She craves attention, she praises an image
She doesn't know why she does it, but she grabs every poster and flyer of herself that she can without taking so many that there's none left in the streets, and she builds a little shrine of memorabilia in the basement of her family's large three floor home. The outside walls are painted a buttercream yellow, the inside walls soft blues or pale purples, but the bare, gritty cellar is plastered with thousands of Rhodas, staring down at a spot in the middle of the area where a little stained pillow lies. Rhoda kneels there sometimes and looks at the smiling faces of herself, beaming or scowling or smirking down at her, their brown eyes sparkling, their blonde hair always just past chin length. It's her center; she is her own center, on glossy photo paper and flimsy advertising flyers. Sometimes she drags the video player down to the basement and watches as the commercials, dozens of them, all downloaded on the device, flash across the screen. She looks so much more beautiful in all those images and videos than she does whenever she goes to the basement. It's on the hard days at the Academy where they break her and blood pools around her and she runs home, lost. It's on the hard days at the photoshoot where they suffocate her in layers of makeup and clothing until she's not herself any more, and it's on those days she doesn't really know who the true Rhoda Hamilton is. It's on the hard days when her parents sometimes bicker and Iridia starts crying because she thinks they're going to get divorced and Rhoda just can't listen to their chattering. It's on the normal days when she just needs to relax and calm down. She doesn't realize how self centered it is, but is one self centered if they don't realize that they're being that way?
Her parents and Iridia have moved into the Victor's Village of One with her, not just because they want the honor of living there, but because their house is ransacked. After she died with her head split in two by the rock at the hands of Shane, the whole of One roiled and revolted and surged out into the streets, tearing down posters of her, banners of her, taping commercials and TV spots that featured her. Anything and everything Rhoda Hamilton became priceless.
They tore into her house. They pushed past her shocked mother and her yelling father and an indignant Iridia and they started to take things. They loved her, sure, but to break into her own home? To take all that she holds dear? Her old clothes, her old jewelry, her old stuffed animals?
They found the shrine.
Rhoda walks down the creaky basement steps, and pulls on the dangling, rusted chain. The light bulb flickers to life, and her breath catches in her throat.
There's nothing left.
She staggers the rest of the way down the stairs and her fingers claw against the closest wall. There's just staples and tacks and nails with little ribbons of torn paper sticking out from them. There's no faces staring sternly or approvingly down at her, just tattered scraps spread out throughout the basement, enough so that maybe she could rebuild on lopsided picture out of fragments from hundreds of images. But it's gone. It's all gone.
She falls to her knees on the old, stained pillow, and lets herself cry for the first time since...forever.