To stand up

THE NEW STAR WARS IS WONDERFUL YES and I am totally with you there on the lack of fic output - it sucks that that's what Brainpower Conservation Mode turns off first, eh!

You should write more of Giant Killer Octopus shenanigans :D like, shit the girls get up to when they're not fighting? Lyme and Misha and Claudius being awesome? Bike racing in between fights?

I also would like to see your thoughts and/or fic on Johanna Mason because that is pretty random!

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OK, dropping the "Octopus shenanigans" into the fic-hopper to see what comes out.

Meanwhile, some rambling thoughts on Johanna Mason because why not crush your soul on a Saturday morning?

Johanna has always been one of those characters I like a lot but can't really figure out. And then as I was trying to sleep the other night I was randomly thinking about this and now I sort of have an idea...which includes descriptions of forced prostitution, drug use and other shitty coping mechanisms because UGH PANEM so fair warning.

Johanna's games were "exciting" enough for a specific type of scumbag that she would probably have been fairly attractive. And I like the idea (which I got from

deathmallow) that the weakling thing at least started off as her actual reaction--where I take it after that is that she was acutely embarrassed by that reaction, because great, fucking everyone in Panem saw her sobbing on television. And then her mentor (who was a not-Blight 7 Victor) said "hey, kid, we can use that," once he realized she was actually a sharp, tough, pissed off kid, who sucks at hiding her emotions when she's ambushed.

And she wins, and at the end of her Tour she gets told about what happens to good-looking Victors who are exciting enough to be interesting, and that she's not allowed to say no. And she tries, she really does, but she can't be submissive enough and when she gets told to play the dominatrix she takes it way too far.

And eventually takes it so much too far that there's a "mysterious" fire that takes out her family, and she's told she clearly can't hack it so they're not going to send her any more clients. Which is a relief for about five seconds until the voice in her head starts up with "you couldn't even do that right, and you got your family killed because of it." Which is a hell of a mindfuck.

So Johanna adopts this "Yeah, I'm a complete fuckup. So what?" attitude. Which is believable unless you know her well, which basically no one does. Blight is near enough to her in age that he's a drinking buddy and occasional drunken-confession receiver, but that is about as close as it gets.

In the Capitol, she figures out that it can be "fun," in a soul crushingly horrible kind of way, to show off as the hot Victor folks in the Capitol can't just buy. So she'll go out to clubs, get out of her mind on whatever's around, have rough half-public sex or take someone home to fuck, kick him out when she's done. Because it's the only kind of fun she knows how to have anymore, and she's going to have as much of it as possible.

She's a little less out-of-control back in Seven. But since she's half-convinced herself she likes her wild times in the Capitol she accepts a lot of invitations. The other Seven Victors have basically given up trying to talk to her about any of it, because they've tried and they get mocked, insulted, and ignored.

She runs into Finnick a lot in the Capitol, and he understands her a lot better than he'll let on, so on his rare free nights he'll take her out, try to get her home alone and in one piece, let her fall apart on him on the comedown if that's what she needs. And sometimes after he has a really bad night he'll come to her place and she'll let him do what he needs to do to get back to baseline. It's a completely dysfunctional friendship, but it's theirs, and they do care about each other.

And Finnick brings her into the rebellion because she hates Snow as much as anyone, and when he tells her she basically goes "well, we're probably all going to get killed, but fuck it, why not go down swinging?"

SO THAT'S ALL HORRIBLE. But she lives, so there's that? I haven't gotten around to figuring out how to fix things for her post-war but mayyyybe I will work on that one at some point? Probably Finnick (or maybe Annie in Canon but fuck canon) is like "look, come to Four, learn how to swim, there's an empty house with your name on it and I swear we won't smother you" and she does, and it slowly gets less awful until she looks around and realizes she actually doesn't hate everything? And she went swimming yesterday and picked up seashells and ate lunch with Finnick and Annie and laughed at the baby smearing peas all over itself, and things might not all be terrible.

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... oh man I blathered at you over IM already but ftr THIS IS ALL HORRIBLE BUT IT MAKES SENSE AND I'M GONNA FOCUS ON POSTWAR WITH FINNICK AND ANNIE

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http://archiveofourown.org/works/5473502 >>

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Ahhhhhhh POOR EVERYONE :(

JO and FINNICK /o\

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I KNOW :(

This is not a rabbit hole I want to fall down.

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Lyme knows Brutus well enough to know that nothing good starts with him showing up at her front door with a bottle of decent bourbon and a six-pack. So she raises one eyebrow as she lets him in, waving vaguely in the direction of the kitchen.

Brutus sets the bottles on the counter and takes one of the beers, pops it open with the opener on his keys before taking it back to the couch. Lyme grabs a glass, pours herself a drink, and follows.

"So what's going on?" Lyme asks, settling back in her chair and taking a drink.

Brutus spins the bottle between his palms, pretends there's something really interesting about the label. "General Ronan's going to ask you to lead a new team," he says, finally looking up at her. "But fair warning, you're gonna hate it."

Lyme has a rule about reacting the way Brutus wants her to and it's "don't," so she doesn't say "What the fuck?" she just raises an eyebrow and motions for him to go on.

"They're putting together a unit called Special Threats," Brutus continues, "And they're going to ask you to lead it."

Lyme shrugs. "This have something to do with those collaboration tests they did last week?" she asks, because two weird things that close together have to be related. "Or all your trips up to Pasadena?"

"Yep," Brutus says, not specifying which he's responding to, so Lyme just assumes it's both. "You'll get briefed."

"Assuming I agree," Lyme says. "Which you don't think I'll want to do."

"They're recruiting civilians," Brutus says, "All girls, they have to pass a physical but other than that," he shrugs one shoulder. "I've seen the files, farm kids and mechanics and city girls who don't know shit."

"Why?" Lyme asks, because she can't help herself.

"They'll brief you," Brutus says again, and Lyme glares at him.

"Why'd you come over here if you can't tell me anything?" she asks.

"Because I think you should do it," he says. "They'll let you say no, probably," he admits, and Lyme would normally crow at the implication that she's valuable enough to do that, but Brutus has his serious face on. More even than usual. "But," and this time he actually pauses, looks sideways like he's trying to figure out what to say, and Lyme wishes there were a camera hidden somewhere to capture this. "You're good. We need you."

Lyme sits back, downs the rest of her drink and looks at him. "But you can't tell me anything about it."

Brutus shakes his head. "They'll.."

"They'll brief me," Lyme interrupts him. "I get it."

"You'd call me crazy if I told you." Brutus says. "I'm just hoping the warning means you won't call Ronan crazy to his face."

"I can't wait," Lyme says, deadpan.

--

When she comes home the next day Brutus is sitting on the bench on her porch.

She glares as she walks past to open the door, and he follows her in. The bottle's still on the counter and she pours herself a glass, grabs one of Brutus' beers from the fridge and tosses it to him.

"You weren't kidding about the crazy," she says, as she sits down.

Brutus huffs a laugh. "Nope," he says.

"They brought in one of your scientist friends," Lyme continues. "Since when are we living in a bad sci-fi movie?"

Now Brutus actually cracks a smile, sits back, watching her. "Don't ask me," he says. "I just try to keep them from getting themselves killed."

"You know the worst part?" Lyme asks, rhetorical, but Brutus answers anyway.

"Just how much fun Misha is going to have with this shitshow?"

"Yeah," Lyme says, running a hand through her hair. "New weaponry, unorthodox chain of command, flexible regulations, and she's supposed to be in charge of a bunch of girls from who-knows-where."

"Yep," Brutus says, only a little vindictive. "She's gonna have a blast."

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lorata.livejournal.com

<33333333333333

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HEHEHEHE :DDDDDDDD

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAOMG

(my brain read "Special Threats" as "Special Treats" but then I realized that's probably only for Wiress and Eibhlin >> )

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ahahaha yes, Wiress and Eib (and Beetee, probably) think it's Special Treats, everyone else is like "what they hell this is the weirdest thing"

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I was going to finish this up and post it BUT THEN IT KEEPS NOT BEING DONE

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That is the best possible reason for a fic not to be posted :))))))

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For something more ramble-able, maybe Rokia picking out/arranging furniture etc, for her house in the Two Village?

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OK, because it's the weekend and I really don't want to work...

The first thing that gets moved is all the shop stuff from Lyme's garage. This takes a while. And is set up quite carefully.

Then it's the basics: A bed. Kitchen table and chairs. Pots and pans and dishes. A dresser for clothes.

Once that's done Rokia moves in...and kind of stalls.

"You need a couch."

"I have a bunch of pillows and blankets?"

"That doesn't count"

Etc.

The thing is, Rokia's never bought any of this stuff. Phillips furnished her Victors' Village house in 6, she lived in a furnished apartment in the Capitol, and then with Lyme. So the idea that she has to go buy nice (expensive) things for Just Her.....takes a while to settle in.

Probably after a few visits Sara is like "yeah okay, we're going furniture shopping." And they do one trip and buy just a couch. The next visit is something else, Sara brings bookshelves from Seven, toys from Three, seashells from Four, badgers Rokia good-naturedly into picking things up bit by bit until it looks more like a home.

It's pretty simple stuff, well-made, no-frills things. Soft comfy couch and chairs in the living room. There's a fireplace, bookshelves (Sara reads a LOT once they open up the libraries of banned books), a TV off in the corner they don't use much. There probably is an actual dining room but it's the last room to be furnished because they eat in the kitchen. I think there's a little table by the windows.

There's a spare room upstairs Rokia uses as an office/indoor tinkering space. It is usually what she would call "organized chaos" and what Sara calls "a big mess." There's a desk, a worktable, a soldering iron and a datapad (probably multiple ones, eventually) and a bunch of notebooks. Usually some dismantled electronics.

The really messy stuff happens in the garage, which has lots of machine tools and is actually pretty well organized except for the junk that collects in the junk corner in case it comes in handy sometime. (Eibhlin would like to know in what world a cracked engine block is going to come in handy and Rokia just glares at her and says "you never know.")

Heaven help you if you move things in either of these rooms without express permission. The rest of the house Rokia doesn't care that much about but "DID YOU MOVE MY HEX KEYS? WHY CAN'T I FIND THE 3/8" SOCKET?"

Some things are important, okay?

Rokia can make edible food but prefers not to bother. Sara usually cooks when she's around, or Rokia will eat oatmeal and scrambled eggs and ramen and sandwiches, or she shows up around mealtimes at Lyme's house like a stray cat and they both pretend it isn't the cutest thing in the world. Actually, if it's been a couple days since Lyme's seen her she will go over and drag Rokia out of whatever project has eaten her brain and feed her and put her to bed. (This happens less often with time, but old coping mechanisms die hard).

Allie brings fresh vegetables, and Rokia will at least gnaw on carrots and stuff because she would feel horrible letting food that Allie actually grew with her own two hands go to waste. Which Allie exploits to make sure Rokia actually eats vegetables.

For a while when Kadi's a teenager she lives with Rokia so she can go to Beetee's polytechnic. This is terrifying to basically everyone, because Kadi is also a tinkering type and they're likely to be up at odd hours in the garage welding stuff and yelling at each other about how it should go until Kadi has to go to class. Sara eventually institutes official meal and bed times when she's around because she gets tired of having to drag her girlfriend to bed at 2 AM.

There are sheep in the back yard, also, but that's in the other fic.

Basically Rokia is a very competent disaster-human and her house demonstrates that. Is that rambly enough for you?

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Ahhhhhhhhhhhh yes, it's totally perfect. Thank you!

Beetee probably shudders a bit at the garage (too much mess!), but he won't say anything, and in fact, will give her free access to the parts bins that Eibhlin and Beetee assembled out of the old Capitol spy devices and war equipment that they disassembled and harvested for wires/screws/other components (and now use to maintain the series of outward-facing security cameras in the woods outside the Village walls).

Beetee and Eib are going to love Kadi, I think.

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