etcircenses: (Default)
Panem Events ([personal profile] etcircenses) wrote in [community profile] thecapitol2014-03-24 12:14 pm

The Crowning of Mindy McReady

Who| Everyone who's anyone.
What| The Crowning.
Where| A warehouse on the edge of town.
When| Starting from early evening till late into the night.
Warnings/Notes| Be sure to check the linked thread for plot purposes, even if you don't tag into it.

The party is brightly colored.

The theme, subtly, is super heroes. Boldly paints city scapes are splattered across the walls, and hallways are made to look like dingy, potentially crime ridden alleys. From the upper walkways of the warehouse, party goers can get hooked into harnesses and swing out over the dance floor. Above them, tributes and VIPS can find themselves on a clear plastic dance floor levitated above everything, looking like they're hanging in air.

Masks are passed out in plenty, and capes are easy to find, while brightly colored drinks themed around super powers are plentiful. None of them actually work, but many of the Capitol people are happy to pretend, mocking super strength or invisibility with each new beverage.

Under the dance floor a catacomb of tunnels and rooms full of obstacles is splashed with black light receptive colors. Party goers are given vests and laser guns, marked green for villains and red for heros, and set loose to hunt each other in the laser tags playground. The screens in the dance floor keep a running tally of which side is winning, displaying the players on the screens around the room, along with clips from the arenas.

About half way through the night, everyone is gathered to the main stage for a special announcement.
atippleoftransparency: (Let me tell you a thing)

Re: Guy Crood - Pre-Reaping

[personal profile] atippleoftransparency 2014-04-30 07:50 am (UTC)(link)
"That'd be me," Lyle agreed with a little bow. This sentient ('Guy Crood', he remembered now) had shown obvious signs of being clever in his footage in the Arena; Lyle was interested in seeing how his and Brainy's cover story held up to someone actually questioning it. "What's up with what? I've been doing it for about ten years at this point, I may as well try to make it work for me here."
acroodawakening: (005)

[personal profile] acroodawakening 2014-04-30 07:58 am (UTC)(link)
Guy just stared at him for a moment, giving him a Look.

"What's up with it is you try too hard. Lots of saying, not a lot of doing." He waved the plastic club around in a little circle as he spoke. "People talk about what they are when they want someone to believe that's what they are and nobody talks up that they're going to bite that much unless they're trying to scare off bigger predators."

He raised an eyebrow at him.

"I saw some of you in the last arena. You died holding your friend's hand. You have a friend." He pointed the club at him. "You probably have done some bad things but I don't believe for a minute that you're as bad as you say. More likely just trying to scare off the people you know are worse."

At least he didn't know why they were trying so hard? Which meant that any other people who were questioning their story might not have found it obvious either.
atippleoftransparency: (Let me tell you a thing)

[personal profile] atippleoftransparency 2014-04-30 08:13 am (UTC)(link)
"Fuck, I wish the sentients on my wetworks team had been as sharp as you," Lyle said, cocking his head to the side. "It took forever to hammer that kind of thing into their heads."

Criticism noted, however. He and Brainy were going to have to do something more than run and hide in the next Arena. Build some traps, at least.

"Haven't had much opportunity for biting since the Arena, though," he said. "Figured it was best to play by the rules if I like breathing; and all-in-all, I'm pretty fond of it."
acroodawakening: (122)

[personal profile] acroodawakening 2014-04-30 08:18 am (UTC)(link)
He liked being told he was smart. He hadn't really cared much about it before but that was before he had people implying or outright saying he was stupid.

He visibly relaxed at the acknowledgment.

"I don't know what wetworks are but you might as well not bother laying it on that thick when you're around me, at least." He paused as he looked at him. "You're doing it to protect yourself, aren't you. You and your own."

The look in his eyes suggested he was trying to figure out if he found Lyle sympathetic enough to keep talking to despite the talk of poison and obvious crazy.
Edited 2014-04-30 08:19 (UTC)
atippleoftransparency: (Let me tell you a thing)

[personal profile] atippleoftransparency 2014-04-30 08:36 am (UTC)(link)
"Ehh," Lyle waved a hand. "Brainy spoiled the secret before I got here, otherwise I'd have kept it quiet and let it come out on-camera. Now it'd just result in heroic types getting all tears and betrayal at me off-camera, and that doesn't do anyone any good. And it's annoying."

As if he was going to admit he did it for protection. Good guess though.

"But sure, we don't have to talk about work. I've got hobbies. I'm guessing from that you're into science, since you figured out the water cycle. Me too."
acroodawakening: (086)

[personal profile] acroodawakening 2014-04-30 08:45 am (UTC)(link)
Guy noted the dodge but let it go.

So far Lyle seemed like a bad guy but not necessarily a bad guy. At least not all the time. And they all had their ways to survive. There had been worse than him in the last arena.

"I figured that one out mostly before I knew what science was." He lifted his club upward. "Rain falls from clouds, the clouds go away, the rain is puddles on the ground, then it dries up and it goes away, then there are more clouds..."

He waved the club around in a circle.

"I hadn't figured out how it got up there without falling up in reverse - which I figured couldn't happen because of grabbity - but I knew it had something to do with the air. Sometimes when it's cold and the air is almost wet you get dew, right? I figured it was all part of the same thing somehow."
Edited 2014-04-30 08:46 (UTC)
atippleoftransparency: (think think think)

[personal profile] atippleoftransparency 2014-04-30 09:10 am (UTC)(link)
Lyle's estimation of the other sentient rose another notch. A sense of discretion, excellent.

He paused for a second, trying to parse what Guy was saying. Considering that the languages they were speaking were probably 200,000 years apart (unless Guy had learned to speak Panem English), he was mostly surprised they'd talked this long without running into a concept that one of their languages didn't have a word for.

" 'Grabby force'?" he repeated, then snapped his fingers as things slid into place. "Oh! Gravity!" Grife, he'd worked out the theory of gravity too? Lyle could only imagine what he could have come up with if given access to a thirty-first century education. "Worked it out the rest of the way once you had access to a library, huh?"
acroodawakening: (159)

[personal profile] acroodawakening 2014-04-30 09:21 am (UTC)(link)
"Grabbity is the word I came up with for the invisible hands or weight that pulls things to the ground and makes them fall - because it grabs them. I don't really know what it is but it's a something so I needed a word for it. That's how you start figuring stuff out - you figure out it's a thing and make a word for it and then you figure out how it works."

Probably a lot of stuff, if given access to a thirty-first century education. Lots and lots of stuff.

"The rain I learned from the thingies, though, not a libr - lib - I am not even going to try that word." Apparently, his language didn't leave him prone to pronouncing it easily. "There are videos if you hit the buttons the right way? On my tablet, I usually hit the picture on the main thingy that comes up that has the colorful shapes because it goes to the little kid site that has more science things. Then I hit the the picture of the little glass with the green stuff over the fire and that pulls up the science videos. And then I watch them and I ask my friends, like Julian, to make sure the Capitol got it right since they're smarter and the Capitol gets so many things wrong. The rain one I found by hitting the picture with rain on it."

And with that little explanation, it become abundantly clear that, just like Lyle, he couldn't read English. And that he'd learned it anyway.

And that he'd gone out of his way to try to learn it anyway.
Edited 2014-04-30 09:23 (UTC)
atippleoftransparency: (Relaxed)

[personal profile] atippleoftransparency 2014-04-30 10:21 am (UTC)(link)
"Oh no, go ahead and keep using 'grabby force'," Lyle said, flapping a hand at Guy. "'Gravity' is just the word in my language for it."

Now would be a really awful time to develop a crush, but smart men had always been a weakness of Lyle's. Also, he'd have to keep the video option in mind -- maybe they have reading programs for this stupid sprocking language they speak and write in here. Lyle was a little too suspicious about the kind of information the tablets might be recording to make too much use of his own, but there was only so much he could do to learn the language without some help from technology.

"It doesn't just pull things down to the ground, it acts on everything with mass or energy to it." He gestures at the empty space between the two of them. "You and I both generate a gravitational pull, but we're of such small mass that it's negligible. But -- you ever been to the ocean? Where the water level changes throughout the day?"

He can show you the science, Guy. Shining, shimmering, splendid.
Edited 2014-04-30 10:26 (UTC)
acroodawakening: (148)

[personal profile] acroodawakening 2014-04-30 10:29 am (UTC)(link)
A whole new woooorld...

"Yes."

Now Guy was leaning in, interested, his inner "does this person know things I can know?" sensor pinging on potential knowledge.

"There are times it pulls away from the shore and then times it comes back. I could never really figure out why, and we don't live near the ocean, we just travel on the shore sometimes so I never get a chance to watch it long enough to figure it out."

He raised his eyebrows.

"That's because of grabbity?"

Julian often explained things as best as he was able but at the same time, Guy didn't feel right using him as a walking...book thing. But if someone was volunteering information without him even having to ask...
Edited 2014-04-30 10:30 (UTC)
atippleoftransparency: (Let me tell you a thing)

[personal profile] atippleoftransparency 2014-04-30 10:50 am (UTC)(link)
"Yes," Lyle said, eyes dancing as he watched Guy's expression. "Specifically, the gravity of the moon. Also the sun, but the moon has a greater pull because it's closer. See, the Earth is a lot more massive than the moon, but the water on Earth isn't, so the moon can actually pull it up enough to change the water level at the shore. It can't pull it free completely because the Earth has a greater pull on it, but that's where the tides come from. Gravity pulling up.

Lyle had been aware of the power of information from a young age, and he'd learned about the power that came with either sharing or concealing that information. He was a spy, after all. And right now, he wants to see what Guy's brain can do with the information that Lyle could make available to him. It was a great way to figure out what he might be able to do as an ally, even outside of Lyle's own scientific curiosity.
acroodawakening: (136)

[personal profile] acroodawakening 2014-05-02 06:27 am (UTC)(link)
Guy's jaw just dropped open more and more as Lyle spoke, and his eyes started to sparkle more and more with delight.

"Why does the bigness do that? How does it make it have more grabbity?"

He closed his eyes for a moment as if piecing together a few things.

"Julian says there's nothing in space and that things move in it, like the Earth moves around the sun but I was wondering how it doesn't just move away, like why does it move around? Does it stay close because the sun has grabbity? I saw - I saw videos that show the Earth moving around the sun in a circle. Is that why it's a circle?"
atippleoftransparency: (Relaxed)

[personal profile] atippleoftransparency 2014-05-21 05:33 am (UTC)(link)
"Everything is moving around in circles," Lyle said, waving a hand. "The Earth is perpetually plummeting toward the sun at nigh-unfathomable speed because of the sun's gravity, but the sun is whirling around in its own circle just fast enough that we never actually hit."

He looked around and frowned.

"This would be so much easier if I had something to throw to illustrate this."
acroodawakening: (074)

[personal profile] acroodawakening 2014-05-22 07:16 am (UTC)(link)
Guy waved his hands next to his head and wiggled his fingers.

"Mind. Blown. But that makes so much sense. Everything's pulling each other but everything's dancing around each other so nothing falls. Nothing bumps into each other."

He looked over to his right and picked up the goofy helmet he'd taken off and put on the floor.

"I have this to throw," he said, holding it out to Lyle.
atippleoftransparency: (Let me tell you a thing)

[personal profile] atippleoftransparency 2014-05-29 06:39 am (UTC)(link)
Lyle took the helmet and hefted it.

"Because we are both men of science, I will not take the opportunity to chuck this at someone important and then point at you and run away," he said with a wink, backing a few steps away from Guy. "Okay, if I just throw it flat out--" he tossed it gently in Guy's direction without putting a curve on it, so it hit the ground at his feet. "--It gets pulled down by gravity and hits the ground pretty quickly."

He made grabbyhands in Guy's direction, to see if he'd earned enough interest to have Guy toss it back.
acroodawakening: (061)

[personal profile] acroodawakening 2014-05-29 08:46 am (UTC)(link)
Guy tossed it back eagerly.

"Which is why if you're throwing across a distance you have to aim higher, so it goes lower as it falls. To compensate for grabbity, right?"

His eyes were alight with excitement over the opportunity to learn.
atippleoftransparency: (Relaxed)

[personal profile] atippleoftransparency 2014-06-06 03:02 am (UTC)(link)
"Exactly!" Lyle said, gesturing at him with the helmet before tossing it up into the air in an arc so that it should land right in Guy's hands. "But if you could throw it hard enough at just the right angle, then it could go so far so fast that it would start missing Earth when it falls, just like the moon."
acroodawakening: (017)

[personal profile] acroodawakening 2014-06-17 05:39 am (UTC)(link)
"So it'd just float around the world? And go around and around it in circles, never getting pulled to it by grabbity?"

He was picking up these concepts pretty easily but it helped having no preconceived notions of The Way The World Is.

There were only the myriad ways it could be.
atippleoftransparency: (Relaxed)

[personal profile] atippleoftransparency 2014-07-01 11:25 pm (UTC)(link)
"No, it is getting pulled in by gravity," Lyle said. "That's why it doesn't fly off into space. It's...chasing the world at the speed of gravity, but the world is moving just fast enough that it can't catch up, but it can't escape gravity either."

Guy was picking it up fast, though. Lyle felt very, very secure in his decision to try and cultivate him as an ally -- even if he and Brainy couldn't work together.