The Crowning of Tony Stark

[etcircenses]

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.

Comments

[dreadinquisitor]

Instead of condolences, which he didn't imagine would mean much of anything to someone how had never truly known the one lost, he offered a compliment to the boy's grandmother for stepping where lesser women might not have.

"I don't imagine it's the same, but I'm glad she did. She's obviously a good woman." Doing as well as she had thus far with Bayard.

Then, as the boy went on, his brow furrowed in confusion.

"That's not a race I'm familiar with. What are they like?"

[cw: racism]

[yoknapatawpha]

"She'd be flattered that you said so," Bayard says.

Bayard furrows his lower lip a bit, making an upturned 'V' beneath his mouth.

"Well, they're slaves, and I reckon they're a little different from a white man, but it don't matter until they grow I think. They can't do what a white man can, can't read or run a business or anything like that, and there ain't no point teaching them, so we have to take care of them and they live with us."

His voice lowers a bit. "Although I reckon Ringo could learn to read faster than I have, honestly. Father always said he was smarter than I am."

[dreadinquisitor]

Maxwell frowned at the word 'slave,' and as the boy went on his brow furrowed. It was all too easy to imagine the phrase 'knife-ear' mingling in with what he said. If he had just been meeting Bayard he might have thought the boy were from Thedas. Or, at least, certain parts of it.

"Perhaps he could," Maxwell said after a quiet moment, his voice soft, but purposeful. He didn't blame Bayard for such speech - he was just a boy - but even not knowing the world he came from personally, Maxwell couldn't say he was comfortable with it. "In my experience, such beliefs are often based more in tradition than fact."

[yoknapatawpha]

Bayard's muscles around his eyes tense a little, and he gives Maxwell a bit of a squint as he tries to reconcile the man standing before him with the views of the father he hero-worships. His lower lip sets into the slightest frown. "That sounds like Yankee talk, sir. It ain't up for debate. It's how it is."

[dreadinquisitor]

"I don't know what Yankees are either," Maxwell replied, steady under Bayard's frown. "But I do know that where I come from there are also slaves. I know that there are people who would look at Tabris and see her ears and assume the same about her. That she's weak, that she's simple. That the only thing she could ever be good at is serving others."

He wasn't insistent, or aggressive. The words as gentle as the others had been.

He didn't want to upset Bayard. And he didn't want him to dislike him; he was just hoping to leave the boy with something to think about.

"You know Tabris. Would you agree with them?"

[cw: racism and slurs for the whole thread]

[yoknapatawpha]

"Tabris ain't a nigger. We don't got any knowledge about people with deformed ears where I'm from." Bayard's not necessarily aggressive, but coming into a sort of stubbornness that is far less about what he's saying than about the fact that he's far from home, separated from his family, unsure about the outcome of a war that he only vaguely understands has to do with all of these concepts.

Given time, it'll be different, but overnight he won't undo the bondage of racism of prejudice on his soul.

"It's different. I ain't lecturing you about Thedas so kindly keep from lecturing me about what happens in my country."

[dreadinquisitor]

Were Bayard an adult, Maxwell would have pressed on, harder. Or even called Tabris over to let her have a go while he enjoyed his cotton candy. But Bayard was just a boy, and Maxwell recognized that.

And he honestly believed he was a good kid. Prejudice was learned. It could be unlearned.

Holding up a hand - palm out - he signals for peace.

"Very well. Just give it some thought, that's all I would ask." Turning to his cotton candy, he tore off a piece. "But, before she hears, they're not deformed. Tabris' ears. She's an elf. They're supposed to look like that."

[yoknapatawpha]

"I will." And the thing is, Bayard's telling the truth. Very few things enter the boy's ears that he doesn't mull over as he goes to sleep at night, and it isn't as if he has no reason to doubt the so-called truisms that he's been spitting out - his closeness with Ringo, whom he knows full well to be cleverer than him, speaks to that. Now that Maxwell's backed off a little all the fluster seems to go out of Bayard, and he returns to his inquisitive, calm self.

"What does that mean, she's an elf?" He takes another bite of cotton candy. "Did she change them like these funny people at the Capitol do with their puffy lips?"

[dreadinquisitor]

Maxwell didn't respond for a moment, caught up in the cotton candy as if he too were suddenly a child again. A boy again, with his brother, chasing snowflakes and letting them burn to nothing on their faces and tongues.

The puff of candy melted similarly, and sugar and sweetness, but still grit between his teeth when he chewed.

It was silly, he knew, but he couldn't help himself.

Smiling distantly to himself, he focused back on Bayard.

"No, Tabris was born that way, as all elves are." He set the handle of his cotton candy in an empty champagne flute, the carded cone tinking against the bottom as he brushed his hands off. "Their a race of people in Thedas. There are humans, like myself and many of the others here; elves; the Qunari, that's what Iron Bull is; and dwarves."

It was something of a simplified explanation, but Maxwell didn't think he really need to get too deep into all the details and complications of race and politics in Thedas at the moment. Mages and apostates and Tal Vashoth....

Slaves had been more than enough for one night.

[cw: racial slurs again]

[yoknapatawpha]

The look on Bayard's face when Maxwell smiles at the cotton candy is just as genuine as if Bayard had just taken a mouthful himself, or were himself the cause of Maxwell's happiness. It's a pure satisfaction, one that comes from being happy when others are.

"That ain't what races are like where I'm from. We got niggers, Chinamen, um, Jews, Injuns, white folks..." Bayard hasn't really paid it much mind, and he realizes that he's talking about something he knows very little of now. "But I've only ever seen niggers and Injuns and white folk."

[dreadinquisitor]

For a moment, Maxwell thinks about asking - almost does, but then he thinks better of it. He'd already pushed once, and things were dark and difficult enough without adding any more to it.

The company was fine and the treats sweet.

And besides, there was something else he'd been meaning to say.

"While we're on the subject, I do want to apologize, Bayard," he said then, expression turning serious again. Eyes steady on the boy's face. "When we met, I offered you a safe place with us, and I failed you. Qunari can be frightening even to people from Thedas, I didn't think what Iron Bull might look like to you."

[yoknapatawpha]

Bayard's expressions gets not only serious, but dour, shamed. He lowers his eyes to his feet and picks at his cotton candy with his fingers.

"It's me who owes the apology," Bayard says. "I shouldn't have run and left you to your own, even if he were a monster. There's retreat and there's abandonment, and I did the latter."

[dreadinquisitor]

"Oh, Bayard," Maxwell shook his head, turning to face the boy directly, leaning close enough to rest a hand on his shoulder. "No, that's not necessary. In fact, under other circumstances--"

He lifted his shoulders in a small shrug.

"I would have wanted you to run. The failing there was mine. I should have prepared you."

[yoknapatawpha]

"I'm past the age where I should run from danger before tending to my friends," he says, firmly, as if he's trying to use his words to chip away at the ground he looks at. A few months back he ran under Granny's skirts for protection, and that seemed a fitting cap on the part of his life where he could justify retreat like that.

"There's nothing you ought to be apologizing for."

[dreadinquisitor]

Maxwell studied him quietly for a moment, understanding the segment, touched by it -- even as he wished to be able to protect the boy from such things. From the arena, from death, from the loss of the people who meant so much to him.

He thought, maybe, he could see a little bit of himself in Bayard.

The good parts.

"...How about we call it a draw? Two apologies, equal forgiveness, and a clean slate."

[yoknapatawpha]

Bayard licks his lips and chews on his tongue, then holds his hand out and looks up, a certain mature firmness to the set of his jaw that wasn't there a moment ago, that looks more appropriate for a teenager than it does on his face now - not fully adult but certainly not the expression of a child. "Alright. I can shake to that."

Wrapping up?

[dreadinquisitor]

Maxwell looked relieved, but even more proud when the boy stuck out his hand. Bayard was a fair man in the making... hopefully the Capitol would let him be.

"Agreed," he smiled, reaching out to meet Bayard's hand with his own, offering a warm, firm shake. Then, with a nod of formality, he released him and gestured to his cotton candy. "No go on, finish that up before I do mine and try for yours too."

He winked playfully and turned to fished his candy cotton out of the empty glass.