thecapitol | The Crowning of Tony Stark

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The Crowning of Tony Stark

Who| Everyone.
What| The Crowning of Tony Stark.
Where| The New Capitol Stark Expo!
When| Friday, late afternoon into the evening.
Notes| This event is mandatory for all Tributes to attend. Even if you do not tag in, your character will attend this party. Peacekeepers will be on high alert, so no funny business.
WARNINGS| Alcoholism / References to Alcoholism.

The Capitol might be known for its extravagance, but Stark Expos have never skimped on a show. Combining the two together could only be a recipe for the most wild indulgences. The center theater takes styling after a arc reactor, with glass ceiling and glowing blue lights set right within the metal and putting a glow to the sky. Lightshows go off on the main stage, the stark logo overhead and a massive screen displaying the Panem flag and Tony Stark's image just behind the dancing Ironettes. A circle plattform going off from the stage, clearly reserved for the guest of honor, features a design Panem's bird in red, gold, and glowing blue.

A globe is featured in the outside gardens, showing off a map of Panem, and the park is filled with artistic statues of destroyed Iron Man amror. But there's no quiet here, not with the fireworks going off all night and the consistent playing of music that is not but sounds an awful lot like that of Daft Punk, Eifel 65, ACDC, and one other song that breaks them up.

Various shows can be found about the gardens, including display models of some of Tony Stark's old weapons and Iron Man suits. Further along guests may find the Avengers display, featuring large portraits of the Avengers and their allies, large red x's going over greyed out portraits of those deemed dead, including Phill Coulson, Natasha Romanoff, and Thor. Along with these portraits can be found the Stark family tree, featuring the Victor Tony Stark and all his relations including apparent son Dave Strider, and Arya Stark, Ancestor of the Stark family, not to mention the great Howard Stark who's accomplishments (and tragic lack of care for Anthony) are lovingly illustrated. One such accomplishment being a "flying car" just a short walk over.

There's plenty for guests to do besides just ogle the brilliant sights however! A bar has been set up with a whole variety of drinking games available from Sink The Battleship and Drink Roulette to an extravagent variation of the classic game, Beer Pong, and an ongoing run of the Games with rules of drinking for each emotional scene, funny incident, or death. Those under the age of eighteen will be served fizzing juice or soda instead and can participate in junior versions of the very same games. All the cups are made from the finest glass with Tony Stark images over them. Avoxes are on scene to clean every spill and break of glass that might come.

A cave has been crafted of artificial and real material, designed to look like the Cave in which Tony Stark became a real hero, but with a twist; it's been made into a fun-for-all maze! Guests can attempt to navigate their way to the labyrinth and reach the core, avoiding those nasty pop-out rebels along the way. Those who make it to the fire-lit center may receive a limited edition "Tony Stark Heart" miniature arc reactor in a beautiful glass case.

An indoor sky diving station is also available, large enough that many guests may enter at once and still find it spacious. Here, guests can don Iron Man themed sky-diving suits and experience the sensation of flight, just as Tony Stark once did. Of course, the party doesn't start until the Victor comes in; he'll be appearing by Capitol-controlled suit to make his entrance at center stage. It is here that his Throne shall be raised up through the stage and his crown gifted to him. Following the official Crowning Ceremony will also come a speech from the Capitol's very own, Cyrus Reagan.

Tributes are dressed in formal wear with robotic accents. Such as a full mask or metal armor. Capitolites can be seen with Tony stark styled hair, bearing tattoos in his image, and even with surgically implanted lights, in honor of the new Victor. Available for purchase are handcrafted Tony Stark dolls, Iron Man action figures, and models of beloved robot-pet "Dum-E" in both small and life-sized. The Iron Man light gloves come completely free for all guests.

The Crowning ends off with a bang, as in the center of the sky, a massive "wormhole" opens up showing a vast darkness full of sinister creatures just on the other side, sure to inspire some screams from fans. Guests near to the Iron Man suit displays are asked by peacekeepers to step back-- far back-- but may be the first to witness the incredible scene of all those suits launching into the sky and exploding around and "in" the wormhole. The wormhole shifts to a message stating the show to have been brought to you by the Hunger Game's skilled Sky-Display Designers before going into advertising for the rest of the night as the party dies down.

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"Yes, sir!"

Bayard greets Ellis not with the fearfulness that his position under the table would suggest, but with an open-hearted excitement at being approached, at new persons. He thinks Ellis looks a little bit like a giant insect in that outfit, but he's still clearly a person, and approaching him with the kindness that Bayard was so relieved to find in the Arena.

"It's just a little bit loud up there, isn't it? And I have myself some sugarcubes down here." Bayard points a hand out of the tablecloth. "I'm trying to make sense of things here one bit at a time, see?"

Ellis had a soft spot for the boy as he approached the edge, and noted the accent and offered his hand out for Bayard to shake, "It's just the state o' music for our newest champion apparently. I like it, used to be my jam back in my autoshop, but it ain't for everyone, kiddo."

The amount of sugar cubes Bayard had worried El in a rather familiar way: eating too much of the stuff will give the poor boy one hell of a cranky stomach later. But the eagerness to learn and the rather friendly demeanor, the Savannah man couldn't help a grin,

"You're a brave soul to try all this at the same time, you're coping real well. Where are ya from, li'l sir? You remind me of my grandparents out in the farmlands." Yes, Ellis may have reinforced the stereotype of the redneck then but it was better to have some common ground.

"This is music?" Bayard looks genuinely confused at that, because it's so far removed from anything he's heard. The shift between harmonizing work songs and Daft Punk is...extreme.

"Right outside Jefferson, Mississippi, sir. The Sartoris plantation, I don't know if you've heard of it." Bayard's face lights up with the unhidden hope that Ellis has, that someone in this place will understand the elements of Bayard's very core that can't be explained in words. It's the earth he comes from, the history of the place, running deeper inside him than blood.

"Yeah, at least where I come from, yep!" Ellis assured the boy and held out his hand as he took a knee.

"I'm sorry to say but I haven't heard about the Sartoris Plantation, but I do know there's a few left in Georgia left over from th' old families. I'm from Savannah, Georgia, bit farther from the Mississippi, but I've gone to New Orleans," the mechanic admitted but quickly added, "What's it like there, sport? Did ya grow fruits? Some of my grandparents' neighbors had these beautiful peach trees."

He may not know the plantation itself, but he knew the connection boys born along the Dixie line had with the land, with the sins and the virtues that come from the South. He understood how deep the bloodlines can go and what a patch of dirt and a dog mean to a man on his own.

"Georgia." Bayard whistles, low and long, the kind of whistle one develops from calling mules and imitating birds, a real salt-of-the-earth sound. "I ain't even been so far as Alabama."

He would like to travel one day, Bayard thinks, knowing that that's a luxury he might never have. He would like to see all that the world has to offer and allow it to fill him up like he's a vase waiting for flowers and water.

"We have cotton and we used to have sugarcane, but we ain't growing none of it now. We're under siege, you see. The Yankees. I bet you got 'em too." Like they're some kind of contagious pest between fields.

El smiled heartily at the whistle, as he would do the same to his friends when they went on a raid into the rapidly decaying supermarkets. "Likewise, it took a lotta strange circumstances to get to Louisiana, believe me."

"Your family plantation must be pretty damn old, if you're still growin' sugarcane." The Yankees comment caught the mechanic off-guard and he tilted his head, "How'd ya mean? Like, are they tryin' to buy your lands? Because y'all don't have to take that, even if they got money."

He'd always heard of big corporations trying to buy land off the small farms but to call Yankees a pest was pushing it.

"No sir. They're trying to eradicate our way of life, Father says." Bayard pronounces 'eradicate' like he's carefully picking his way over a bridge, reciting it exactly the way his father said it. "So we're at war with them. My father's a Colonel."

It's impossible to hide the way his chest swells with pride when he says that. Pride for his father, for his lineage, displacing the fact that he fears for his parent.

"At wa-Oh dear Lord...you're a Confederate, ain'tcha?" Ellis flinched for a moment, this poor boy was in for hell if the Civil War remained on the course. So many men, some fathers, all sons, died in the fields and the mechanic feared the same fate for Mr. Sartoris. "Well, have ya heard from yer daddy? Must be damn proud o' him, wearin' his uniform an' his colors, to defend his beliefs."

"Yessir." Bayard's chest puffs a little, as if the word 'Confederate' is a box out of which other concepts can be unpacked: honor, tradition, freedom, chivalry, the land from which he comes. "I saw my father a few months back. There was talk his men were going to vote him out of the colonelship, but I reckon that's just talk."

Not that Bayard would mind, honestly. It'd be a blow to John Sartoris' ego, but Bayard wouldn't mind his father being around more.

Oh boy. Well, at least he could see the shine in Bayard's eyes as he speaks of his father. There were people in his old neighborhood used to romanticize the old days, but history tended to be less forgiving to what the Confederate's values. Hell, he owed his life to Coach and Rochelle, and there was a chance if he were to discuss that with the Sartoris child, there would be friction. So, he focuses on the military, something he saw pride seep from how Bayard spoke of his father...

"They can't just vote your daddy out like that! I mean, tha' means he's safe but you know, he hasn't cost them their lives! There should be like, I dunno, order an'-" Ellis stopped his rant then settled down for Bayard's sake. "Are ya thinkin' about joinin' him in the Army?"

Edited (...this computer hates me, it's official.) 2015-04-15 05:49 (UTC)

"If'n the war takes that long, yessir."

Bayard sounds both entirely certain and like he isn't sure what he's talking about, because there's a glint in his eye of enthusiasm that stands in stark contrast to the misery of war. It isn't bloodthirstiness, but instead entirely innocent, like Bayard hasn't quite realized yet that war and killing go hand in hand, that killing is different when applied to a human body than it is to a chicken in a pen.

"But we got good men out there in the field fighting the Yankees, so it won't take that long. I reckon all the fighting'll be over before I'm even old enough to enlist, even if Father does vouch for me."

"Oh kiddo, war's not all tha' great, trust me on that," El sighed out before taking a bite from his snack. Sure zombies weren't the same thing as soldiers but there was always that awful feeling at the pit of his stomach that every Infected they shot, it was someone's parent, child, loved one. At least the infected had no thought process to back it up. "You lose good people tha' way."

To hear the boy speak so earnestly about the war, it broke Ellis' heart to know what happened later. "Bayard, I know this might be offensive in some way but…have ya ever thought about if, if the war's won by the North?"

"I know, sir. But losing them in service of freedom is better than from cowpox or fever, isn't it?" Mortality's pretty high where Bayard's from. He's already lost two siblings to childhood illnesses that will be entirely eradicated by Ellis' time.

"Why would you even say that?" Bayard's face gets as hard as his smooth features and puffy cheeks will allow. "That's Yankee talk. The North won't win because they've got no morals, and ten of their men isn't worth the salt of one of ours."

Bayard could not believe this more fervently or more blindly.

"Where I come from, those diseases don't exist anymore, at least-" Oh crap.

"...Oh, Bayard, I am so sorry..." Shit, shit, shit! "Future's not too bright for Dixie. The S-South lost by 1865, they put up a front but the North took back the Virginias an' it went down from there. I-I'm sorry, kiddo."

He really was sorry for bursting Bayard's bubble. And he could have avoided it if he'd just kept his trap shut.

For a moment, Bayard just gapes at Ellis, turning it over in his head all the ways that Ellis is probably lying to him, all the confusion about different times. His lower lip trembles for a moment, and he thinks of all the times he and Ringo have helped carry the silver to the yard to bury it, all the times they've gone hungry in their town, thinks of how scared he is each time his father goes off even though he isn't supposed to say it aloud. He thinks of it all and his fists clench and his heart hammers away inside him like it's trying to get out.

What's it all for if they're just going to lose?

"That's a damn Yankee lie!" Bayard shrieks, getting out from under the table, face turning red. "That's a damn lie, you bastard! You bastard! Damn you!"

"For you, I-I wish it wasn't," Ellis faced the worst the Green Flu could create, the Army shooting civilians to cull the herd, and he's never been as scared as he was right now. Bayard's fury was deeply ingrained to his sense of self, and the mechanic blew a hole in it.

He was worse than Nick and the gambler killed the boy in the Arena

"I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have ever said a thing..."

They always say to be careful not to bother a bear cub, because even if you can't see the mother, she's usually nearby. Shrieks brought Tabris over as surely as if Bayard had dragged her over himself, instantly alert and ready to protect him. Her eyes scanned the situation--No blood, no weapons, Bayard didn't seem to be in immediate danger, but he looked fit to be tied, and Ellis was looking guilty.

Eyes turned to Ellis, intent and ready to beat him down right there, even as she went to Bayard's side.

"Is there a problem." She hissed, voice quiet, dangerous. She'd been particularly prickly about making sure the child was alright since the arena incident. She'd failed one time. Never again.

While she's staring down Ellis, her hand goes to Bayard's shoulder, patting it reassuringly. It's okay, she'll make it better.

"This man's a treasonous Yankee spitting lies!" Bayard's as flushed as a cherry tomato, blue eyes wide and slick with unfallen tears. It doesn't sound like he believes it, no matter how hard he's trying to, because his voice breaks and crumbles. Too many people have been a little too kindly to him about the war for it not to be true. He knows, deep in his head, that it's true, but he doesn't know it in his heart.

The world seems to spin around him, to close in and choke him up, and even Tabris' hand on his shoulder feels too much like sympathy for a loss he can't acknowledge. He has the decency to give her hand a squeeze, so she knows that he isn't leaving because of her, but then he bolts, running for the patio outside and some fresh air.

When Bayard runs off, Ellis can't help but try to follow the boy and explain what happened but after Tabris slammed that death glare and matching tone, he would have tbe suicidal to add more fuel.

He glanced at the elf with the most apologetic look he could muster. It went beyond the "puppy caught ruining the house plants" and more on "I fucked up real bad and I'm a monster for making a little kid cry". "I-I just...I just told him wha' happened in the war his dad's fightin' in. His side of the war, once upon a time, my side by ancestor, is gonna lose," he told Tabris. He didn't say just how badly, and nothing abou what would be the Battle of Gettysburg/

She knew a little bit, gleaned from what Bayard had said. Some war, against the yankees. His father went to fight in it. Something something freedom something yankees are awful. She hadn't paid it too much mind, nodding along with what Bayard said. But...

She watches Bayard run off with some concern in her eyes. But she doesn't pursue, she has things to clear up here, and he needs his space.

Finding out you lose the war. God, I can only imagine.

She squares her shoulders, and turns to Ellis. His guilty expression and those stupid puppy dog eyes keep the full of her wrath at bay, and all he gets are a few solid pokes to the chest as she speaks. Hardly the worst attack that Tabris has unleashed. "You told him that his father loses the war that he's in? Do you think? Does any contemplation go on in that head of yours? What's a child going to do with that knowledge, Ellis?"

Poke, poke.

"You--Ugh. Don't lie to him. Just--Was that necessary? Listen, give him his space for a little bit. Then you can apologize." She doesn't demand an apology, which is a credit to her faith in Ellis being a decent person. She figures that there will be apologizing without her needing to threaten.

Her glare has, for the most part, died down in vehemence. Ellis wasn't a malicious guy, he hadn't been trying to hurt Bayard, and her tone and treatment reflects that she's not under the impression she has to defend Bayard from someone, but she's sure not pleased. He wasn't trying, but he managed to, anyway. "And when you apologize, think about his perspective. He's just a kid, Ellis."

Edited 2015-04-26 00:20 (UTC)

"I...I didn't think," And there it was, the source of every problem Ellis had ever encountered the moment he was set loose in the Arena: he never thought ahead past the first few steps. Sure, when it came to survival, Ellis wasn't forced to think of societal niceties and children in his world were already well aware of the grim realities.

But Bayard barely got out of the Arena and now this? Not one of his best moments. "I'mma make it up to him, somehow. I dunno if he'll like a toy or, uh," he had an idea, "I can show him around a car! Yeah! He'll like tha' and give him somethin' to tinker!"

At least Tabris' faith wouldn't be misplaced.

"You didn't think." She repeated incredulously, hands on her hips. "Well, then. I would suggest you do so in the future." She sighed, closing her eyes. Well, at least he seemed to be thinking right now, and that was definitely some kind of progress. Maybe he could keep it up.

"A car? Those weird...metal things that zoom around? Are those safe for him to mess around with...? They go so fast on the road." She had never quite taken one of those cars around the city, even though she had been assured she could hire other people to make them move for her. You could break a bone falling off a horse. She didn't want to see what you could do if one of those things messed up.

"Well sure, if they're stationary!" Ellis assured her, "And these are way more advanced than the ones back home. I used to fix these machines as my job before, well, the zombie apocalypse happened."

He beamed at Tabris, "Trust me, most kids back home love t' tinker around machines an' he'd be in real good hands! I'm a pro at it." Well, that's stretching the word. "He's already so overwhelmed, havin' somethin' real to play with an' fix may help 'im deal with what I said." There was a big brother instinct born in him with all these kids in the Tower. "As long as he…has hope tha' he can make it outta here an' keep his dad safe."

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The Crowning of Tony Stark

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