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Breaking my back just to know your name
Seventeen tracks and I've had it with this game
I'm breaking my back just to know your name
But heaven ain't close in a place like this
Anything goes but don't blink you might miss

( N A M E ) Domino Narcissus Abattoir
( N I C K N A M E S ) Narc Dom
( A G E ) 17
( G E N D E R ) Male
( D I S T R I C T / A R E A ) Capitol

Cause heaven ain't close in a place like this
I said heaven ain't close in a place like this
Bring it back down
Bring it back down tonight
Never thought I'd let a rumor ruin my moonlight

( A P P E A R A N C E )

[justify]"Appearances can be deceiving." It's a cliche older than Panem, or so I've been told, but it's also a fact. However, just because something is a deception, doesn't mean it lacks all truth; lies and rumors must grow from something. Tend them carefully and they might even blossom to be quite grand. Just remember: presentation is everything, especially in this city. Enough is too little — you've got to give 'em more than you've actually got if you want to dress to impress. So go ahead, turn your body into a monument, it's time to please the crowds and they don't want your simple sincerity. This is the era of technicolor and tattoos; nothing says now quite like faux fur boxing gloves, trust me. I've got the run of this town — it's just a matter of keeping up.

One should never take anything off the top, that's where you want to be, but it's always fashionable to cut down on the sides. So follow my lead and keep your waist whittled down — it's the one thing the kids in the districts do so well — and your hair wild and high. I've got a mane like a tawny crown, darling, because you can only be king if you set yourself up to be. The secret (and if there's one thing I know, it's anything and everything hush-hush) is to keep it unkempt; never let anyone know you're trying too hard. Pretend you're born with it and people will believe you are — wouldn't want to end up like those bedazzled try-hards and side street wannabes who gild themselves golden and end up looking like a dime store consolation prize. Gold is so pauper passé, everyone who's anyone is going rhodium.

I've also heard that "the eyes are the window to the soul," but I wouldn't buy into that tripe even if I were getting a kick-back. Nobody is breakin' into me that easily, but I'll tell you one thing: my eyes may well be the window to other people's souls. Combine a dash of moonshine with a little bit of bedroom lighting and I swear the glazed hazel of my irises must turn reflective, because one look later and it's like they think they're talking to themselves. Every clandestine skeleton in their closet comes out to play and those are always my favorite games. They're too busy spilling everything they've worked so hard to tuck away that they hardly notice my crooked grin as I drink in every so-called confidential detail that slips loose. Sub rosa don't mean a thing to me; I'm not building an empire with a closed mouth.[/justify]

Well somebody told me
You had a boyfriend
Who looked like a girlfriend
That I had in February of last year
It's not confidential, I've got potential

( P E R S O N A L I T Y )

[justify]See, I aim for confident, not confidant. The only secrets I'm interested in keeping are my own and, trust me, those are locked up tight — my mouth may as well be an impenetrable fortress in that respect. However, when it comes to all those delicious little tidbits of scandalous gossip I overhear about others? I'm not simply a collector, but a connoisseur and there is no friendship strong enough to keep those words walled up within me. Maybe it's a sick addiction, but I'll take the pleasure of watching someone fall beneath me over seeing them surpass my status any day. I can't help but wrap my tongue around each of their dirty little secrets, picking them up and carefully rearranging them in intricate patterns until they're perfectly plotted for their social downfall. Words are like dominos, and maybe I'm just a narcissist who takes a few too many cues from their name, but once you set 'em up, it's so hard to resist the urge to knock 'em down.

This ability to set things in motion is one of my true gifts in life. It's a skill, carefully honed and nurtured over the years, and I've known this ever since I was a small child playing with puzzles. Each piece fits together until you've created a whole, bringing something bigger to life, and once you've mastered one, you want to move onto something more complex, more difficult. Jigsaws are abandoned for dominos, because the restrictions of the predetermined begin to wear a mind down. Sooner or later you end up hating the way every piece is the exactly the same and start transforming the most unorthodox of the objects surrounding you into Rube Goldberg machines in an attempt to sate this need for change, only to discover that their chain reactions can only successfully perform the simplest of acts. If you want to work with something truly intricate, people are the most complex of machines and to manipulate them is the ultimate conundrum to conquer. A playful smile and a lighthearted expression will earn trust, especially in the Capitol, where only having to look skin-deep is the gold rhodium standard. A meticulously-crafted veneer of feigned good intentions and technicolor distraction is more than enough to conceal the inner workings of a mind that only seems to find entertainment in scheming the social demise of others.

For every puzzle battle won, sacrifices must be made to secure victory and the psychological wars I wage are no different. To camouflage something well enough that others can't see its true colors often means hiding it to the extent that you trick yourself as well. It's so hard to remember what something really looks like after you've spent so much time and effort disguising it and perhaps I've done this too many times with myself. After tucking away all these deceitful pieces of myself behind a friendly grin and shiny white teeth, I'm not exactly sure how to identify the sum of my own parts, considering I can't remember what the fragments are. If you're not sure you've ever felt the emotion your faking, how do you know it's not just like the real deal? Friends, enemies, lovers — they all blend together, until a crooked smile for one feels just like the sincerity you're faking for another; a handshake and a kiss are just different ways to touch and deciding which one should go where involves knowing which side of the relationship line you're standing on. After a few too many drinks, an inch of truth and a mile of lies don't feel so far apart.[/justify]

Ready? Let's roll onto something new
Taking its toll and I'm leaving without you
Ready? Let's roll onto something new
But heaven ain't close in a place like this
Anything goes but don't blink you might miss

( H I S T O R Y )

[justify]I'm the only child of a greedy politician and a vibrant socialite, the kind of young up and comers that possessed more ambition than means. Like every other member of the Capitol beau monde, they had tasted just enough money to be dangerously addicted. While they were wealthy, they weren't quite as rich as they had schemed and dreamed of being and despite their position as important members of high society, they fell somewhere short of influential royalty. This simply would not do, but the level of excess they coveted was no easy prize to attain and so they didn't... but said they did. So began my first lesson in constructing lies and setting up delicate chain reactions.

They were masters of the art right from the beginning, turning pennies into pearls and gilding gumption into genuine fool's gold. Taking what money they had, they bought the ritziest apartment on the most fashionable block in the city — the kind of place the president himself would envy — and began renovating it into the most glorious work of extravagance the world has ever known... or so the story goes. Tables carved from diamond and pillows stuffed with the feathers of exotic albino birds are what most assume lies behind the tightly closed doors of the lavish Abattoir residence, along with the occasional whispered rumors of doorhandles carved from the bones of fallen tributes. (Oh the envy such an idea stirs!) What my parents never even claimed to have was given to them anyways, with words. Secrets are more powerful than gaudy bragging; the people here don't care much about what you're willing to tell them, they're far more curious about what you won't. Give them the pieces and they will complete the puzzle themselves. Act like you have something they're unworthy of seeing with their own eyes and they'll assume you do.

In reality, our doors hide something beyond even the wildest of Capitolite imaginations and one glance at their implanted cat whiskers and mood ring skin and you should know that's no short stretch of fancy. The grand halls of our home are not wallpapered with the furs of a thousand and one extinct animals and the floors are not inlaid with moon rocks. Instead, they are as vacant as the air that people use to spin these tales, containing only the bare necessities. Our wealth is kept in their words and the exterior things we allow other people to see, allowing their innate creativity to build us up to be bigger and better than we really are, while living modestly when they're not looking. Such tactics have been ingrained into me and are the strategies not only responsible for helping my family climb to the tippy top of Panem's social hierarchy, but are the exaggerations that I use to personally maintain my precarious balance as a king of my own social ladder. Our collective lies of a grand existence are guarded by the shameful truths of those around us. After all, if you knock other people down low enough, they'll be too far below you to see that you're guilty of hiding much larger scandals than they are.[/justify]

Cause heaven ain't close in a place like this
I said heaven ain't close in a place like this
Bring it back down
Bring it back down tonight
Never thought I'd let a rumor ruin my moonlight

( C O D E W O R D ) Odair
( F A C E C L A I M ) Alex Dunstan

( C O M M E N T S / O T H E R )

[justify]12 Months Capitol Plot: December
Somebody Told Me by The Killers[/justify]

Pace yourself from me
I said maybe baby please
But I just don't know now
When all I wanna do is try

( T E X T ) 69AE3F
( O T H E R ) ACC190
( T H I N K I N G ) B4B66F
( S P E A K I N G ) AF448E
( O T H E R S P E A K I N G ) 7D6786

Well somebody told me
You had a boyfriend, who looked like a girlfriend
That I had in February of last year
It's not confidential, I've got potential
A rushin', a rushin' around