OPEN POST pt III
Sep. 22nd, 2014 08:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wunderkind
-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 Walking Dead, coffee, summertime, AUs, and vampires. can you combine those into one tag?
-3-
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: 2014-10-14 07:36 pm (UTC)Johanna thinks of that word a lot in the day and night that follow. Happy, ha ha. It's stupid to get so worked up about this--what's one thing more, right? After everything she's been told to do, and asked to do, and made to do. After everything they've done to her. This is nothing. Image stuff, probably designed as a sort of punishment. But maybe it's that aspect of punishment that makes it smart the way that it does. She's kept quiet. She's played her part, with a few notable exceptions--but all that is in the past, they tell her, only because they don't have anyone left to kill. She comes to the Capitol and she goes to the parties and they still find ways to fuck with her, just because they can. Because they're bored.
The plot enchants her stylists. Johanna wants to bite off their fingers, one by one. They prep her in a flurry of fabrics and brushes, assuring her of just how happy they are for her. Like they aren't in on the falseness of this whole thing. Maybe she shouldn't be so hard on the idiots. They're just excited that they get to do something fun--for her, they insist, over and over, but of course it's for themselves.
The afternoon will be spent in one of the more private of the public gardens. Johanna, dressed in green satin. Slits are sliced high in the skirt, nearly up to her hips, and show bare leg when she moves. Heels weren't her strong suit when she'd first come to the Capitol, but she'd learned them in no time, and she walks like they're nothing even on the cobbles of the garden path. The bodice of the dress is so gauzy it's nearly transparent, but a gesture toward modesty has been made in the form of the metal piece hat fits over her breasts, with cups in the shape of leaves. A delicate gold chain holds it all in precarious place, encircling her neck and ribcage, loose enough that it jingles, faintly, when she walks. Her hair is worn extra long today, nearly down to the middle of her back. Gold vines twine down from her temples, fall around her face like curls, but they do nothing to soften the clench of her jaw.
And yet, at least, she's outside. She's not happy, but she's not in 7's suite, and she's not in a training room, and she's not at another banquet or ball. This is shitty, but she feels more in her element. And it's not like Kate is happy about it, either.
Carelessly, she looks around as she walks among the verge of roses and greenery. She isn't looking for Kate. Maybe Kate won't even show, she thinks, dully--but of course she will. She's got something to lose.
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Date: 2014-10-14 11:07 pm (UTC)She's far from happy but she's over being angry about this. Johanna is infuriating and the whole thing is a stupid pain in the ass she doesn't need, but compared to the other options she's more than content to go sit in a garden and pretend she doesn't want to strangle her all day.
At least they're outside, that much they might agree on. She wonders if she can convince the producers of this affair to let them go hiking or something next time - a nod to Johanna's roots, a chance to forego the heels, maybe even get out of the city. It's worth an ask, at least, and she makes a note to do so. Today, though, she's in blue again, silk darker than the press conference, lapis to match the collection of gems in her ear, each sapphire stud linked by an elaborate web of delicate silver chains that dangle like a fringe. There's a matching net connecting the dress to thick silver torque, the high fashion equivalent of a choke-collar. She laughed a little when she saw it.
She arrives on time, because that's what she does, and is already perched on a bench in a quiet corner near a twisting, multi-colored fountain, brushing away a leaf that falls into the elaborate, blue-streaked pile of her hair. She has a palm-sized tablet, and after giving their schedule a final once-over has been scrolling through the news. When Johanna passes, she rises, and lifts a hand. "Johanna!" She sounds pleased to see her, because it'd be a shame to botch this from the beginning.
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Date: 2014-10-15 03:18 pm (UTC)But half of her act is angry. She can get away with a little brittleness. Kate is pale in blues and silvers, like someone's vision of a moon goddess. Disgusting, Johanna thinks, but she lets her eyes trail over Kate's form beneath her dress.
"Hi," she says. Not a lover's greeting, but whatever, she's no lover. She comes to stand beside Kate's bench, to offer her a hand up. "Don't you look nice. Your stylists are always outdoing themselves."
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Date: 2014-11-16 04:46 am (UTC)"They shouldn't be able to hear us from here. As long as we act the part it doesn't matter what we really say." So don't bother with the compliments she doesn't believe. Kate stands so smoothly the only pull Johanna will feel is a re-positioning, not an ounce of Kate's weight lifted by anything but her own power. She holds onto Johanna's hand for another moment anyway, gives it a squeeze visible in the way Kate's fingers conspicuously clasp around hers and then lets go with a brief rumple of her brow that passes as a show of hesitation, second-guessing the public display or its end.
"If we stick to the formal gardens it will be quieter. We can do a lap and then sit for a little while and that should be enough." That and the whole overt affection part they're supposed to be demonstrating today, of course.
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Date: 2014-11-22 02:44 pm (UTC)Johanna answer is harsh, spit out through her smile, but she means it. The news of isolation--relative isolation only; someone is always listening in the Capitol--is more than welcome, a precious commodity in a place where all eyes are always on them. Fucking celebrity life, right?
She twists her hand to squeeze back at Kate's, before she can let go--not a gesture of affection, of course, but an answering one. Never one to be outdone, that's Johanna Mason. Only a moment of that; then she threads her fingers through Kate's, palm to palm. They're here on a ate, after all.
"Then let's get started. And I wasn't kidding about the dress," she adds, with a lift of her head, a look cast downward. "It's really hot."
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Date: 2014-11-23 03:51 am (UTC)But all together in a little cluster of unexpected things it makes for a strange moment and Kate has some trouble parsing it. So yes, fine, points to Johanna. Well played. She can have satisfaction in the form of Kate's pale and perfect brow briefly creasing, in the glance down at their hands that follows the contact of her palm and the remark about her dress. But that's it, because after that moment Kate recovers.
"If your stylists are ever willing to take some pointers I know mine would be happy to help. They have lots of ideas about how to dress you better."
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Date: 2014-11-26 07:19 pm (UTC)There is some satisfaction in that brief expression that crosses Kate's face, the same sort of satisfaction that comes of scoring a point in any game. So what if the Capitol set this game up? How is that any different than usual? If Johanna is going to be obligated to play (and she isn't, really, but she is getting something out of it, eventually, so while the obligation is self-created, it still remains), then she is going to play well. If that means holding hands, then that's what it means.
And Kate does look good, objectively speaking. There's an effortlessness to the gown and the overall style, something Johanna's stylists seem to struggle with. Maybe it's because they think of wood as their primary inspiration, and big trees at that. Every once and awhile they strike on something good--the delicate veins of a leaf, the thin lines of the branches at the very top of a tree--but it never lasts.
Not that she should care. Being dressed up like a living doll, like a commodity, that ought to be more shameful. Too bad Johanna actually likes the feeling of looking good. It's easy to feel like a piece of meat, but she still buys into it.
"Don't tell me your stylists have been checking me out." She tosses her head a little, like this is exactly what Kate is implying, and she knows it, and deserves the scrutiny. "Or were you checking me out?"
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Date: 2014-11-30 03:25 am (UTC)They're out here to have a walk and here they are hand-in-hand, so Kate starts strolling, heels a soft click on the paving stones that wind through the hedges. Her dress shifts and ripples in the sunlight as she moves, revealing a faint sheen to the fabric not previously visible.
Some of it's styling-- her people really are excellent-- but half Kate's look is just the ease with which she wears it, and that comes less from tailoring and more from having grown up getting primped and put into gowns. One is miles from Seven and Kate came from money as much as anyone in the Districts can. The Capitol has upped the ante now, of course, but unlike most Victors she spent her formative years in heels and make-up already, not boots and flannel. She wouldn't call it a skill, or anything she's earned a right to be proud of.
Johanna should be, though. Despite growing up in the woods and the questionable fashion choices she's been forced into since, she manages to look good-- or on the very worst days to at least make clear that she could look good if only people would stop trying to make her look like a tree. Not that Kate's likely to tell her that.
"They also suspect one of them must have some sort of bizarre tree fetish. If you know which it is you could settle the bet."
this is what you get for going to class
Date: 2014-12-03 09:58 pm (UTC)"What, like I should just tell you District secrets to pass to them? Katie, please." She lifts her chin, looks down her nose at Kate. "Just because we're lovers doesn't mean I'm giving you any secret intel. Not unless you're giving me some."
And yet the prospect of halfway decent outfits is pretty tempting. Johanna weighs the thought, critically. She doesn't do charity, but they might as well talk about something while trotting around like a couple of show animals. "Do you have the bet with someone, or is it really just your stylists?"
this is what you get for... waiting patiently for weeks and then having more christmas?? idk
Date: 2014-12-28 09:21 pm (UTC)"There's a pool, actually. Most of my team has put credits down. Honestly I think they're less excited about this little stunt increasing their exposure and more about the potential to finally decide the wager." She sounds amused by that, not fond exactly but sort of indulgent, like she's graciously tolerating foolishness. (Because she is.) But she doesn't ask Johanna again for the answer.
Her grip is loose, her hand warm, skin soft and dry with the beginning of new calluses. She resists the urge to wiggle her fingers and re-set her hold on Johanna's, even as it prickles along nerves. "I was serious," she offers instead, "If you'd like them to make you something I'm sure it could arranged as part of this-- thing."
I am beyond pleased Merry Christmas to me
Date: 2014-12-29 04:43 pm (UTC)The dryness of that drawl only highlights all of the sarcasm that Johanna has loaded into those few words. But there's a truth to it: Kate really does get a little more out of this whole arrangement than she does. At least, in Johanna's head she does. Sure, there's favors, in her future, but that's not the same as something in the here and now, something as tangible as a dress.
Maybe she should be above fashion and fripperies. Maybe she is, a little. And she might be rolling her eyes, right now, like she could care less--but Johanna also likes the thought of a dress cut more like Kate's. So what?
"Hey, that could be a date," she says, carelessly. "I'll come over to your rooms, get some measurements done... I guess my stylists could pass the information on to yours, but the more time we spend together, the better it looks for you, right? Sorry. For us."
The loving couple. She narrows her eyes at Kate, with a smirk.
"When you get back, you can tell your team to get ready for me."
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Date: 2015-01-08 01:50 am (UTC)And Johanna's not wrong about the optics, that had been Kate's thought as well. It's win/win for them as an actual fitting and pretend date, not to mention one that will happen behind closed doors under the scrutiny of only a few. Far easier to pull off than, say, this. Not that it's proving as difficult as Kate thought it might. Johanna's been well-behaved so far, playing her part. She'd had some definite doubts about her willingness-- and isn't ready to give them up just yet-- but it's a step in the right direction, at least.
She smirks, and Kate smiles back. The warmth is slight and only put-on but it's a pretty, photogenic smile nonetheless. "As long as I don't have to be dressed like a tree in return, it's a deal."
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Date: 2015-01-08 02:52 pm (UTC)Instead she raises her chin, just a little. They're nearly of height, so any sort of looking down her nose is spoiled--but it doesn't matter. The heft of superiority is the same. She'll keep playing her part, for now--she's just decided that she will--as long as compliance is easy and amusing and gets her a pretty dress. At least one. The more, the better.
"You'd make a pretty tree." She lets her eyes slide up and down Kate, a brief but thorough once-over even from this close angle. "But I'm sick of trees."
The moment lingers--for whoever might be watching, but also for confusion, another fun part of this--and then Johanna tosses her hair, and walks a little faster, tugging at Kate's hand to pull her in her wake. "Now let's sit down and get out of the way so we can stop pretending to have a conversation."