Mass murder was the last straw [OPEN]

[formersurgeon]

Who| Joan Watson and OPEN
What| Joan is talking to friends, and to people she hasn't met yet, looking for allies to help her bring down the Capitol.
Where| The Speakeasy, the Training Center, the park
When| After the revelation of District 3's destruction and Penny's predictable lies.
Warnings/Notes| If you would like Joan to approach your character in one of these places, tag in with what your character is doing and I'll have her initiate contact.


I. The Speakeasy

"The Speakeasy's theirs."

That's what Wyatt had told her when they had only moments to speak freely to each other while the Capitol was unable to look in on their thoughts. So when Joan goes looking for potential allies, she starts there. The dive is, as always, dark and loud, perfect for hiding lips and faces and drowning words. She goes to the bar, orders what passes for beer in Panem, and carries to a booth in the corner where she can see the whole room, as well as the door. She looks for people she knows, people she recognizes.

II. The Training Center

Joan has met a number of people in the training center. It's one place where she knows she can find Tributes without going floor by floor, which would be both time consuming and suspicious.

She walks into the gymnasium and surveys the stations. If she sees no one, she makes her way to the shelter-making station, and looks over the different supplies.

III. The park

Joan isn't exactly looking for anyone in the park. Instead, she's looking (without looking like she's looking) for spots that might be sufficiently free of cameras and microphones to make good meeting place for sensitive conversation.

Of course, that doesn't mean she isn't also aware of the people around her. Sitting on benches, passing her by...following her...

Comments

Re: The Speakeasy

[celebrityskinned]

This isn't the first time Venus has paid a visit to the Speakeasy to get under the radar. It was one of the first blind spots she was able to locate, and though she doesn't want to go there often enough to attract attention, she would like to build the reputation of someone who would go there alone as often as with company.

She gets herself a slice of cherry pie with ice cream on top. She's watching her figure before the next Arena, but she has a penchant for sweet things and her fight (breakup?) with Enjolras has given her an appetite for indulgence. Sugar isn't better than alcohol in drowning a heart, but it's less likely to get her into trouble.

"Joan. Fancy seeing you here. Want some company?"

[formersurgeon]

"Venus, hey! Yeah, of course, please, have a seat."

This is good, Joan thinks to herself. She's wanted to talk with Venus ever since Cecil's broadcast and the resulting fallout. Venus wanted to know if they got anyone out of District 3, and Joan wanted to tell her what she knew. And see how far Venus was willing to go in working against the Capitol.

The fact that she's in the Speakeasy might be a good sign.

"They have pie?"

[celebrityskinned]

"They didn't, but I asked for it." Some Hollywood habits die hard; using her status as a media darling to get trivial special favors is one of them. She could send a rider to any restaurant in the Capitol and probably get what she wanted.

She takes a seat, straddling that line between looking serious and glum. Her usual pep is muted.

"You wanted to talk?"

[formersurgeon]

"There's a talent."

She raised her eyebrows in affirmation. "Back when the information went out about District 3, you had asked if anyone had gotten out. Did you mean in general, or were you hoping it was someone in particular?"

[celebrityskinned]

She chews her tongue and shakes her head. "It was in general. I wasn't surprised that they went ahead and bombed a whole- I used to work with the government, you know, they'd contract us out and we did all sorts of- anyway. It's a question of how much they still have from District Three, or if they barbecued all their scientists too."

[formersurgeon]

Joan isn't entirely certain that Venus can be trusted. She plays the game unabashedly, after all, giving the Capitol what it wants in the arena to curry favor with sponsors. It was the smart thing to do, of course, but Joan wasn't sure where Venus drew the line. So she was careful about how she gave this information.

"Before that broadcast, I ran into this guy at the Tribute tower. Totally full of himself, catcalled me, grabbed me as I tried to walk away. Before I could ruin his chances of ever having children, though, he told me that he was such a genius that they got him out of District 3 before. he didn't say before what, but he got really scared all of a sudden, like he had said too much, and ran away."

[celebrityskinned]

"That makes sense."

She sighs and pokes at her pie. "I was about to be honestly shocked that they'd be willing to take that big a sacrifice over a District imposing a quarantine, but if they evacuated their people all they lost was collateral damage. What they see as collateral damage. That and manufacturing plants."

She glances back up. "See? I'm not as stupid as I look."

[formersurgeon]

"You don't look stupid at all," Joan responds with a smile. "I have to wonder how many people they pulled out. It couldn't have been that many. A large influx like that, someone would have noticed. I'd think."

Although the Capitol is pretty good at hiding things...

"I wonder what they'll do about production, though. Considering the consumerist culture, I would think that they'd need to fulfill demand pretty soon." She smirks. "Or else the populace might riot."

[celebrityskinned]

"They could have spread the influx over the Districts, or taken them to safehouses and then staggered them into the Capitol." It's what Venus is good at, finding weaknesses and exploiting them. Once it was finding niches to flourish in, but life has become combat in a way it wasn't.

"You think this populace is actually capable of rioting?" She snorts and stabs her pie, still not eating it. "Have you met our Stylists?"

[formersurgeon]

"Yes. Yes, I have. We have a truce now. I'll wear what they give me as long as they give me something I'll wear."

She presses her lips glances at the other people in the bar. "Probably not." The corner of her mouth twitches upward. "Although, if there's anything that will do it, it might be the hardship of having to stick with last year's TV."

[celebrityskinned]

"The Capitol will just claim it's vintage. Believe me, I know how marketing works." She eats a spoonful of her ice cream, if only because it'll melt soon. She can think only of anger and death and Kankri's tears and Joly's illness.

"Is that how you found out?"

[formersurgeon]

"It's how I knew there was something going on with District 3. I didn't know exactly what until the radio broadcast."

True, as far as it went, even if she's keeping her own involvement in that broadcast out of it for the moment.

[celebrityskinned]

Venus nods.

"It's a lot to process, even just from a practical level. They have the power to get rid of a District but not enough to keep it from leaking. That looks desperate."

[formersurgeon]

"It was bound to come out. Every person they spared was a potential breach in secrecy. Even if they had just killed everyone in the district, people would have known something was up."

She sighs and narrows her eyes slightly.

"I'm surprised they didn't say anything sooner. I mean, seriously...why wait until the truth leaks to try to cobble together a lie like that?"

[celebrityskinned]

"Because they thought they had a better handle on the truth, probably. They didn't expect one of their own would turn, I'm betting." More pie. The sugar starts to soothe her. She makes one of those little eyes-closed moans as she tastes the cherry and ice cream together.

"They just assumed they had absolute control of spinning it, so didn't bother to come up with a backup."

[formersurgeon]

"They've gotten just as complacent as their citizens."

Bringing in Tributes from other worlds, Tributes that had not been beaten down or lulled to sleep by all this, was a serious lapse in judgment on their part.

She watches Venus eating her pie, and smiles.

"Good, huh?"

[celebrityskinned]

"Mmhmm." Venus repeats that for emphasis to the second question before swallowing. "Mmm."

She sets the fork aside. "Caloric therapy."

[formersurgeon]

She laughs a little.

"You know, most people come to bars for a slightly different kind of therapy."

[celebrityskinned]

She holds a finger up while she's eating to make it clear that she isn't answer until she swallows. "I can't really drink. Medication. I mean, I can, but it's a disaster waiting to happen and the last time I did I brought home a Frenchman."

[formersurgeon]

She laughs. "That's very specific."

Joan is aware of Venus' romantic attachment, because the Capitol is gleefully aware of it. But she's going to go for the other personal bit of information.

"What do you do about your medication in the arena?"

[celebrityskinned]

"Azula sent it to me last Arena." Venus' face gets very serious. "The first one you met me, I was off it. The fact that I made it as far as I did is because Kankri was taking care of me and I did the last few weeks of it manic instead of depressed."

Not that mania was safe, because off-kilter and sleep-deprived and unable to eat isn't exactly a winning combo for the Arena, but it beat out lying at the bottom of the stairwell crying and unable to get up.

"But," Venus lifts her chin slightly, "I'm sure it made for fantastic viewing, me going out of my head."

[formersurgeon]

"A compromised mental state should never be someone else's entertainment."

She says it with both compassion and a thread of anger. She's seen police officers laughing at schizophrenic homeless men in the drunk tank, even a couple times when the schizophrenic homeless man was her own father. The issue was intensely personal for her.

"The next time you're in and I'm out, I'll send you your medicine if I can."

[celebrityskinned]

Venus doesn't answer that for a moment. Thankfully, the remains of her pie and ice cream provide a decent enough distraction that she doesn't have to make eye contact.

She should be grateful, and she is, but she also finds herself feeling smaller and weaker than she likes to be. She finally looks up, and while there's wounded pride in her posture, there's sympathy too.

"Your dad's- he's got something like that too, doesn't he?"

[formersurgeon]

She understands that feeling of wounded pride, more than she'd like to. She gives a small bare nod.

"He's schizophrenic. And homeless. Sometimes he recognizes me. He didn't, when they brought him here."

He didn't have any idea what was going on, one of many reasons that there's quiet fury in Joan's tone."

[celebrityskinned]

"I'm sorry."

She's wondered what it's like to be on the outside, loving someone whose brain isn't wired right.

"I was institutionalized three times and homeless for a year, after, you know, foster care. It's-" She hasn't regaled many details to people. There's been no point. "Maybe it's better he doesn't know his daughter's fighting for her life."