Staffer's Retreat

[whatisay]

WHO| Every Escort, Stylist and Mentor. Any Capitolites or Peacekeepers who might have reason to oversee or visit.
WHAT| A professional retreat for the overworked, underpaid, and super underappreciated Tribute Care Teams.
WHERE| A chalet in District One, easily accessible by train.
WHEN| Before the next death roll.
WARNINGS| Typical Capitolites being entitled asshats.
NOTES| I've put up some subthreads for various activities, if you want to add more just do so under the appropriate day subheader!

Staffer's Retreat. Mandatory. The teams for each District are given a handful of days to prepare for the weekend, which, they're told, is going to be scheduled for a weekend with no big shake-ups in the Arena and perfect weather for outdoor activities. On Friday morning, they're taken by train to a small chalet tucked into a mountainside. A few inches of snow covers the ground but the sky is clear, reflected in the beautiful lake at the base of the mountain.

Until Sunday evening, their days will be packed with "professional development". The schedule looks something like this:

Friday:
Icebreakers
Trust Falls
Hypothetical Scenarios: How to Be the First Person Chosen for a Bomb Shelter
Three-Legged Race
Self-Care Hour: Mandatory Yoga
Dinner
Breaking Down Stereotypes Workshop

Saturday:
Mandatory Mentor Group Therapy: PTSD is Not An Excuse
Mandatory Escort/Stylist Workshop: Building Trust with Your Tributes
Mandatory Sexual Harassment Training: Focus on Tribute/Mentor and Tribute/Escort Relationships
Lunch
Capture-the-Flag
Group Lego-Building
Dinner
12am Karaoke

Sunday:
5:30am Continental Breakfast
Compliment Circle
Journal Hour
Farewells

Comments

SATURDAY

[whatisay]

MENTOR GROUP THERAPY

[whatisay]

Mentors are led to a room with quiet New Age music playing and pillows on the floor. Everyone is told to take a hot chocolate chip cookie and some tissues and a therapist instructs them to tell, in detail, their most horrible Arena experience to the group.

[One big thread free-for-all, no tagging order, go nuts.]

[burnedbrighter]

Azula has been distracted and disdainful for most of this trip. She's normally all in favor for excuses to become a better mentor and prove her skills to the others but there's been something nagging at her since they left the Capitol. She wants dearly to keep watching the arena but well here we are.

The music is nice enough though and and she nibbles the cookie idly till the conversation comes to her.

She hesitates and has an internal debate about how honest she can be with these people. They should be her rivals shouldn't they? Even though they are all mentors and she respects them (Most of them) she should still recognize them as threats to her tributes.

But she feels compelled, perhaps this might prove more helpful and healthy to her in the long run.

"My worst experience would be more recent I suppose. Last year when mentors were sent into the arena with the current tributes. I was just returned to the Capitol after my time away."

It was no secret that after her own victory, trouble at home and a difficult time adjusting to life after the arena had put Azula into a mental health facility for years. She still refused to acknowledge it for it's true nature unless prompted. District Five was still sharply divided on if they liked or hated her for how she killed the other District Five tribute in his sleep during his own arena and their lack of support hadn't helped her situation.

"That godawful jungle where every plant and animal was poisonous. It was amazing any of us lasted as long as we did. And I'd barely had time to meet my tributes before I was thrust in there without my medication." The last word is followed by a tenseness as she braces for anyone to dare say a thing about the fact that she's on medication at all. It's a weakness that she hates even if she knows it's necessary and not unusual.

"By the second week I was coming and going. I could fight well enough and mangled several tributes, but then I would hit a low point and it was all I could do to keep from getting killed. One of my tributes took it upon herself to hide behind me when I was capable and keep me hidden when I was incapacitated. Those nights were some of the longest I've ever endured."

And all of it captured in beautiful high definition as some may recall watching her tremble and sweat in a tent while one of the least dangerous tributes Diana Ladris sat outside sharpening sticks with a knife.

"I wound up throwing myself on a bomb to save that girl. The first time I ever saved anyone for all the good it did. She was killed a week later and I was recovering for a month. Four weeks of destroying myself from the inside in the arena and four weeks of putting myself back together in the Capitol."

The mentors weren't supposed to be allowed to die in that arena as they could not be revived the same way as the tributes. Several mentors who had been nearly killed had suffered significant difficulties both physically and mentally.

"I was completely at the mercy of a girl that I barely knew who couldn't defend herself against anything bigger then a dog. It would have made sense if she only needed me to stand between her and danger but for those hours and days I was helpless she stuck by me. Made sure I didn't die some pathetic whimpering death curled up on the ground." Her fingers had gripped the cookie so tight it was practically dust at this point and she gloomily cleaned her hand with a napkin.

"Perhaps it was some kind of universal payback for how I behaved in my own arena." She had never held any regret for killing the male tribute from her district. He had saved her life and she'd repaid him by killing him in his sleep but in her mind she'd justified it enough it seemed natural. A tactical move. Now it seemed like a ghost of a choice that lingered in her wake every time she went home.

Having gotten this all off her chest she folded her arms and tried to sharpen her stare as if challenging anyone to mock her for her display of weakness. But the fire in her eyes was missing. She just felt empty now that she had shared.

[dead_black_eyes]

Of everyone here, a disheveled-looking man in his late twenties is easily one of the most malcontent. The dark-haired, dark-eyed Victor of the 63rd Hunger Games, District 6's own Linden Lockhearst, is a Panem native who has been sick of the Capitol's shit for years, and he's unimpressed by this latest effort as well as the people surrounding him. Though many of them could probably pummel his Morphling-wasted ass into dust without too much of an effort, he regards the others in the group with general boredom. He's more fidgety than a child, and seems to be looking for the first excuse to get kicked out of group therapy.

He listens as Azula relates her arena experiences; he actually has a great deal of sympathy for her, given his own struggles, and would be the last to call her weak or unfit for her duties. He feels that he should remember this particular arena, but at the time, he was himself incapacitated, fighting for his life following a near-fatal Morphling overdose. Maybe some of the other Mentors resent him for not being involved with that nasty business, but those who have known him since his Victory and witnessed his decade-long deterioration likely pity him enough to give him a pass on that solidarity fail.

He hopes that Azula benefits from talking about her experience; she's brave to speak out about it, and he both admires and envies the woman next to him as a result. He doesn't mock her, doesn't stare too long at her crumbled cookie. Instead, his flask makes a blatant and audacious appearance, and he tips it back liberally before holding it toward the other mentor as if to offer it.

"When he slit my throat," he replies, half-assed, blunt and succinct.

[69problems]

Linden's answer prompts a small wince of sympathy. Everyone here has been through horrific things, the Signless knows, but hearing all the stories one right after the other has still put a fact usually taken for granted into sharp relief. Azula in particular surprises him: he never took her for the type to open up about something so intimate, particularly not at such length. He makes a mental note to talk to her later, particularly in light of what he's about to say.

"Mine was in the same arena as yours," he says (once he's sure Linden is really done), inclining his head toward her. "The jungle. I chose to put aside my vow against doing harm in order to perform a mercy killing, and their closest friend found out and forced me to kill someone who I cared for deeply as revenge."

It's easier, he thinks, if he doesn't name names. Much as this is by far the worst thing he's ever endured in any arena, he's already made peace with the Initiate over it.

"I'd never killed anyone before. All I had to use was a rock, and it was slow and messy and I'm sure I caused both of them more pain than they were already in. By the end of it I was nearly hysterical and just wanted to get out of the arena as quickly as possible. I killed myself by eating the poison grass until I couldn't keep it down anymore, and I spent a long time afterward hating myself and wishing I hadn't come back. I'd taken two lives and betrayed one of my most deeply-held beliefs, and I still regret having done it."

One of the things the Signless has always hated most is a blatant hypocrite. However much he could explain away what he did as a mercy and an act of compassion, the fact remains that he still broke his vow of nonviolence and it makes upholding it now (no matter how strictly) just a little less meaningful.

CAPTURE THE FLAG

[whatisay]

Staffers are split up into teams and instructed to steal the other team's flag in the snowy field.

[Set up however many subthreads you want, free-for-all.]

KARAOKE

[whatisay]

A ballroom is outfitted with a karaoke machine with a bevy of hits from before the days of Panem. Alcohol is flowing freely and the music is loud. The machine randomly selects people it instructs to sing if they're not participating enough.

[Mingle threads.]

Never leave a microphone unattended around this queen!

[cherrypicked]

When Lady Cerise spies the Karaoke machine, she wastes no time in getting herself over to it and queuing up songs to sing to. If there's one thing her younger years in the theatre days have taught her, it's how to belt one out.

Now she's hardly an amazing talent, but the bucket she keeps her notes in is sturdy and lyrical.

At any moment she'll pull someone up to sing with her, more interesting in the fun of singing with people than wanting to actually harmonise, always ready with a compliment after the song no matter who's with her.

"Well aren't you ever such the note hitter?"

Though really, the sincerity of her words does depend on her current partners actual ability.

[perfectus]

He hadn't been expecting it when she'd dragged him onto the stage. Not exactly, anyway. Ever the social butterfly, Cal had chosen a spot near the front where he could applaud enthusiastically anybody who dared perform for their colleagues (all in the name of promoting a positive and fun work environment, of course), but he'd been perfectly content to do just that.

That said, he's not mad when it happens, more bemused by the ridiculousness of it all. His own voice, when he picks up the rhythm enough to croon along with her, isn't terrible at all. He's on pitch and there's a certain broad, richness to his baritone that's probably a little unexpected considering just how shallowly he chooses to present himself. His diction, however, is awful. Unequivocally awful. Literally every word blends into the next and all the consonants are slushy and soft.

"Thanks!" He chirps cheerfully once the music starts to die down. The sharp, staccato sound is a harsh contrast to his singing voice. "Adrastea always told me I should do more with music, but it's just a hobby."

Sorry I'm so late with this! If you don't want to reply that's fine!

[cherrypicked]

She fans herself a little dramatically from the excitement of the singing with a great big smile on her face.

"Well if it's just a hobby, probably think about indulging in it a little more. It was rather quite fun to sing with you."

She pats his arm playfully before brushing away at imagined lint on her dress before looking at him with something of a critical eye.

"Though you might want to practice with a cork now and then. Unless you want to start a trend with letting every verse sound like a whole long and very strange word, of course."

As critical as her words are he tone sounds more like a nagging mother or aunt than someone who is giving any real critique of the younger man.

Linden Lockhearst

[dead_black_eyes]

Anyone who knows Linden at all knows that when alcohol is flowing freely, the District 6 mentor can't be trusted to maintain the standard of professionalism and comportment expected of staff. He struggles with that even when he's sober, actually, and with even just a little bit of encouragement and goading, he is glaring, setting aside his harsh straight liquor, and taking up the microphone. Some people are holding their breath, but others, bless their hearts, have no idea what's coming.

"I'd like," he says, words slurring slightly, "to sing a little drinking song I learned some years ago." Presumably in District 6. "It's all about someone we all know."

He speaks up, and he has a good, strong singing voice. Despite this, someone who cares about him might want to tackle him before he finishes the rollicking verse.

"FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES, LEND ME AN EAR
FILL UP YOUR TANKARDS WITH PLENTY OF BEER,
IF PRESIDENT SNOW COMES I'LL BUY HIM A GLASS,
AND TELL HIM HIS FACE LOOKS LIKE A GREYHOUND'S--"

[bravelyplucked]

"Very nice, Linden." Torin's just glad Linden is scrawny enough that even with one arm, the other Mentor should be easy enough to drag away. And sure, his suddenly rushing onto the stage and trying to drag Linden away might be considered rude, but this is just a little more important than manners. "Such a shame your turn is over now..."

He's just hoping he doesn't have to fall on his sword and say it's his turn now, really.

[dead_black_eyes]

Despite his inebriation, Linden's eyes are hard and sharp; it's likely that he knows better than everyone is giving him credit for what he's doing, but that doesn't change the fact that it's desperately foolish. Linden's behaved in a suicidally audacious manner at various points in the past, but that's what the Capitol as a whole gets for setting him down a track highly conducive to breeding addiction and then letting him near an open bar.

Deafening feedback interrupts the final word of Linden's verse, and he staggers as the older and better-conditioned District 2 Mentor drags him away from the podium. "Over? I've just begun, and everyone was so insistent..." he protests mildly, wavering in an attempt to dig in a bony heel in a misguided and largely failed attempt to steady himself. Then an idea flashes across his pale face, and he's planting the microphone firmly into Torin's chest. "A duet!" he announces, a manic quality to his alcohol-fueled, temporary delight. "If you want in on this, you have to help me finish the song."

[sergius]

Sergius is a great singer!

Okay, great might be overselling it a bit. But he can carry a tune at the very least. He manages to keep the melodramatic love(?) song mostly on point, only veering off on occasion, to add dramatic flare to the number when necessary.

"It's like over and over you're pushing me
Right down to the floor
I should just walk away
Over and over I keep on coming back for more
I play into your fantasy."

Once his turn in the spotlight is up, he grins and waits for some applause. He's not leaving the stage until he gets some.

[lionhearted_victor]

Holy crap what the hell did Cora just hear? The urge to make a snipe at Sergius crooning to Val was stifled, it was too easy and Valerius was terrifying when mad. So today everyone learned that Sergius Romulus could sing. Huh. He clapped, and remarked,

"At least you don't sound like a dying animal." Keep making friends, Leo. He does offer Ser a bottle of water.

[sergius]

Cue the dramatic bowing as he soaks in the attention. Grinning snidely, he sinks into his seat across from Leo. "What can I say? I have a gift and that gift demands to be shared."

[asmilinggod]

You never, ever have to coax this man to get in front of a microphone.

Most surprisingly, the blonde, grinning, terrifying man can actually carry a tune - he stands easily in front of his audience, swaying a little bit in time with his notes. He gestures as he sings with his red-stained hands, occasionally locking eyes (eyes? voids?) with some poor soul in the crowd for effect.

Not surprisingly, the song he has selected is...embarrassing.

"We must all efficiently
Operationalize our strategies
Invest in world-class technology
And leverage our core competencies
In order to holistically administrate
Exceptional synergy!
We'll set a brand trajectory
Using management's philosophy
Advance our market share vis-à-vis
Our proven methodology...
With strong commitment to quality
Effectively enhancing corporate synergy..."

[whatisay]

Oh, the hell with that. Jason, sober as a patch of dry earth, trying to avoid getting one of his famous and debilitating headaches, and bored out of his skull, gets up from his stool rather suddenly and strides over.

He walks up to the karaoke machine and unplugs it, cutting Kevin off right in the middle of a lyric, and then goes and sits back down, nursing a cup of seltzer water and stirring the ice cubes in it with the stem of a cherry.

Emily Finch

[conifer]

Emily isn't the best singer in the world, but she can carry a tune. Her voice is soft and sweet, though very shaky with nerves. She sings a song of her District; in truth a song even older than her District, one that had been passed down through the lumber workers in that area for centuries.

Come, all young men a-wanting of courage bold undaunted,
Repair unto the shanties before your youth’s decline,
For spectators they will ponder and gaze on you with wonder,
For your noise exceeds the thunder in the falling of the pine.

The shanty is our station and lumbering our occupation,
Where each man has his station, some for to score and line,
It is nine foot of a block we will bust at every knock,
And the wolves and bears we’ll shock at the falling of the pine.

When the day it is a-breaking from our slumbers we’re awakened,
Breakfast being over, our axes we will grind,
Into the woods we do advance where our axes sharp do glance,
And like brothers we commence for to fall the stately pine.

For it’s to our work we go through the cold and stormy snow,
And it’s there we labor gayly till bright Phoebus does not shine;
Then to the shanties we’ll go in and songs of love we’ll sing,
And we’ll make the valleys ring at the falling of the pine.

When the weather it grows colder, like lions we’re more bolder,
And while this forms grief for others, it’s but the least of mine,
For the frost and snow so keen, it can never keep us in,
It can never keep us in from the falling of the pine.

When the snow is all diminished and our shanty work all finished,
Banished we are all for a little time,
And then far apart we’re scattered until the booms are gathered,
Until the booms are gathered into handsome rafts of pine.

When we get to Quebec, oh, me boys, we’ll not forget,
And our whistles we will wet with some brandy and good wine;
With fair maidens we will boast till our money is all used,
And, my boys, we’ll ne’er refuse to go back and fall the pine.

[contrarianlibrarian]

There's soft applause after she finishes. China was about to attempt to slip away before she could be asked to participate, but she stayed to listen to this song.

"My, that was lovely." And she means it. There's something charmingly rustic about the lyrics and someone who can actually sing is welcome after some of the other performances China's heard. "Where did you learn that song?"

[ooc: Apologies for the late tag--I can delete if it's a problem.]

[conifer]

Emily looks genuinely surprised that her contribution had been appreciated, especially as she'd struggled to remember some of the words; it was one of those songs that changed depending on who was singing it, different families and settlements in Seven having grown up with slightly different versions. It's also a little surreal being in the spotlight for something that was truly important to herself and her heritage rather than the more manufactured image that had been devised for her as a Tribute and eventual Victor.

"Thank you. It's from my district. One of the songs we sing when we're heading to work in the forests."

[ooc: never too late! c: ]

VIEWING ROOM post workshops

[reallynow]

Since Escorts still have work to do, at the end of the day the Staff are free to lounge around in the Viewing Room. It's full of couches for sitting on and various screens playing highlight reels at low volumes. Drinks are served and there's plenty of room to sit and take notes and make calls.

[reallynow]

By this point, Jolie is well and truly packed in for the day and Trey is sitting on the couch in the Viewing Room with his arms folded low over his chest. It's been a long, crappy day and he's full of residual discomfort from the Harassment Training. Coupled with the emotional break off he'd experienced with Bro just the other day, it all weighed on his mind a little more than he'd like to admit.

It's unfortunate timing, because the highlight reel chooses to focus specifically on the dramatic and budding romance of Anna and Bro starting from their dramatic confessions. He probably should have changed the channel or stood up and left, but pride kept him locked in place through it. He stubbornly wants to be happy for them, because he told Bro he was going to be and he encouraged him to do as much.

He keeps watching, despite the fact that he's increasingly uncomfortable doing so, not noticing that he's crying until something tickles his cheek. He jerks a hand up to his face a little too quickly to be casual, wiping as delicately as he can with his hand because he refuses to use his fabric for this salty bullshit. He realises he probably looks dumb as hell right now, but the more he fights it the more he seems to cry.

"It's so cute." He forces himself to say, but he doesn't remotely sound like he believes it.

[conifer]

Emily feels that she hasn't really got the chance to know her tributes well yet, having arrived back in the Capitol only a couple of days before the current Arena started. So every chance she gets her eyes are fixed on the screens, forcing herself not to flinch away as the more gruesome deaths are replayed in the highlights. She needs to be a Mentor now, not the wreck of a Victor she lets herself be when she's alone.

When she hears someone crying, at first she's scared that she's given into her own weakness and not realised. But it's not her, and neither is it anyone suffering in the Arena. Her sceptical side is inclined to think that Capitolites would become upset about trivial, selfish things, and doesn't want to find out what's going on in case it just proves her right and makes her even more irritated at their whole lifestyle, but the compassion that she wished she could rid herself of wins out instead. Besides, the whole purpose of this weekend was to get them to support each other.

"Are you ... all right?"

She knows it's a stupid question, but she's not sure what else to say.

[cigne]

Swann hates viewings.

She can't stand to watch the deaths, the blood everywhere. Sure, the emotional aspects of the Games were fine, but she really only watches now to make sure she knows who she's still got in the game. So she's really working on notes when she looks up and sees Trey on the couch.

Crying.

If anyone knows what it's like to cry uncontrollably, regardless of whether you want to, it's Swann.

Silently, she grabs one of her embroidered hankies and goes to the couch, where she only hands him the handkerchief before immediately curling up next to him and wrapping her arms around his waist, head resting on his shoulder.

All she can do is hug.