So what? I'm still a rockstar.

[revvinguptheharley]

Who: Harley Quinn and anyone who dares show up.
What: Harley throws her own victory party and YOU'RE INVITED!
When: During the family visits.
Where: Caritas Karaoke bar


The Caritas Karaoke Bar was not one of the most popular places in Capitol City. In part because of it's bad location on the far side of town.

Also in part to the fact that it was a poorly lit little hole in the wall where the high society would not so easily be seen by cameras. This dim little business however was not dirty nor was it quiet. In fact there was music playing twenty four hours a day by order of the owner who claimed that without music in his life he would have no reason to live.

And thus the bar became a karaoke bar. A place free of judgment for even the most ridiculous and horrible singers to step up on stage, get cheered on while the belt out a tune and perform awkward and off rhythm dance moves.

It didn't hurt that the alcohol was cheap.

Harley swaggered up onto the stage in a outfit she had been saving just for the occasion.

Tapping the microphone she cleared her voice.

"Testing, testing, there will be a pop quiz later~"

There was some light chuckles in the crowd and Harley tapped a button on the Karaoke machine to set it playing.

The song she chose had a bouncy beat she loved. It had to be dug up from the backlog of music the club kept on hand but it fit her mood and she screeched it out half off key and half just shouting the lyrics while punching her fist in the air. It was a cringeworthy display but she was having so much fun swinging around the microphone stand and jumping onto the nearest tables that one couldn't help but laugh either with her or at her.

As the song ended and the cheers died down she waved to crowd and blew kisses before taking up the mic again.

"Thank you, thank you! That one was dedicated to my EX-Boyfriend." She made sure to put emphasis on the first part of that title as a picture of a rather distressed looking clown appears on the screen behind her.

"Yeah that's the bum!" She barked and seized upon a bowl of popcorn from one of the tables closest to the stage to throw the puffed snacks at the screen in dismissal.

"I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for him...he gave me my start after all. But you know who made me who I am today?"

The picture fades and is replaced by images of some of the more well known tributes and mentors, Barbara Gordon, Bruce Wayne, Barbara Wilson, Cecil Palmer, Cinderella, Damian Wayne, Diana Prince, Donatello, Dr. Holiday, Edward Nygma, Elsa, Eva Salazar, Hans, Homura Akemi, Kurt Hummel, Maximus, Mindy Macready, Tim Wayne. And finally Susannah and Detta, two pictures of the same woman with sharply different expressions on her face.

"She'll kill me when she sees this." Harley added jerking her thumb at the picture of Susannah, "And to be fair...I probably deserve it. But that's a headcase for another day!" She chuckles.

"The point is...no woman is an island. Or man for that matter. Not even the ones as big as Mentor Maxi there. Even if we're in different districts we're all still warriors right? We're all still wallflowers attending the same party and waiting for the right moment to dance!"

At the word dance the screen shifts again to one of her more popular videos where she and Donatello were engaged in brutal combat ontop of stampeding buffalo. The video appears to have been doctored however so instead of blood splatter sparkles burst from each wound like she's full of glitter.

"I gotta say, Green Genes there is one of the best dance partners a girl could ask for. I hope he wins next...no offense to those of ya who won't win." she added with a stage wink.

"Anyway, I wasn't the only winner in the last arena...but I'm the only one of the four I give a crap about so lets do what we came here to do!"

She held the Mic tight and bellowed so loud she didn't even need it's support.

"Scream and drink till we forget how insane everything is! LETS GET CRAZY"

She kicked off the next song and called out over the music "I wanna see you all dance for this one! Especially you District nine! Your mentor commands it!
 

Comments

[hit_girl_mindy]

All right, Mindy was down in the dumps. WAAAY down. That didn't mean, of course, that she hadn't heard about Harley's victory, although the usual happiness she would have felt for her friend was very much dampened by the loss of another one, and wondering if he would even be in one piece. Thoughts of this, and yes, maybe a little bit of self pity, caused Mindy to kick back a few beers (because liquor, no. That was something she was just not going to go into with how she was feeling. That would be bad].

Harley's outfit was, of course, enough to make Mindy take more than a few looks. The girl looked good, and hell, casual distractions were welcomed, even if they did get slightly pervy. She drank, applauded politely, then drank a little more.

[revvinguptheharley]

"Hey!"

Harley appeared with surprising stealth as she sometimes did and grinned a crooked grin at Mindy.

"I actually saw a smile from on stage. That's progress! What's got you so mopey my fellow mentor?" She waved the bartender over to get a much sweeter alcoholic beverage for herself.

[hit_girl_mindy]

Mindy managed a smile, but it was weak, definitely lacking a sparkle in her eyes.

"I've had better days. Saw you did damn well though. Not that everyone's too pleased about that."

[revvinguptheharley]

"Well naturally~" She purred and placed a hand on Mindy's back rubbing it soothingly.

"Even with four winners it's only natural there would be sore losers. Of course it probably doesn't help that I was teamed up with one of the most offensive and rude tributes we have." She laughed out loud.

"Who totally hates me now by the by."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Oh, I know all about that," Mindy said glumly. "I've hung out with your friend when she got back here. You were kind of a bitch to do it too: I mean, everyone saw, and now they know something pretty damn private. She's mortified."

Yeah, because Mindy was so, SO great at making decisions regarding friends, just ask Sandy. She thought this as she opened another ale.

"Unfortunately, she was also there with me when some heavy shit went down."

[revvinguptheharley]

"Oh Susie." Harley sighed "I will win you over again someday. She's just gotta realize that as much as she hates it, Detta is an important part of her and the harder she tries to push them apart the stronger Detta gets."

But back to the more important tidbit of conversation she poked Mindy's side playfully.

"Come on you thirty something man trapped in a girls body. Don't just tease me by saying something like that. What happened?"

[hit_girl_mindy]

"If you think that's true, then you made it worse, don't you think, by having it broadcast in the worst way possible. What the hell would make Susannah want to embrace her now?"

Like, seriously? This chick's logic sometimes.

"You know how in, like, the worse movies about the government, someone throws a bag over your head and takes you away for 'questioning?' Try no bag, but a taser at a big rabbit guy, and them hauling off one of your best friends, and then having a guy who was a former Avox remind you of that? Sobers your ass up pretty quick."

[revvinguptheharley]

"By seeing that no one cares about her having Detta inside. She's still Susannah and those who really care about her will still care about her."

Even if Detta really was a terrible person.

Harley pulled a face at the description, "Yeesh, what did your friend and the rabbit do to get the bums rush like that?"

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Yeah, you and I are really good at justifying reasons for doing shit we do. Problem is, this robbed her of her choice, Harley, and gave her no way of softening the blow. You don't know what she's been through, so doing that triggers shit you didn't think about."

You could look in Susannah's eyes and see stories. Hell, she had to admit, when they took Guy she needed someone then, right there, and Susannah could have helped. But at the moment, staring at her she saw a naked, bleeding wound there. In that instant, she could see a flashback of something no one could help. So Mindy understood, and suffered alone.

After all, Mindy had gotten used to that by now.

"Guy said something wrong to the wrong person. A women. Hsiang Jiao, I think her name is. Bunny dude just refused to let the thugs come and do what they wanted. Heroic. Stupid. It was painful to watch."

[revvinguptheharley]

Even Harley paled at the mention of Penny, but that washed away quickly and her smile was back in place.

"He's lucky to still have his life let alone his sanity with her in the ring. Penny's Arkham approved that's for sure."

As for Susannah Harley sighed, "It was for the best. You can't tell me you've never done something without someone's consent because you knew it was for the best. And in this case it worked out for me short term, now so long as it pays off for her in the long term? Well I can sleep at night fine even if it means another one of my best friends hates me."

She kept her tone cheerful but it was impossible to ignore the pain in her usually twinkling eyes. She knew she'd brought it on herself, but she still loved her friends more then anything and to know she'd hurt one of them was killing her.

"And it's not all about Susannah. Detta deserves time to be herself just as much as Susannah does. Just because she's more free spirited then Susannah doesn't mean she deserves to be on lockdown forever."

Ignoring the racism, the mass murder, torture and generally being cruel.

[hit_girl_mindy]

"It's Guy. He's not me. Nothing he'd say would ever be so bad they'd kill him, and everyone knows it. I've seen her handiwork, and found about it firsthand. Never thought I'd meet someone I'd hate more than Azula."

But it was more than that looking in Mindy's eyes. The hate went deep in her, so deep it detached from her pain. This was pure loathing to the point that there was murder in the young girl's eyes, so quietly hidden and emotionless you could only sense it.

"Well I just fucking said that, didn't I? I can't tell you what you did was stupid and motivated by your own shit because I done that same fucking thing. What I'm telling you, and what you already should know, is that you have to eat shit because she's worth keeping. I know, I met her already. That woman needs friends, and you know what? So do you."

Fuck what Detta needed, in her opinion. Susannah was the person she saw, and knew that woman needed to have her sanity. Sometimes it was all you had left.

[revvinguptheharley]

"Yeah but the difference between what I did and what you did," Harley began matter of factly "Is that I should know better and chose to do it anyway. You're smart but you're still a kid with less life experience then alot of people here. Even if you've got more life experience then most the Capitol." She smirked.

"Don't hit me for patronizing you like that, the real difference is I was being selfish and you were being selfless."

[void_whereprohibited]

This is not the kind of place Cecil frequents. He prefers sleek decor, tastefully dimmed lights, and the close company of just a few. But those kinds of places are closer to the city center, and therefore closer to the cameras, and the microphones, and the kinds of people who come up to Cecil while he's sitting alone trying to keep misery off his face and say, Sorry to bother you, but--!, and tonight-- tonight, with the sound of his mother's voice so fresh in his head, he can't stand to be there.

So he's here, frowning into a highly mediocre cocktail and reminding himself that being very drunk will not actually solve any of his problems. It will only make him feel that his problems are solved, until tomorrow, when they will return with a vengeance and possibly moderate-to-severe physical discomfort, because feelings exist only abstractly and cannot under any circumstances be trusted. (He tells himself this, but the abstractness of his feelings does not make them less awful.)

In the end, he's distracted from his misery by Harley - because only unconsciousness would make it possible not to be distracted by Harley.

"Harley!" he exclaims loudly, sitting up straighter-- because keeping a low profile is, in the end, antithetical to Cecil Palmer's very nature. But that's the last word he speaks until she's done, as that... performance defies all attempt at description. When his face appears on the screen, though, the look on his face turns to one of open surprise. Why is he up there? What has he done? ...And why does the acknowledgment, small though it is, make the entirety of this week feel just a little less bleak?

He will not be dancing; he is not ready to dance. But when the show is over and the dancing has begun, he will hesitantly wave in the direction of Harley, with an uncertain smile fixed to his face in part by his mediocre cocktail-- it's not getting crazy, but it's something, right?

[revvinguptheharley]

Harley spun and danced her way through the crowd as someone else took the stage to perform. She vanished out of sight for a moment and seemed to materialize out of darkness at his side.

"Why so glum chum?" She squeaked, perfectly audible over the music despite how loud and chaotic the room was.

[void_whereprohibited]

To his credit, he only startled a little, and did not upend his mediocre cocktail. The act of saving it gave him the necessary second to decide how to respond, though-- to decide just how little he could say.

"Oh, you know," he said - or shouted, rather, over the din of the music - with a shrug. "Just... just family!"

Another shrug - what can you do, right? - a determined brightening of his smile, and a swift change of subject. "That was a-- a riveting performance, Harley." Not in any way untrue - he hadn't looked away once.

[revvinguptheharley]

"Ugh! Don't get me started." She rolled her eyes. "If one person deserves to be in a death match it's my brother. He's never worked hard a day in his life without whining about it. And would you believe that he has kids? Two of them! By two different women who apparently couldn't see what a loser he was." She sighed and threw back a jello shot that someone had slid to her.

"The kids are precious though. I had to start a college fund for them because the last time I sent him a stupid amount of money he spent it on a lame band he was trying to get started. I mean, follow your dreams yeah but if you've sucked at playing guitar for the last ten years maybe it's time for a new dream right?"

[void_whereprohibited]

Conversations with Harley often felt to Cecil like being dragged downhill by some turbo-powered vehicle that always moved just a little faster than he could run. It wasn't that they weren't interesting, but they tended to... zig-zag! There! That was the word. Not unpleasant, but rather difficult to follow after even one mediocre cocktail.

"I... didn't know you had a brother!" was what he went for. "I guess he's-- he's not here, right?"

He felt a little guilty for not knowing, but hey! It could be difficult to tell who belonged to whom among the crowd of new otherworlders even when one was not caught up in one's own familial difficulties.

[revvinguptheharley]

"Yep, not here. Though it might serve him good if he was. Getting his butt kicked for a few arenas might teach him not to slack through life and taking his family for granted."

Clearly the doctor had some unresolved issues there.

"How about you Mr. Sultry sounds? Big family? Small family? Have you asked Carlos out yet?"

Zigging and zagging, exactly the words for it.

[void_whereprohibited]

"Uh--" There was no simple answer to any of those questions. Cecil looked into his empty glass. "My family is-- well, they're not--"

Ugh. He looked back up at Harley, put on a grin, and switched the topic with barely a missed beat. "--that is to say, yes! Yes, I have asked Carlos out. In fact, we see each other once a week now!" Full disclosure, Cecil. "...Though, honestly, asking out is sort of a misleading term in this case. We're friends. Just friends! Considering our relative positions, Carlos thinks it best that we keep our relationship... professional."

By the way his grin didn't quite make it up to his eyes, it was clear that he and Carlos did not both think this best.

[revvinguptheharley]

Harley let out a delighted squeal.

"That's the first step though isn't it? Think about it! Sure he says "Professional" But the more time you spend together the more you get to know each other. The more you start to miss each other when you're apart!" She leaned closer and indeed seemed to loom over him in excitement.

"This is great! First it's once a week, then you're calling each other every couple of days! Then you're inviting him as your date to fancy media parties." Harley cooed clearly swept up in the romance.

"He's just a little nervous is all, big brainy types always are when it comes to matters of the heart. But people like you an me? We're performers! We live for the emotions that we take in and project! And with your glowing personality he's gonna come to you like a moth to the flame! Awkward, clumsy, probably slowly, but he'll get to you so long as ya don't get snuffed out."

[void_whereprohibited]

Cecil was following right along, his grin growing more assured with every sentence-- until that last one. At snuffed out he blinked, lost hold of his smile, and nearly failed to pick it back up again.

"...Well-- maybe you're right!" he said, squinting up at Harley's looming figure against the bright lights, and trying his level best to match her confidence. "After all, we'll have plenty of time to miss each other in the upcoming weeks!" The Arena was great for that. "And I was planning to invite him to lunch on Friday."

A brief pause, and then, with a roll of his eyes-- "...That, of course, is assuming that he's not too busy with the other Cecil."

The existence of his otherworldly double, and all of the existential questions that that raised, was clearly not so much the issue as Carlos' insistence on spending so much time with him.

[revvinguptheharley]

Harley gasped in shock at the revelation, misunderstanding his words "You mean he's here? The one from his world?! Ohmigosh does he look like you? Do you look like him? If you two swapped clothes and kissed Carlos would he be able to tell?!"

These were the most important questions.

[void_whereprohibited]

"No." Cecil pushed his empty glass away from him with force. "No, he does not look like me." He rounded on Harley, all his misery of before replaced with righteous indignation. "Oh, Carlos think we look alike! Carlos thinks it's just uncanny! Never mind that I have only two eyes, and that my cosmetic dermal alterations are totally different, and that I am capable of combining colors without putting the vision of all those in the vicinity at immediate risk!"

He paused for breath, held it a second, and let it out in a long sigh. "...Not that this is in any way relevant to your question, as Carlos does not seem to have any interest at all in kissing either of us."

[frozenfractalsallaround]

Elsa was there a little reluctantly. Harley had indeed said she would help Elsa cut loose, but it was hard when Elsa was so used to the opposite. She was dressed in a simple black dress and heels and compared to Harley, she felt a little overdressed. She was completely out of her element, and her own drink remained untouched as she sat there.

She'd been a little surprised to see her own picture appear. Had she really helped that much? Elsa was skeptical of that. But more surprised was she to see a picture of Susannah- she recognized the woman as the one who had stabbed her hand as she tried to get the spear in the arena.

Elsa didn't know how to feel about that. But it definitely assured that Elsa wasn't ready to jump up and dance by the time the next song started. She mostly tuned it out, trying to get a sense of how she felt. She supposed she shouldn't be too upset that Harley was friends with Susannah- she couldn't control who Harley befriended. But in a way it felt sort of like a slap in the face to know her most trusted friend was friends with the woman who stabbed her.

So many conflicted feelings. It made Elsa the very picture of broody person staring into her drink. Very cliche. Much antisocial. She just needed to get her thoughts together and then maybe she would join in on the fun- or slip out when no one was looking. That was still yet to be decided.

[revvinguptheharley]

Harley wasn't set on letting her leave without relaxing at least a little. So when she popped up next to the pretty blond she grinned delightedly. There would be no escape.

"What'd ya think? Was it inspiring? Do you feel inspired? It's so hard to say something that no one else has said already so I just kinda went with it."