thecapitol | The Tribute Youth Programme: September

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The Tribute Youth Programme: September

Who| Adults who act as chaperones on the field trips. Any Tribute character aged 18 and under. This is ICly Mandatory for Tributes under 18 so your character will be there even if you don't tag in.
What| September's TYP round; Back to school!
Where| A private school building within the Capitol.
When| Regular school hours (8 AM to 3 PM) four days a week (Monday-Thursday)
WARNINGS| Mind-altering juice boxes, indoctrination. Place any needed warnings within comment headers.
NOTES| If you would like your character to be caught trouble-making, please contact mods. We are looking for both Mentors to speak of the District they hail from (or represent), and Capitolite characters to talk of Panem's greatness. If you would like your character to stand as a guest speaker for the next round, please refer to this post. The fantastic Tribute Youth Programme uniforms are designed and drawn by Reiko.

With the summer drawing to a close, Students are put back into uniforms and brought back to their seats and regularly scheduled lessons.

Supplement for these lessons, are various videos of District studies, showing Tribute Youth the ways the Districts work for the whole of Panem, as well as the pride they have in what they do. You see? The people of Panem are happy and at peace. These are not a people who wish to go to war.

But don't worry, you'll get to hear from voices of the Capitol as well. At some point during the month, Tribute Youth will get to go into a Capitol school, meet their fans, and hear from them who the Tributes have helped to keep the peace of Panem with their sacrifice.

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Of course Jason would have to do this. Of course he's got to go talk to children in the gigantic time-suck that is the youth program, which he supports in theory but doesn't actually want anything to do with in practice, because it sucks valuable time away from courting Sponsors, herding his Tributes and moping in his decaying house.

He strides in with the monkey, dressed in a more expensive suit than anything any of the Tributes are wearing, on his shoulder. He jams his hands in his pockets, because he isn't allowed to smoke in front of the kids (something about being a bad influence, which no amount of bickering about how no one actually considers him a role model is going to change), and starts on his schpiel.

"Now, I bet you've spent plenty of classes here with your guest speakers telling you a sob story about how hard the Districts work and how important each District is. What you've got to understand is that everyone in the Districts has a terrible education, so it's not their fault that they don't know how it all works. We can forgive them their patriotism if we have to, although some people-" Linden- "we don't need to waste our graciousness on."

He paces around a bit as he talks.

"Think of Panem like a body. The Districts are like limbs, or, well, fingers and ears if you need the right number, but the Capitol is the heart and lungs and brain. You can live without a finger or an ear, although you wouldn't want to, but without the vital organs at the center, you'd better have a down payment on some black clothes, I say.

See, the way it is is that the Districts couldn't manage not to collapse in on themselves without a guiding hand. You leave a bunch of Districts on their own, and they fall into ruin because they're all lazy and violent. They've done studies that it's in their blood, so it isn't entirely their fault. Anyway, that's why the Hunger Games don't need much to get Districters to kill each other. We spend more time trying to get you people to fight than we ever did with the animals out there.

"What the Capitol exports is organization, motivation, structure. No single District could manage not to eat itself alive without the Capitol's guiding hand. They need us to come in and redistribute their food so no one actually starves, no matter how much they bitch about it, and run their businesses so they don't go underwater. We're the ones sending the teachers and business leaders out there to untangle the balls of yarn that the Districts set us up with. We send out the supplies in rations so they can have everything in an orderly fashion. Like I says, we're the brain. Anything that involves counting higher than five has got to go to Capitolites, otherwise it's bound to get screwed up.

"Alright, any questions?"

Sansa listens with the same rapt attention she's given all the classes, although underneath, there's something more calculating. She doesn't like this man, she decides, or trust him. He sounds like Joffrey, all bile and disdain. Certainly, he sounds like a Lannister. He seems officious and self-centred, bitter and ungentle, and she knows the moment he opens his mouth that if she can get him on her side, it'll be a coup to top anything in King's Landing.

So she listens to every word, and when he asks for questions, hers is the first hand up. She's schooled her face into a look of innocent respect, and when she's called on, she stands to answer, her hands folding in front of her.

"I think it's wonderful what you do here, sir. I was just wondering, does everyone in the Capitol have to help the Districts like you do, or is that a job they only trust to some?" Flattery, thinly disguised as a question. It isn't the most finessed attempt at manipulation, but she figures it'll have to do as an initial assay.

Jason was expecting something more bilious, and when he gets something deferential it throws him. Somehow, that makes him even more irate, and he kicks off his next comment with even more bloviating.

"Believe me, I wouldn't if I could get away with it. I wouldn't be within half a mile of a Tribute or a Districter or even an Avox if I had my way."

Jason reaches absently for his cigarette, then realizes he doesn't have it and awkwardly runs his hands through his hair.

"We have to pay enough taxes to bleed a pig, if that's what you're asking. Keeping the Districts from falling in on themselves apparently takes more money than throwing a Capitol ball."

Definitely a Lannister, Sansa thinks, with some dislike, but she keeps the innocence on her face, looking appropriately sympathetic. Or Lord Tyrell, with his bluff and bluster. The thought of Mace Tyrell as a Capitolite almost sends her into a fit of giggles, but she manages to keep them down. The last thing she wants is for Jason to think she's laughing at him.

"They must be very grateful," she says, aloud. "The Districters, I mean. For the food, and the support." Grateful the way the people of the Riverlands were grateful, she thinks privately, but she won't say anything about that. She risks probing a little further, hoping to find out more about this world she's now a part of: "Do they ever come to the Capitol? I mean, now that they don't send Tributes?"

"Hardly," Jason says, and he all but spits the sentiment. He feels vindicated (valid, present, believed, alive) to have someone to hate, to have a belief that so confirms what he needs to feel persecuted, to shuffle off the responsibility for even the smallest of his problems on to someone else. "They're ungrateful and tribalistic. They like to think that because we don't work in fields or on boats eight hours a day, that we do nothing but sit on our-"

he can't swear here-

"-hands all day and drink wine." He paces the front of the classroom. "They aren't allowed here, aside from Tributes and those with visas for work, although there's no work they do here that's worth the paperwork I says."

"We had people like that where I was from," Sansa agrees, wide-eyed and credulous-looking. "Only the Lannisters weren't as wise as the Capitol. They let the people rise up, and there was this horrid violence everywhere. The Capitol seems like it's much cleverer. That won't happen here, will it?"

Something in Jason goes stiff, and for a moment he looks like a bird of prey listening to its next meal rustling in the grass - but the more apt comparison would be a rabbit, frozen under the gaze of the hawk. Because the Peacekeepers are right there. They're right there and Jason can't run his mouth about just anything.

"Sure it won't. Capitolites hate violence too much to let it up in this place. It belongs on the other side of a fence or screen."

That's interesting. Sansa notes his sudden tension, the movement of his eyes and that moment of calculation. He's scared, she thinks, without triumph. He's as scared of them as the rest of us. That's something to remember, in case she ever feels like she can lean on Capitolites. They aren't safe, either. Or they don't think they are, at any rate.

But she doesn't want to push her luck too far, so she smiles blithely. "I thought it must be that way," she agrees. "A place this beautiful and kind couldn't ever make the same mistakes as the Lannisters did. Thank you for setting my mind at ease, sir." And, dipping him a little curtsey, she sits back down, clasping her hands on the desk in front of her.

"Right. Beautiful and kind." Jason wouldn't call it that. The Districters would call him spoiled, the Capitolites treasonous. He doesn't, however, elaborate, nor does he ask or care who the Lannisters are. Instead, he just takes other questions, and leaves it at that.

[ Ruffnut was actually looking forward to hearing Jason talk. It's interesting to hear him say more then a few sentences without sounding like he's about to wring her neck. But afterwards she tries to think of something worth asking.]

So basically, everyone outside of the Capitol is dumb because of blood and they need Snow to tell them how not to kill each other?

[Could it really be that simple?]

What makes their blood different?

"Exactly." Finally, Ruffnut seems to actually be picking up what Jason's laying down. He doesn't look proud of her so much as relieved, as if he expected anything to come out of her mouth to be profoundly idiotic.

"Biology. There are hundreds of studies about it, trying to solve the Districter problem. No one's been able to actually say anything definitive except that it's in their genes."

Genes, that word again. It was a complicated subject that Ruffnut was far away from ever figuring out. But blood was something she understood. Dragons made smaller dragons that acted a lot like how their parents acted. Vikings did the same thing. Even her family who were descended from berserker warriors still had some wild and savage traits about them despite several generations of vikingness.

But if what Jason said was true...what were they even fighting for? The freedom to kill each other without anyone getting in the way?

...actually that still sounded pretty good. Why shouldn't the distracters be allowed to kick each other around if they wanted? A little rough and tumble built character!

"So is that what it was like before President Snow? Just a bunch of people killing each other? How'd you guys even make it long enough for him to fix things?"

"Thankfully, some families have bloodlines that aren't so polluted with violence." Jason seems entirely unaware that this is incredibly hypocritical coming from a Compson. "Once pushed far enough, the people with self-control and wherewithal retaliated and put things in order. Those people are Capitolites now."

All the obscene opulence of the Capitol? Totally just self-control and wherewithal.

Ruffnut pondered this for a moment longer and then shrugged. Self control had never been her strong suit even if it had improved considerably while in the Capitol. But even with the idea that violence was something that was born from peoples blood it still sounded off.

Did this mean that Capitolites couldn't fight for themselves unless they were a peacekeeper? If the districts were so violent why didn't they tear themselves apart even with the peacekeepers? He made them sound like berserkers or outcasts.

But oh well, at least she had a slightly better understanding of how the world worked...didn't she? Jason was a jerk but he was a jerk who lived here.

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The Tribute Youth Programme: September

Re: Guest Speaker - Districts

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