Guy Crood (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
acroodawakening) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thecapitol2013-12-11 10:50 pm
acroodawakening) wrote in thecapitol2013-12-11 10:50 pm
Entry tags:
Fashionably Terrified
WHO| Closed to Guy and Cinna
WHAT| Guy attacks his stylists with hair scissors and a shammy towel and needs a friendly face
WHEN| A few days after Guy is revived in Week 6, I guess?
WHERE| In the Styling Area wherever that is
WARNINGS| None so far
There really was never going to be an end to Guy freaking out in the Capitol. Oh, he'd adjust to some things and in circumstances where showing his fear and panic could cause him or others harm, he'd learn to stuff those outward reactions down, but they'd still be there. After all, there was never going to be an end to the parade of horrors this place had to offer when most of them didn't even exist in his world yet.
That was why, when one of his district's stylists ushered him in for his styling session, absolutely insisting that he couldn't run out into the city like that again without being 'cleaned up' first and things started to go downhill, his panic wasn't quite as loud and wild as it was during his screaming rampage through the city.
Buuut it still happened.
The thing about the image of the caveman that the Capitol wanted was that for them to be happy with it, Guy had to be rugged and outdoorsy, not unclean (by their standards) and hairy. He had to smell musky in the way that cologne did, not in the way actual muskrats did. As for Guy's body hair, it was definitely not picky enough about where it had decided to be located - all over his legs - and that had to be fixed.
He was okay with the washing. Screw what Lestat had said, Guy was planning on sticking to what he'd said and only washing once a week. He was also not happy with how they told him to do it, which was basically 'You're filthy, take a shower and scrub really well, here use these strange potions in this particular order' and physically shoving him into one. Still, he liked the occasional bath and the shower itself had been entirely novel. All of the horror about this world aside, whoever had figured out the whole hot and cold running water thing was a genius and he wanted to figure out how it was done. In fact, they had to yell at him to get out because he stayed in even after he was clean just messing with the knobs to adjust the temperature of the water.
It all went downhill from there. There were toothed things that hurt when they were tugged through his hair (brushes and combs). Next were the metal things they used to cut his hair (scissors). When it was clear they weren't going to be jabbed into his eyes and were just meant to tidy up his hair (but not too tidy, couldn't lose that wildman mystique!) he was able to calm down, but only barely.
Then it got worse. There was a handheld...whatever that made a loud scary noise and blew air at his head to dry his hair (hair dryer). That nearly had him hiding under a table but then he realized that was harmless, too. Then there were the weird little metal things they used to cut his nails and toenails with and the terrifying tools they cleaned his teeth with (he had to argue with them about something called 'dental work' but enough baring of his teeth made them back down from doing anything to them). After that, there were all kids of strange greasy substances (lotions and oils) they wiped all over his skin or - when he started outright slapping the people touching him - made him wipe all over his skin.
The eyelash curler was where he started to make his stand. After arguing for five minutes with the stylist about letting it near his eyes when it was clearly meant to pluck out eyeballs, he ultimately grabbed it, ran back over to the shower, and dropped it down the grate where they couldn't get it anymore. Then the tweezers almost had him punching the person wielding them in the face once he realized what they were for - because what kind of person thought it was okay to torture someone by pulling out their hair?
"My eyebrows are supposed to there or I wouldn't have eyebrows!"
It was the hot wax that ultimately broke the ever-so-tentative peace between him and the stylists. Guy understood cleaning himself up to look good. He had a mate, after all. You had to bathe or take dust baths sometimes, make pretty baubles for yourself, keep your clothes clean, clean your teeth with a stick, and wash out your mouth so your breath wasn't bad. That was just grooming. Sometimes if he and Eep had planned to leave the baby with Ugga and get away for an evening for some time to themselves, he even found a nice, fragrant wood and burned it in a little fire, wafting it towards him so he smelled good. (And she loved it.) Besides, there was a lot of mutual grooming among humans in his world for the social aspects and also because no one wanted to be that person embarrassed by having a big ol' bug in their hair. That was worse than having a booger hanging out your nose without realizing it.
But people pouring hot substances on your legs and then ripping out whole swaths of hair without telling you what they were up before they did it to were clearly not tidying you up to look good. They were not trying to groom you. No, they were sick, sick people.
"What is with your war on body hair?" 'War' was his new favorite word. It was the perfect word for people fighting against something for stupid reasons or no reason at all. "What is wrong with you people?!"
This left the stylists with something of a conundrum. That conundrum was 'How do you style someone if they've climbed up on top of a cabinet to get away from you and are screaming about how you're clearly just trying to torture them?' Even more pressing: how did you do it if they were also throwing things from inside the cabinet at you and trying to stab anyone that came too close with a stolen pair of hair scissors?
None of them were getting paid enough for it to be worth getting beaned in the head with a curling iron and that was why they went for another stylist, hoping his calm bedside manner might help here. It was either that or the Peacekeepers but they knew well enough that asking them to intercede would wind up disastrous and besides, they didn't want it to seem as if they couldn't do their jobs.
"I mean you deal with District Twelve," one of the stylists was saying to Cinna as he led him over. "You made coal into diamonds there, darling, so we figured you might be able to help us figure out how to deal with him. We just need him to sit down long enough to finish but he's a little wild thing - too savage and simple to understand what an undertaking he is. We were hoping you might be able to lend us your, ah, civilizing touch?"
As Cinna approached, he would see the nomad crouched atop the cabinet in just a loincloth, hot wax still on one shin, slapping a stylist repeatedly in the face with a wet shammy towel to beat her back as she tried to pull him down.
WHAT| Guy attacks his stylists with hair scissors and a shammy towel and needs a friendly face
WHEN| A few days after Guy is revived in Week 6, I guess?
WHERE| In the Styling Area wherever that is
WARNINGS| None so far
There really was never going to be an end to Guy freaking out in the Capitol. Oh, he'd adjust to some things and in circumstances where showing his fear and panic could cause him or others harm, he'd learn to stuff those outward reactions down, but they'd still be there. After all, there was never going to be an end to the parade of horrors this place had to offer when most of them didn't even exist in his world yet.
That was why, when one of his district's stylists ushered him in for his styling session, absolutely insisting that he couldn't run out into the city like that again without being 'cleaned up' first and things started to go downhill, his panic wasn't quite as loud and wild as it was during his screaming rampage through the city.
Buuut it still happened.
The thing about the image of the caveman that the Capitol wanted was that for them to be happy with it, Guy had to be rugged and outdoorsy, not unclean (by their standards) and hairy. He had to smell musky in the way that cologne did, not in the way actual muskrats did. As for Guy's body hair, it was definitely not picky enough about where it had decided to be located - all over his legs - and that had to be fixed.
He was okay with the washing. Screw what Lestat had said, Guy was planning on sticking to what he'd said and only washing once a week. He was also not happy with how they told him to do it, which was basically 'You're filthy, take a shower and scrub really well, here use these strange potions in this particular order' and physically shoving him into one. Still, he liked the occasional bath and the shower itself had been entirely novel. All of the horror about this world aside, whoever had figured out the whole hot and cold running water thing was a genius and he wanted to figure out how it was done. In fact, they had to yell at him to get out because he stayed in even after he was clean just messing with the knobs to adjust the temperature of the water.
It all went downhill from there. There were toothed things that hurt when they were tugged through his hair (brushes and combs). Next were the metal things they used to cut his hair (scissors). When it was clear they weren't going to be jabbed into his eyes and were just meant to tidy up his hair (but not too tidy, couldn't lose that wildman mystique!) he was able to calm down, but only barely.
Then it got worse. There was a handheld...whatever that made a loud scary noise and blew air at his head to dry his hair (hair dryer). That nearly had him hiding under a table but then he realized that was harmless, too. Then there were the weird little metal things they used to cut his nails and toenails with and the terrifying tools they cleaned his teeth with (he had to argue with them about something called 'dental work' but enough baring of his teeth made them back down from doing anything to them). After that, there were all kids of strange greasy substances (lotions and oils) they wiped all over his skin or - when he started outright slapping the people touching him - made him wipe all over his skin.
The eyelash curler was where he started to make his stand. After arguing for five minutes with the stylist about letting it near his eyes when it was clearly meant to pluck out eyeballs, he ultimately grabbed it, ran back over to the shower, and dropped it down the grate where they couldn't get it anymore. Then the tweezers almost had him punching the person wielding them in the face once he realized what they were for - because what kind of person thought it was okay to torture someone by pulling out their hair?
"My eyebrows are supposed to there or I wouldn't have eyebrows!"
It was the hot wax that ultimately broke the ever-so-tentative peace between him and the stylists. Guy understood cleaning himself up to look good. He had a mate, after all. You had to bathe or take dust baths sometimes, make pretty baubles for yourself, keep your clothes clean, clean your teeth with a stick, and wash out your mouth so your breath wasn't bad. That was just grooming. Sometimes if he and Eep had planned to leave the baby with Ugga and get away for an evening for some time to themselves, he even found a nice, fragrant wood and burned it in a little fire, wafting it towards him so he smelled good. (And she loved it.) Besides, there was a lot of mutual grooming among humans in his world for the social aspects and also because no one wanted to be that person embarrassed by having a big ol' bug in their hair. That was worse than having a booger hanging out your nose without realizing it.
But people pouring hot substances on your legs and then ripping out whole swaths of hair without telling you what they were up before they did it to were clearly not tidying you up to look good. They were not trying to groom you. No, they were sick, sick people.
"What is with your war on body hair?" 'War' was his new favorite word. It was the perfect word for people fighting against something for stupid reasons or no reason at all. "What is wrong with you people?!"
This left the stylists with something of a conundrum. That conundrum was 'How do you style someone if they've climbed up on top of a cabinet to get away from you and are screaming about how you're clearly just trying to torture them?' Even more pressing: how did you do it if they were also throwing things from inside the cabinet at you and trying to stab anyone that came too close with a stolen pair of hair scissors?
None of them were getting paid enough for it to be worth getting beaned in the head with a curling iron and that was why they went for another stylist, hoping his calm bedside manner might help here. It was either that or the Peacekeepers but they knew well enough that asking them to intercede would wind up disastrous and besides, they didn't want it to seem as if they couldn't do their jobs.
"I mean you deal with District Twelve," one of the stylists was saying to Cinna as he led him over. "You made coal into diamonds there, darling, so we figured you might be able to help us figure out how to deal with him. We just need him to sit down long enough to finish but he's a little wild thing - too savage and simple to understand what an undertaking he is. We were hoping you might be able to lend us your, ah, civilizing touch?"
As Cinna approached, he would see the nomad crouched atop the cabinet in just a loincloth, hot wax still on one shin, slapping a stylist repeatedly in the face with a wet shammy towel to beat her back as she tried to pull him down.
no subject
Cinna waited until all of them were a good distance away from him and Guy. He stayed far enough that Guy couldn't reach him, but close enough that they would be able to speak to each other without the others overhearing.
He had been finishing up his own work in District 12's area when they had found him, so he wore simple black work clothes. The gold eyeliner was, as always, the only real hint of extravagance on his body.
He wasn't judging Guy, nor did he seem angry or annoyed by him. He just silently waited for Guy to calm down enough to talk rationally.
no subject
Cinna kept his distance and wasn't yelling, wasn't telling him to get down, wasn't going on about how he was stupid or simple or acting out of control. He was just quiet and respecting Guy's space.
It helped that he wasn't dressed as outlandishly as the others. Even the gold eyeliner was just pretty, not unlike the kind of ornamentation Guy and his family sometimes experimented with.
"Who are you?" he asked, his voice timid. He had noticed all the others stepping back and letting Cinna handle things and he wasn't sure if that meant the man might try to hurt him. Was the silence a prelude to something bad? "They won't leave me alone. They keep doing crazy things like pulling my hair out."
He gestured with the scissors at the other stylists hanging back.
"You people have no respect for personal boundaries. None. Grooming is a social thing and you are some very socially inept people."
no subject
"My name is Cinna," he said. "I'm the Stylist for District 12. They're my competitors. That's probably why they don't mind the idea of you jabbing me in the face with those."
He gestured towards the makeshift weapon that Guy had made out of the scissors. "You won't though," he added. It wasn't a command, more just a light comment that seemed to imply that he thought that Guy was too good of a person to do that.
"Do you want to come down? I've been working all day and looking up isn't going to help the cramp in my shoulders."
no subject
And Guy figured that maybe that meant Cinna was more like him than like them.
"I - if I do are they going to keep hurting me?"
His voice was very small.
no subject
"Eventually," Cinna said. He wasn't about to lie and say that Guy could get away without it. He braced himself a bit as he waited to see how Guy would reply to that idea. "You're going to have to be waxed and shaved. There's little appeal for a young man who is hairy here. I know it's uncomfortable, but you have to trust that we know how to make you look good to the public. That's our job."
no subject
Guy had to take a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose and suck in a few deep breaths, overwhelmed for a moment by how absolutely insane that was.
And how intrusive it was having to change his body in ways that pleased strangers. That was alien and it was creepy. It was very very creepy.
no subject
He came closer then, though his movement was gentle and slow. He raised his hands a bit. "I like you so far, but people here need to want to get to know you before you can win them over."
no subject
He wasn't stupid. When they'd looked at him in the street, he could tell they weren't looking at him, not really. He'd been a spectacle. He'd been something that it seemed like they wanted to own.
"Is that the only way to survive this?" he asked miserably. "Turning myself into a story they want to own?"
no subject
"Yes," Cinna said, not bothering to sugar coat it. If they kid had figured out the system, he wasn't going to lie to him. His voice was soft because he knew being overheard would put him in danger. He wasn't saying anything too revolutionary though. "The best that you can do is to make it a good story, and be who you really are with the people you trust."
no subject
Finally, he opened his eyes and said, "They won't tell me what they're doing before they do it. I don't know what all these things are so I can't tell if they're going to hurt me."
It was a matter of trust and they certainly hadn't earned his. They probably never would.
no subject
Cinna considered him a moment. "Come down and I'll give you the basic run down. I can't promise that there won't be some pain, okay. Fashion hurts sometimes. I can tell you that it won't be fatal, and that once your public appearance is over then you'll be able to go back to your own idea of fashion."
no subject
He hadn't run into people much growing up but it was all the more reason Guy'd had to be a good judge of character. There were times he'd gotten it wrong, especially when someone was trying to purposefully deceive him but he'd gotten good at picking up a general sense of someone.
So far Cinna had been very civil with him, though, and there was just something about the man that exuded gentleness.
"Okay." He nodded to himself, seeming to come to some kind of internal decision. "Okay. I'm coming down now."
He put the scissors down and started to climb down from the cabinet.
no subject
Cinna moved to help Guy down, worried that he might slip and fall. "Why don't you take a break?" he suggested to the other Stylists as they moved. "I'll show him around and call you back when he's ready."
He didn't guide Guy back to the equipment until they were alone.
no subject
"They already cut my hair and made me take a bath and pulled hair from my eyebrows," said Guy, so that Cinna would be able to explain what was left. "They were still doing things with this sticky stuff on my legs."
One leg still had the wax on it, in fact, since that's what had precipitated his escape.
"And they said they still had to shave my face hair, however that works. Then they said they were going to dress me."
no subject
Cinna nodded. "That's all true," he said. "The like keeping you looking young. Before Tributes like you played the Games, it was all children from the Districts. There's a sense that Tributes should look young. Part of being young is having no hair."
Cinna explained this all without making it sound as disturbing as it really was. He felt a little disgusted just voicing this trend, not to mention the thought he had put into it. He still managed not to show that disgust though, not when it meant putting Guy ill at ease.
tw: implied pedophilia
"So they want to hit on me, apparently, but they want me to look like a prepubescent child while they do it. Well, that answers some discomfiting questions I hoped I wouldn't have to actually ask."
His lip curled into an unconscious snarl, his teeth briefly bared. The anger wasn't entirely at his own circumstances, though. It was derived of wondering about things he would never have imagined before coming to this place
If he was an adult they kept ogling, but that they wanted to look like a child...
Did that mean there had been children they wanted to act like adults? Had the children that were the past survivors of the Hunger Games lost even when they'd won?
"I didn't even - the things I'm imagining, the things I've learned that people do to each other since I got here, that I keep wondering if they do..."
His pushed a hand through his hair.
"I want to go home. All I keep thinking about is how I hope someday this will all end and I'll somehow get to go home but in some ways I'm almost afraid of it, because this's there's tiny irrational part of me that's almost afraid I'll somehow bring back these - these ideas - that they'll infect my world like a sickness."
His shoulders dropped.
"Sounds crazy, right?"
no subject
"Nothing sounds too crazy," he said. "Considering how many different worlds there are."
no subject
"Thank you," he said quietly. "You know, just for..."
He bit his lip for a moment, sad that he had reason to thank anyone for it.
"For treating me like a person, I guess? It's, ah, not as common here as I'd like."
no subject
Cinna gave Guy a small smile. It looked like an expression that showed comfort and appreciation, but it was actually hiding a bit of a grimace. "The other Tributes probably will."
no subject
He shook his head.
"Shouldn't have to be us against the world, though. That's now how people should work."