Aeri can’t decide what she hates more - the way the bejeweled pin in the victor from District 8’s hair is lopsided, or the girl herself. Oh, what Aeri wouldn’t give to wear such an accessory again, or even wear the finery the victor has been gifted to wear to the viewing. That was her once, wasn’t it?
But now? She’s stuck here, watching this spectacle. The brat, who has no idea what privilege she’s been presented with, keeps on creasing the delicate threads of her gown and her stylists also clearly have no idea on how to do the brat’s makeup. And then there’s that damn pin- Aeri’s pin once upon a time- only in place because it’s tangled in there-
And Aeri can’t hold back. When the brat’s stylists are gone, she reaches into the girl’s hair and extracts the pin. Her fingers, callused from years of hard labor that still feels foreign to Aeri, are quick to untangle most of the obvious knots in the brat’s hair before shetwists the locks into a ponytail and then a bun. The pin goes back in.
Aeri glares at the girl through the mirror. Don’t you dare mess up my work.
( congrats lenlen!! you get....aeri, being really resentful, i hope marìa doesn't mind too much ^^' )
@stillresolved | !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LET HER BE RESENTFUL
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There's a harshness to being dolled up when you are in no way receptive to it.
María isn't foreign to the roughness of life - she's a fucking Victor, after all, isn't she - she's started working in factories just about around the age even the most moral of District 8 people might turn their back in fear on seeing her walk in, pretending not seeing her would free them of the responsibility of working with a child.
Her hands and nose and palate and lungs had long gotten used and keep getting used to the aftermath of working with chemicals, of being so very intimate with garments and colours, with fumes and heat, with the hard work of surviving, with the hard work of fighting to be allowed a minimal chance at said survival, at figuring that there's little more for people from District 8 to fight for.
Still... it's not the same.
Being pushed around, dressed in things she would have never chosen for herself to serve a people, a man, because she's not stupid enough to not be able to tell what is Capitol and what is Snow and how Capitol is Snow, it's a kind of biting and harsh and rough that doesn't leave behind the usual kind of scars and memories and bruises.
Even surviving the Games had come with a desperately accepted sense of relief, one covered in blood and the humiliation of all she'd done and all she'd thought she'd get to accomplish, only for reality to crash in on her in a victory she hadn't wanted to partake in, hadn't wanted to make possible, when she'd wanted her Games to be victor-less in lieu of ending the Games themselves.
This... this is humiliation in the long run. This has hardly any hope attached to it, waiting for her on the other end of the line. Sometimes, on the worst days, it feels like the true brunt of the battle, walking with blood-stained soles and palms and sparkling as she does, wearing all that might make even the softest source of light appear like flames reflecting off her frame, covering her in fire that had not eaten her alive - much to a few people's disdain.
Picking at things, not holding still, grimacing, shifting her muscles, arms, face to make her stylists' life as difficult as possible, it was all she had to fight back.
The Arena came with death and violence, and living back at home had been physical labour upon physical labour, straining her young body until she could no longer tell if she was broken beyond repair or fitter than children her age should be - had they grown up privileged within the Capitol's safety.
Here she has only threads to tear apart and reflections to glare at.
And a new challenge behind every door.
She feels yanked back, an intensity of motion caused less by the avox suddenly in her hair and more her own stiffness that hadn't prepared her for submission to someone suddenly rearranging her.
After her stylists had left, she'd succumbed to the tension of not wanting to be there, without the added hard work of making sure everybody else does. Lost in her thought, somebody's hands suddenly returning on her had fortified, molten it into a newly forged blade, stiff and ready to strike, tensing everything within her and making a few fingers in her hair turn into a grappling hook tied to a moving mountain.
María is startled enough she can't remember how to glare.
A frown does accompany her widened eyes anyway, making her look... appalled, almost, an addition to her expression so unsuited to typically frightened features, youth tainted by the face of someone used to having to fight to stay alive.
It almost happens in a flash then. The reflection moves and adjusts and fixes and what had started as something that had María's lips split into something acid and trembling, turns into something unpleasant and acrid, but silent, as María sits and lets herself be mandhandled one more time.
That's when she glares. After the avox finishes up, after their eyes meet in the mirror and María sees none of the downturned gazes they're trying to make her accustomed to.
Seeing avoxes pisses her off.
Why take it out on them.
She understands what they are, what they're supposed to represent.
To her, an avox is a statement. No longer a person but rather someone rid of their innate right to be considered one. Even with the determination and life in this avox' eyes, María has come to understand them as tools Snow uses to assert his dominance, people from all circles of life, punished with the robbing of their words... and their detached tongue metaphorically forced to lick away at the tip of the shoes of people like María.
All a scheme.
Infighting.
Use the prey on the prey, make them take each other out.
It'd be easier to feel pity if María could sleep, if the avox hadn't adjusted her appearance, and if the avox wasn't staring her down as if she had any right to do so.
She's oddly beautiful.
She's oddly familiar.
"Why are you helping them?" she hisses, low, whispered, because she might never admit it, but she's... she's a little scared, isn't she? Lately? Devora's face swims before her inner eye, so stern, so wrong.
"I'm on your side more than they are," she adds, pulling a strand of her hair out of the freshly adjusted bun.
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Inform us of what happens in other countries then. You keep saying Americans are not well informed of what is happening outside the US, but you also aren’t saying wtf is happening. We don’t know what’s happening in y’all country because y’all shit isn’t reaching over here. Only time the US will truly know what’s happening with other countries is if it’s some major trouble or drama.
We dgaf about y’all because y’all don’t matter to us. This is not being cocky, arrogant, or whatever you want to call it. This is the truth. This doesn’t have to nothing to with countries, but as people, we don’t put our focus or attention to shit that doesn’t concern us. We all do it and people would be lying if they say different. Same thing goes for countries. Why tf would I care about your country and we still got shit going on in our country.
Don’t blame us that the US media is reaching y’all. Write a letter to whoever is in control over there and tell them to be more global.
Now answer this shit since you have all the answers
We grew up with a natural sense of curiosity so go looking for shit on our own. And believe it or not but this isn't anything special. The US is basically the only place i know where this isn't considered normal. Most US news doesn't reach us at all yet i'm still informed and that goes for a lot of countries.
"Why tf would I care about your country and we still got shit going on in our country."
Because you're not alone in this world?
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