You Talk Far Too Much for Someone So Unkind [OPEN]

[whatisay]

WHO| Jason and OPEN, especially to D7 Tributes
WHAT| Jason's D7 District post!
WHERE| D7 Suite
WHEN| After the mini-Arena.
WARNINGS| Jason being awful.

The first thing Jason does when he gets back to District Seven from his week off on Monday (at about five a.m.) is wake Cassian, and thus the rest of the floor up, by screaming at the Stylist about how August 31st is, actually, a real date and that scheduling forty-seven meetings for it is, at best, unfathomably stupid and at worst an attempt at outright sabotage.

The second thing Jason does is slam out new schedules for every single Tribute and slap them onto the front of each door. To his credit, everything is set up so the Tributes can maximize their incomes and media exposure, and it seems that he's back to courting Sponsors with a vengeance. On the downside, there's very little room left for Tributes to relax or do anything of their own volition. Furthermore, there's not all that much time for Jason to do anything but aggressively catch up and work intensive overtime.

The yelling, throwing things and shoving Avoxes around has been dialed up to eleven, and seems aggravated all the further by any attempts to offer condolences or point out the small details that he seems more prone to miss than he used to.

Friday, after a full week of working his Tributes into the ground, chainsmoking and meeting with Sponsors in hallways and dance halls until he actually wears a hole into his dress shoes, he sets up with an anonymous-looking videographer in the District Seven Suite. The hologram window is set to a peaceful forest. Jason sits on the couch with, oddly enough, a capuchin monkey in a diaper leashed to his wrist and sitting on the backrest.

"Alright," he says to each Tribute as they enter at the scheduled time. "You're going to record your apology to District Seven for fucking up the last Arena and letting their children starve."

Comments

[whatisay]

"Cut." Jason flips a hand up. "Boo hoo, Thorston. They don't care how much you've put up with. No one here cares about how much you put up with except maybe those Avoxes who'll have to start changing the sheets if you wet the bed."

He gets up (the monkey jumps off his shoulder and to the backrest of the couch) and paces, gesturing with his cigarette. "What you're doing now is telling them that it doesn't matter if you lose, because you can get back up again. Well, they can't. They're going to starve."

He gets right up in Ruffnut's face, leaning in and poking at her with his cigarette. "They're going to die because of your stupidity. Now do it again."

[ruffntumblenut]

OK ouch. Normally Ruffnut could put up with whatever someone dished out verbally but she had been speaking from the heart just then and he dismissed it. Had she really gotten so soft?

The last straw came when he poked her with his cigarette. "OW!" Her hand swung up and swatted at the glowing tip which just burned her again as she crushed it into his fingers. "Don't burn me!"

She wanted so badly to headbutt him right now. To kick him in the knee, to punch him in the gut. Suddenly she understood why no one liked Jason. Because there was no way she could physically punish him enough in the space of time it would take for the peacekeepers to detain her and drag her away.

[whatisay]

It's an electric cigarette, so it won't actually damage her, but it is hot enough to be a bit painful.

"I'll treat you how I want, Tribute. Just be grateful you're that instead of just a Districter who didn't get Reaped." He towers over her. "I want you to record it again. I want you to feel sorry for how you fucked this up for everyone. Now sit down in that chair and do it again."

[ruffntumblenut]

It's the thought that counts.

"You can't make me feel worse about it then I already do. Especially not by acting like a jerk. Geeze I thought you were supposed to be good at your job." She shot back glaring up at him in defiance of his position of authority.

"It's not like you're the one who's starving. So stop acting like you care about the District more then I do. You've already made it pretty clear you don't care about anyone."

[whatisay]

"I am good at my job, which is more than you can say." Nothing Ruffnut's saying is actually striking bone for Jason. He's dealt with nastier Tributes who got much more personal. He's lost his mother recently, as the chattering imp on the couch reminds him, and so Ruffnut just pisses him off rather than wounds at all.

"Now I want you to record how bad about it you claim you feel, and then I'm going to play it for you every night before your Arena, so help me god."

[ruffntumblenut]

"You're making it really hard for me to focus on feeling bad when you're being such a jerk! So no! Bad at your job. Bad Jason Bad!" She shot back wagging a finger at him and making to leave. Who knew that the last straw for Ruffnut dealing with him would involve talking honestly about her feelings?

Of course it's not as though Jason didn't have ways of keeping her in the room. She's just too hot headed to remember.

"S'probably never felt honestly bad about anything in his life." She grumbled more for herself then anything.

[whatisay]

Jason snaps his fingers and one of the Avoxes closes the door Ruffnut's about to use. He folds his arms, ignoring the comment because how little she knows.

"Go downstairs and do two back-to-back sets of your workout routine. Then back up here. We'll do one take from there and it had better be perfect."

[ruffntumblenut]

"It's never gonna be perfect enough for you so why even bother?" She shot back trying to force the door open now. She didn't want to lash out at the Avox, that was Jason's job, but it annoyed her that this one was getting in her way.

At least the first part didn't sound so bad. She could do her routine at her own pace and by the time she was done maybe he'd have gotten some other poor sucker to torment.