in there, for her weakness, hurry up and stop your bullshit, Johanna, but her glare she levels on him.]
okay I am going to make you bacon and crispy sprouts while you are here. Just watch me.
Date: 2013-12-11 06:27 pm (UTC)[He looks away from her again - this time less for her than for himself. He will not show sorrow; he will not show weakness. But he was never going to be any exception to the rule. He had no family to hurt, no brothers or sisters to threaten to send to the Games - no friends, even, back then. But he had a head on his shoulders, and he saw how subservient the others were, and he knew why. It took a few years for him to collect all the details of all their stories, but he didn't need the details to know - go with them. Work with them. Others will suffer if you do not.
He'd...also had more leeway than the others had. More time to come to understand things. No one really wants to be cruel to a small, frightened thirteen-year-old boy, after all.
So Edgeworth never lost any limbs; he never suffered through torture; never even had to hear any threats. He'd simply put his head down and cooperated. He'd been smart. And if - every once in a while - he'd heard tales of resistance, of unrest, of courage, well - he reminded himself of his Tributes, and of what the Capitol could do to them. So long as he had hope that any of them would survive, he would keep quiet.]
Tell me: what do you have to lose, Ms. Mason?
well i'll watch you and then enjoy the bacon at least
Date: 2013-12-12 06:31 pm (UTC)But again, she tells herself (because it's true, and she will make it true if it isn't, fill in every last lack and crack and chink): she's not weak. That's part of how she won, by not really being weak, by being more clever than everyone else. Sharp, like the blade of an axe. She knows what weakness looks like. She knows what to protect.
His question bolsters that sharpness, and her mask clicks back into place; her snarl twists over her face again. He's trying to get in.]
Yeah, right. You think I'm going to tell you that? What do you think this is?
{What would he do with the knowledge anyways? He's trying to be helpful--but saying the names aloud would be inviting trouble, and that's not even superstition. They know everything anyways. (Is he right? Is he telling the truth? She doesn't know shit about Comandra, who his family were, if they're still in District 7. A Victor is a Victor, that has to count for something--)]
This isn't an interview. I'm done answering questions, all right? I get it, you think you're helping. You're guilty, because all yours are dead. But I don't need you, all right? I won the Games on my own. I know what I'm doing. And if they think they can scare me, they can think again, because I don't get scared.
No Mici and I are plotting how to make you enjoy them.
Date: 2013-12-12 07:11 pm (UTC)[He flinches back just a bit at that. It's stupid of him to react visibly, of course, but the very idea is simply absurd. He's not doing this out of guilt. And if he felt guilt, then he would be turning it upon her, not expressing solidarity with her. The other Tributes, the other Victors - they are the ones who are ruthless, and nasty; they're the ones who take lives. They're the ones who are deserving of hatred.
(He repeats that to himself, often, to keep himself from more dangerous thoughts.)
It takes only a moment before he comports himself once more. Reaches up, pushes a bit of hair out of his face. Takes a breath. Centers himself.]
And stop lying to me, please. You getting scared was broadcast all over the Capitol. I could show you countless close-ups of just how scared you were. And that was not faked.
GOOD LUCK MAY THE ODDS BE IN YOUR FAVOR
Date: 2013-12-12 10:56 pm (UTC)[It comes out as an actual snarl, nothing quavery or uncertain about it. This conversation is better ended, now, because she's starting to get really angry, because he's picking at things she doesn't want picked at.
(And because he's right. Because she knows she was white-faced and shaking, sometimes. She couldn't stop it. But she didn't cry.)]
Acting. Because I was acting. You think you know so much, just because you've been around--but you don't know the first thing about me. If you did, maybe you'd have done better with your Tributes, but guess what, they died too.
[It wasn't her that killed them. But she killed the ones who killed them; that makes her better. Doesn't it?]
And please. If you're not guilty, then what the hell are you doing here?
Thanks you can keep the evens
Date: 2013-12-13 03:49 pm (UTC)[He finds a frown working its way across the studied neutrality of his face. No - not a frown - an outright scowl. Her anger, brutal and honest, is contemptible, and he holds it in contempt, holds her in contempt, because he is always, without exception, calm - he always, without exception, holds himself in control - Except that there's something about her impassioned, angry attack against him that gets under his shield of calm.]
I do not like murderers, and I do not like liars. I was here to talk to you about being the former, and now we're discussing how you are the latter.
no i hate even numbers
Date: 2013-12-13 11:01 pm (UTC)[If what he's said is true, then it's not by choice. If it's true, then he has to be here, as much as any of them. But she has to hold off the reality of it, for now. One thing at a time. Methodical. It's when she goes over the edge that she loses it, but if she stays steady--like a steady hand, just like she was taught--she can win this too.
She can.]
Do you come here after every Game? Every year? Don't you get tired, of being surrounded by your liars, and your murderers?
too bad you have all of them
Date: 2013-12-14 12:02 am (UTC)And so he says, in a rare moment of honesty, biting out:]
Of course I do. I'm obligated to come, and I'm obligated to be with them, and I despise it. You will too, so don't bother gloating about that.
i pushed them out the window
Date: 2013-12-14 12:19 pm (UTC)[Which will be useless, if what he said proves to be true. But Johanna doesn't know how to roll over and just-- accept defeat. She's never been good at that. So, stubbornly, she holds to that idea; she levels a glare at Edgeworth, unwilling to compromise.]
So who'd they kill, to get you here?
and then you turned around and there were MORE BEHIND YOU, NUMBERS ARE EVERYWHERE
Date: 2013-12-14 02:04 pm (UTC)No one.
[(Sometimes...Sometimes Edgeworth half wishes they had. His dad was murdered long before Miles ended up in the Games, years before; Mom had died when he was little. And maybe if they'd taken Dad's life, maybe that would energize him. Maybe he'd be able to fight back. Maybe he wouldn't be so paralyzed - maybe - )]
They hold the lives of my Tributes in their hands. That is enough.
giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiird
Date: 2013-12-30 09:07 pm (UTC)[She laughs, harshly, her arms folded over her chest.]
You come here because of a bunch of strangers? You don't know them. Who're they to you? They're going to die, anyways--their chances aren't that good. They do something to get you here, what is it?
gourd
Date: 2013-12-31 05:04 am (UTC)That's all they do. That's all they need do. And there are hardly any appealing alternatives. I'm not about to resist them; their power is absolute.
pumpkin
Date: 2013-12-31 10:35 pm (UTC)So you come. So you show up, and you play-- the part they made for you. That's bullshit.
such words of endearment
Date: 2014-01-01 05:07 am (UTC)[But his expression, grim and flat, gives lie to that statement. He didn't fight - couldn't fight - in the Arena, survived only by luck and with help. He's not one to fight out here, either. Even if she does have bold words, some plan, he won't listen.]
You'll have a part as well, and you'll play it. So long as you have anything to lose - even if it's just your life - you'll play it.
well you are a deer to me
Date: 2014-01-01 11:38 pm (UTC)(And the repetition of that truth, so long as you have anything to lose, and she knows, she knows that it's true, but she can't let it be, she can't consider it too closely right now. It's like being in the Arena. You wait. You hide it in yourself, you push it away, and later, later you can understand it. Think about it. Deal with it. Get it out of your life, and-- go.)]
Fuck you.
[She wants it to be fiercer, but it comes out flat.]
Fuck you. You're as bad as them.
[She stabs a finger out--out, toward the party that still roils around itself, a mess of color and sound and smells, sensations that Johanna feels numb to. She feels fucking numb. Later, she won't.]
baaaa
Date: 2014-01-03 03:45 pm (UTC)Outside the Arena, he's held to this: that he's better than the rest of them. He cares about his Tributes, enough that he comes back every year without a fight. Others had to be coerced back with torture or bribery; he came for nothing more than others' lives. And whenever he quails, he thinks about how much he sacrifices for them. He's not killed anyone, where all the rest are killers. Others died so that he can live, but at least he never lashed out with knife or spear or axe -
He's bad. But he needs to be better than them. That's what he holds to.
And so, for the first time, his reaction is plainly visible. It's anger.]
I am not. What I do, I do from decency.
no that's mutton darling
Date: 2014-01-03 08:12 pm (UTC)[She spits the word back at him, nearly as soon as he's said it. If he's getting angry, then she can be angry to match. She's ready for it. Anger is something she's got, and it makes a good protection.]
You think it's decent, giving them hope? You think it's decent, coming to these parties afterwards? You're at their funeral.
[And hers. And it was his, once, too. She's snarling at the wrong person here, but he's here, that's what matters, he's here and he thought he could tell her off for killing people who would have killed her first.]
Yeah, you're right. You sure are decent.
moo
Date: 2014-01-11 02:48 am (UTC)[He bites that out.]
Go home? Not suffer through this idiocy?
[His control is famous, or at least something he prides himself on. And it's not like she's even being that devastating, truly - she's just picking, picking constantly, at his weak spots, at his old wounds. She's breaking down his defenses.]
Do you think I like this?
sausages
Date: 2014-01-13 07:19 am (UTC)[She sneers. She steps in close. Her hands are curled at her sides and her lip is curled and she wants to go home, she wants to get out of this fucking dress and be anywhere but here, right now. Sick of her victory, sick of her ball, sick of him and this argument and everyone, everything that her life has been, from start until now. When does the good part start? When you get to be a Victor, your life is full of good shit. What a fucking joke.]
This is everybody's dream. You win, you end up here, and you don't have to worry about anything for the rest of your life.
[She lifts her chin at him, a little, her eyes narrowed.]
Tell me you're happy. Tell me you like this. Tell me it's all going to be okay, because that's what everyone says. So it's got to be true, right? When you pat your little Tributes on the head and send them out there, you wish them luck. You want them to win. For this.