OPEN POST pt III
Sep. 22nd, 2014 08:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wunderkind
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pick a character
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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 Walking Dead, coffee, summertime, AUs, and vampires. can you combine those into one tag?
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let's get it on, like we did last summer
disclaimer: we probably won't get it on
+ there are no promises i will take this seriously
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Date: 2014-10-06 04:33 am (UTC)Which was stupid. Because of course the Capitol was only saving up, really. She's reminded of that as she stares at her video screen, alone in her spacious room in the District 7 suite.
She throws her remote right at the screen. It sparks, and then flickers out completely in another shower of sparks. Johanna doesn't look twice at it. Nor does she look toward the cameras that are undoubtedly recording her outburst. She has no axe--weapons aren't permitted in the suites--but she strides to the door with her hands clenched and her jaw set, and walks just like that all the way to Kate's suites, where she pounds on the door.
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Date: 2014-10-06 05:28 am (UTC)Kate's door requires more of a pounding than the first, and Johanna will no doubt hear the moment Kate spends stepping up and checking to see who is outside before she releases the token locks and opens the door.
"I had nothing to do with that," she says, wasting no time at all, "So if you just came to accuse me, you can go. If there's anything more, come in." That there are cameras everywhere doesn't make her more keen on carrying on
conversationsarguments in the hallway for anyone to watch live, and she steps back to let Johanna pass if she wants to. Beyond her, the room is brightly lit and the dull fuzz of voices from the screen can be heard still going.no subject
Date: 2014-10-06 09:03 pm (UTC)So maybe it's a mistake, going publicly to Kate and going right into her room, feeding the fire of any implications they want to make. Johanna is in the room anyways, and she glares at the screen, where the news broadcast is ongoing.
"So," she says, rounding on Kate with a glare, "you had nothing to do with it. That doesn't make me any happier. So what. What are you going to do about it now that it's happened."
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Date: 2014-10-06 09:24 pm (UTC)The remote is in pieces in a corner and Kate crosses to pick it up, pressing some buttons that of course do nothing before tossing it back down. On the screen the broadcasters are recapping the night's news, memorable Tribute quotes, fashion highlights. The room is all shiny surfaces and hard angles, as sleek and garish as everything in the building and for once totally at odds with Kate, who takes a seat on the square-cushioned couch and draws a bare foot up beneath her. In soft pants and a loose sweater, neutral tones, hair down, she doesn't look so much like the Victor from the party the other night or the one laughing through her own blood this morning, but she's just as irritatingly calm.
"What would you like me to do about it?" she asks, the question so dry it's nearly rhetorical. "They're going to have us on to do interviews. Probably we'll have to shake hands and say nice things about each other's districts, which I'm sure even you can manage because someone will write the words for you. It's not a big deal."
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Date: 2014-10-07 01:45 pm (UTC)She whips around to glare at Kate again when she speaks. The composed regality of her posture is irritating. On another day, maybe it wouldn't matter, but today, everything is working its way under Johanna's skin. And she knows that she needs to check herself, that she's showing too much--but what does it matter? It's only Kate. The other Victors are safe to befriend because they're all targets. That makes them safe as targets for her, too.
"I don't want to say nice things about your district." Her feet are planted firmly, her fingers are balled into fists. Where Kate is cool, she's still burning hot. "Everyone already says such nice things about District 1. I don't like your district, and I don't like you. Whatever they tell me to say, I'm not saying it. I guess that makes this your warning."
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Date: 2014-10-07 02:34 pm (UTC)She rolls her eyes briefly up and a little off-center, a momentary give me patience though there's no Lord to append to the beginning (and she wouldn't believe if there were).
"If you go out there and you say what you actually think, the audience will eat it up. It will be surprising and entertaining and they will want more. And then it won't just be one interview, it'll be two and five and rematches and commentary and this will go on." She rolls a hand in a steady circle in the air. On and on and on, get it? "You go out there and you say a few boring lines some producer wrote and show there's no drama here and everyone will have forgotten about it in a few days."
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Date: 2014-10-07 09:08 pm (UTC)She doesn't like feeling dismissed. She doesn't like feeling like the rookie, like Kate--so world-weary and experienced already--is somehow allowed to write her off, treat her like a child. Kate's got the experience, the work of navigating the demands of the Capitol--but Johanna isn't stupid. She's even clever enough to know that Kate is right about this, that if she plays her part, they let her go, release her of this stupid media blitz.
But she doesn't like that. She doesn't like needing permission, going along just to remain compliant. Johanna isn't a rebel for any great cause. She's a rebel only for herself. She's the Capitol's pawn, but she's not going to let that be easy for them. What's the worst they can do?
Someone else might submit to the wisdom of Kate's words, but Johanna never will. No advice ever did her any good.
"Sorry. But no one ever taught me how to just roll over and take it." She folds her arms over her chest, her jaw tight, her eyes narrowed. Go ahead and eyeroll this one off, Katie.
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Date: 2014-10-07 11:13 pm (UTC)She lets the moment pass, nails dug into her palm beneath the cuff of her sweater.Another set of crescent shaped scars in the making for her stylists to scrub out. She smiles, long-suffering, but doesn't quite bother to hide the faint threat of an edge creeping into her tone.
"Fine, let's do it your way. I can slag you and your backwoods hovel of a district off for ten minutes, or ten hours, or however many times we have to do this. The spotlight is where I live anyway, I'm not the one who's going to be inconvenienced here. We'll see who wears it better."
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Date: 2014-10-08 05:04 pm (UTC)And all of that means one thing: this stuck-up bitch from District 1 has no idea of what she's talking about. She's a Victor, too, but so what. The spotlight; Johanna's lip curls.
"I know about you and the spotlight, Katie. Don't worry." She nods toward the screen, where the news report carries on. "I've gotten to watch you all of these years, all your interviews, the exclusive news spots. Remember when you were getting ready for your Games, watching all those training videos, all those replays of your fellow Tributes? You were planning out how you'd kill them."
She can say that with confidence, because that's what they all do. Watching footage of the past Games, counting the different ways to achieve a victory. Johanna's method had shaded similar to Kate's, but it wasn't inspired by her. That's not how this story goes.
"I've had all this time to watch you. I'm not anyone get the better of me, especially not you."
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Date: 2014-10-08 08:10 pm (UTC)She twists at the waist, collecting a tumbler from a side table, an inch of liquor in the bottom. She sips and swirls the remainder with a turn of her wrist, making no offer to her guest. "If you're not going to agree to play then I don't think we have anything to talk about. I'll see you tomorrow."
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Date: 2014-10-08 10:07 pm (UTC)And then she turns and she just leaves, without preamble or retort. The door slides shut behind her. The first escort that steps in to meet her, Johanna shoves him, hard, against the wall, and does not look around at his noise of pain and protest.
But later, Kate proves to be right yet again. Remarks are prepared and delivered to Johanna in her suite. She stares at the words, and she throws the tablet across the room with an angry shriek. The shatter of the glass does not satisfy her. She wants this to be so much worse, because what they've prepared for her is so much worse.
A romance. A fucking romance with Kate Bishop. Whose idea was this, what Gamemaker--or stylist--who, who the fuck can she blame, and who can she kill? She will not do this, she vows that to herself. She strides over to the shattered tablet and picks up the biggest piece, and throws that across the room again, heedless of the way the glass cuts at her palm. She will not fucking do this.
See you tomorrow Kate had said. The Mentors meeting, when the first alliances are made. There's always a press-conference afterwards.
"No," Johanna says aloud, glaring up at the ceiling. She'd look crazy if it wasn't a known fact that there are cameras in here.
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Date: 2014-10-08 10:59 pm (UTC)So she waits. She goes back to her suite and she beats the shit out of some decor, and then she sits in the mess and she memorizes her lines and she drinks on her balcony and she lets her stylists work their magic and she stalks the hall outside the lounge where the Mentors' meeting is going to be and she waits.
And when Johanna comes by she'll find herself grabbed by the arm out of nowhere and jerked into an alcove, pushed into the wall. Kate's voice is low and hard and clipped off by sharp teeth, the severity of tone and expression a match for the hard lines and angles of her dress, the tightly slicked pull of her hair.
"I hope you're planning to go out there and play along, since this whole debacle is your fault."
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Date: 2014-10-09 04:11 pm (UTC)She yanks her arm out of Kate's grasp, though she doesn't any anywhere to go after she's free. Kate has pushed her back quite literally to the wall and is mostly blocking the way out of their tense little tête-à -tête in the alcove.
If anyone says anything about a lover's quarrel, later, Johanna will personally scalp them and leave them for dead. Overzealous Capitol fan or fellow Victor who wants a laugh, she doesn't care.
Right now, she settles for leveling her glare on Kate, as if the force of it is enough to scalp and kill her. Her dress is evergreen, the skirt in soft folds of a plush velvet, the bodice of tight-fitted satin. Her shoulders are bare, but the intricate spiderwebbed gold-and-green necklace makes it look a little like she's wearing a shawl that clasps at her neck. Or a collar, maybe.
"You can't blame me if I wasn't allowed to blame you," she spits at Kate. "I'm not going to do it. And fuck you for thinking you can force me into it."
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Date: 2014-10-09 04:25 pm (UTC)She doesn't reach to hold Johanna physically but she's in her space, blocking her path, looming in. It's not hard to tell she's angry, but she has herself on as short a leash as ever, shoulders strung tight with a tension she only barely lets eat away at the chill control of her tone.
"This was going to be easy, but then you had to refuse. You had to put your foot down where they could hear you and now look at what it is." It's possible this was going to be the Capitol's plan all along but it's much more satisfying to blame Johanna, to have an outlet she can actually glare at and threaten. "Do you want to see what it turns into if you refuse again? Do you want people to die because you won't smile for a couple cameras?"
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Date: 2014-10-09 08:25 pm (UTC)She laughs, right in Kate's face. Who cares what Kate will do, or what she'll say. Johanna is angry enough that she's not thinking much beyond this moment. She lifts her chin, her smile more a grim set of her teeth than anything with real expression.
"Don't try and make this my fault. I'm not going to fall for your bleeding heart story, and I'm not humiliating myself for anyone."
There's no one left for them to kill anyways. There's some feeling in Johanna, when she thinks that--but it's so distant it's like it doesn't matter, like it belongs to someone else entirely. It doesn't occur to her to think of what family Kate might have, to sort back in what she knows about her to remember what other Bishops might be left. She doesn't have any room for pity, or for sympathy. Not for anyone.
"And if you're asking me for a favor," and there is so much acidity in that last word, "then you're going to have to ask a little more nicely. And I'm still going to say no."
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Date: 2014-10-09 09:16 pm (UTC)"I will owe you a favor," she growls through her teeth like someone is literally twisting her arm to make her say it. As if this wasn't already unpleasant enough. "I don't want to do this either. I'll help avoid as much of it as we can but for godssake, it's not like they're asking us to fuck on Flickerman's couch! You'd let people die to avoid being seen together a couple times a month and lying on camera a little more than we already do?"
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Date: 2014-10-09 10:04 pm (UTC)But as soon as she's said it, she knows that it isn't true. And she realizes, too, what it is that Kate is getting at. The people that she talks about: she means her people. Whoever they are, wherever they are--District 1 gets so many special privileges and honors, and all of their wealth could nearly fool you into thinking of them like another bunch of brainless Capitolites. But they're a District, too. They need controlling.
There is still no pity in Johanna, when she stares at Kate. But a little more understanding filters into her head, even through the hot burn of her anger. Everybody's got to look out for themselves. More people means more weakness.
"But you can start trying, if you want," she offers, with icy and deliberate patience. "How are you going to help us avoid it? And what favors are you going to give me?"
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Date: 2014-10-09 10:28 pm (UTC)"What do you want?" Her tone is demanding, like this isn't a capitulation. "You want money? Furs? Jewels?" It's all rhetorical, she says it like of course you don't. She's honestly out of ideas that aren't snark. "Diamond-plated axes? You want me to tell everyone you kick my ass twice a week? That I let you be on top? What do you want?"
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Date: 2014-10-10 04:24 pm (UTC)Johanna isn't nice.
She folds her arms over her chest, unmoved all through Kate's list. The last few get a smirk out of her, but she doesn't say anything for a moment, even after Kate's finished. She lets her stand there for a moment, makes her wait for it, before she says: "You don't have anything I want. How does that feel?"
Totally at her mercy, and Johanna isn't merciful. If she doesn't go along with this, the Capitol will dream something up for her, too. Some punishment. They're good at that. But Kate will get it worse and she knows it. She has more to lose.
"I want three favors." She keeps her eyes on Kate, without a flicker to her resolve. "And I want them left undefined. I get to use them whenever I want, and you don't get to protest. That's the only thing I'll accept from you."
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Date: 2014-10-10 05:26 pm (UTC)So Johanna has her over a barrel and Kate is suddenly done with this conversation, her stomach for bargaining or even just being in Johanna's proximity gone. "Fine," she says, throwing up a hand, "Three favors. Hell, have four. Whatever. It feels just like any other day." She turns on a heel and exits the alcove as abruptly as she'd dragged Johanna into it.
She'll show up at the meeting later and circulate and play her part, but first she's going to go find a different secluded corner to press her forehead to the cool of the wall and imagine smashing a dark head to bits against it. Hers, Johanna's, whatever.
And then there's the press conference. She's there on time, lines memorized complete with inflection and choreographed smiles and significant looks. Before they made the deal she'd convinced someone to cut down Johanna's part, to let Kate do most of the talking. She slow-plays it, doesn't abandon the role she's been mastering for years by laying it on too thick but lets the audience start to see some cracks, just a hint here and there that maybe someone could melt the ice queen. If this thing crashes and burns it won't be because she fucked up.
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Date: 2014-10-10 09:48 pm (UTC)Grudgingly, she has to admit that Kate does a good job. Johanna knows good acting when she sees it, and Kate plays just vulnerable enough under her cool calm to suggest that there is a depth to her that has been long unplumbed--until now. Ooh, lucky girl, Johanna Mason, getting to know her so well. How the fuck do they expect this story to hold water?
She doesn't want to do this. But she's got her agreement with Kate, and she'll be damned if she's not going to at least keep up. So when the mediator of the conference--a bubbly woman with literal bubbles in her hair, shimmering and iridescent globes around which her blonde-and-pink frosted hair has been carefully curled--when that cutsey Capitolite turns to Kate to ask her next question, Johanna puts her hand down on the table, right in front of Kate.
"Can I say something?" she asks, and then raises her hand to cover her lips, with a smile that someone might read as embarrassed, but also--just a little!--pleased. "I'm sorry. I wanted to ask," and this is right to the mediator, who looks dazed, but still happy--permanently happy, that smile is probably stapled to her face-- "Have you seen the footage? Of our fight?"
"Yes," the mediator says, with a little giggle, "well, everyone has!"
"Great." Johanna's smile takes on just a little smirk. "So who do you think won?"
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Date: 2014-10-10 10:54 pm (UTC)She can't imagine it will work but she does her best to sell it anyway. Best case scenario in a week or two the Capitol sees it won't work despite their best efforts and scraps it and they can all walk away. And then she'll never have to smile at Johanna Mason again like she is right now, just a tiny little smile, barely a curve at the corners of her mouth but suggesting an affection that is the opposite of what she feels.
Johanna interrupts and sets her hand in front of Kate and Kate reaches like it's automatic, sets her hand on top of Johanna's, strokes her thumb in a gesture that seems discreet except for how easily the hundred cameras will pick it up.
"You shouldn't put her on the spot," she chides, low and dry. The mediator titters because that's about 60% of what she does anyway. Maybe it comes with the smile.
"It was very close," Kate says to her, watching as the latest bobble of her head sends a tiny bubble floating free. It settles on the table, and Kate pops it with a finger. "Everyone can have their opinion. I know we do." We, like they agree on anything.
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Date: 2014-10-12 02:56 pm (UTC)Instead, she looks up, with a coy little smile.
"It was close," she agrees, and drops her tone a little, lets it sharpen, just a little--more teasing than sincere. The balance to strike here is key. Everyone knows her reputation, and everyone knows Kate's. "So when are we going to have a rematch?"
The mediator giggles, touches her fingers to her cheek, as she looks directly into the camera. "My, my," and she fans herself, puffs her lips out-- "We can only hope that we'll be privy to that rematch. But first--your Tributes." All business, she turns back to them. "Will your relationship create avenues for new alliances? Or is all really fair, in love and in war?"
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Date: 2014-10-12 05:33 pm (UTC)At talk of a rematch she just smiles, one of those cool, noncommittal little things she's better known for, that only merits the name because of the name she's made for herself. She sits impassive as the mediator gets bothered over the idea of it, looking once at Johanna, letting her gaze scan down her throat before she turns back. "I couldn't say, that may be something we prefer to keep to ourselves." Her tone is a pair with her most recent smile but the answer itself is entirely suggestive; surely they wouldn't deny their public the pleasure of seeing that fight. Unless--.
Moving on.
"Certainly it creates an avenue for discussion of alliances," she replies, her smile very slightly larger this time, more polite, like she appreciates the change of topic (because she does). "But whether anything comes of it is a decision that involves more than just ourselves. While it would be-- pleasant-- to be on the same team for a time, it will depend what the other Mentors from our districts and our generous sponsors prefer. Our time here together is very brief, but the Games must come first."
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Date: 2014-10-13 03:06 pm (UTC)Her answer suffices; the mediator applauds, pleased by this display of fairness and honor and good sportswomanship, the tips of her fingers bumping lightly against the flat of her hand. And everything moves on, more questions for the group--the promise of another exciting Hunger Games, and the wrap-up. Once the lights go down, the room descends into the hubbub of murmured conversation. Some of the Mentors really do like each other, after all, but Johanna heaves herself to her feet, detaching from even the hint of closeness, with Kate. She tugs sharply at her skirt, fluffing it out.
"Happy?"
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From:this is what you get for going to class
From:this is what you get for... waiting patiently for weeks and then having more christmas?? idk
From:I am beyond pleased Merry Christmas to me
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