Aang (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
actually112) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
driftfleet2018-04-18 04:18 pm
actually112) wrote in driftfleet2018-04-18 04:18 pm
Entry tags:
Action - Second Arena
Who: Aang and YOU
Broadcast: No
Action: Iskaulit
When: During the drift
[Aang has spent the last three weeks or so on 24/7 alert, hiding out in the desert and then hiding out in the trees and air ducts of the Iskaulit, waiting for some catastrophe that hasn't happened. It's driving him nuts. Is that what the Capitol is trying to do? Make him go crazy from paranoia?
Well, he knows the Capitol. He knows how to provoke them. If he does something really crazy, they'll retaliate, and at least he won't have to put up with this tension anymore. If there's no retaliation, then maybe, just maybe, the Capitol isn't as involved in this as he thinks.
He picks a lovely spot on the Iskaulit--out of the way, separate from the hustle and bustle of the most frequented areas, but still public and accessible. He carries out paint, rollers, brushes, and sets himself up like he's going to paint the walls.
Which is exactly what he does. He paints down a white undercoat in record time with the help of waterbending and airbending. Then he has a pencil, and he starts sketching out the bare bones of what he will paint. He blocks out the twelve different sections he wants to make, and then he starts writing.
He writes names. Name after name after name in each section, so many that Aang needs to balance on a ball of churning air to write them at the top of this planned mural. Each name is carefully, lovingly written, given the amount of respect and grace it deserves.
There are exactly 1,747 names. They are the names he memorized for his televised rebellion against the Capitol. They are the names of all of the Districter children who died in the Hunger Games.
Aang is tense as he writes, constantly aware of who is around him and what might happen, but his expression is stern and his mouth is fixed in grim determination. Come at him, Capitol.]
[OOC: Since The Games had lots of people AU'd in from other canons, feel free to assume that a name from your canon is up there if you like.]
Broadcast: No
Action: Iskaulit
When: During the drift
[Aang has spent the last three weeks or so on 24/7 alert, hiding out in the desert and then hiding out in the trees and air ducts of the Iskaulit, waiting for some catastrophe that hasn't happened. It's driving him nuts. Is that what the Capitol is trying to do? Make him go crazy from paranoia?
Well, he knows the Capitol. He knows how to provoke them. If he does something really crazy, they'll retaliate, and at least he won't have to put up with this tension anymore. If there's no retaliation, then maybe, just maybe, the Capitol isn't as involved in this as he thinks.
He picks a lovely spot on the Iskaulit--out of the way, separate from the hustle and bustle of the most frequented areas, but still public and accessible. He carries out paint, rollers, brushes, and sets himself up like he's going to paint the walls.
Which is exactly what he does. He paints down a white undercoat in record time with the help of waterbending and airbending. Then he has a pencil, and he starts sketching out the bare bones of what he will paint. He blocks out the twelve different sections he wants to make, and then he starts writing.
He writes names. Name after name after name in each section, so many that Aang needs to balance on a ball of churning air to write them at the top of this planned mural. Each name is carefully, lovingly written, given the amount of respect and grace it deserves.
There are exactly 1,747 names. They are the names he memorized for his televised rebellion against the Capitol. They are the names of all of the Districter children who died in the Hunger Games.
Aang is tense as he writes, constantly aware of who is around him and what might happen, but his expression is stern and his mouth is fixed in grim determination. Come at him, Capitol.]
[OOC: Since The Games had lots of people AU'd in from other canons, feel free to assume that a name from your canon is up there if you like.]
no subject
After a moment, Katara simply moves to stand beside him. She doesn't look at him; her attention is on the list of names. ]
...did you know them?
no subject
[A part of Aang hates that the horror doesn't feel as visceral to him as it does to Katara right now. At one point knowing that this had happened felt like a punch to the face, but now... now it feels like something he's become used to.]
But most of them died before the Capitol started taking offworlders. Every year, they'd pick a boy and a girl from each District to play in the Hunger Games. They'd dress them up in pretty clothes and interview them and put them in a parade and turn it into this big celebration in the Capitol... and then they'd put all the kids together on TV and the last one living won.
[Aang's deliberately glossed over the details. He doesn't want to describe the arenas. He doesn't want to talk about the psychological warfare on top of the physical. He doesn't want to describe the sheer brutality that these kids suffered and inflicted on each other.
More than anything, he doesn't want to tell Katara that he replaced the District kids in the Games.]
no subject
The knowledge is heavy on her heart; that such a place exists is terrible enough, that Aang was taken by it hurts in the marrow of her bones like needles, makes her want to scream and fiercely right the wrongs that had been done to him.
I never wanted to be a healer.
She'd wanted to be strong enough to stop people from getting hurt. But somehow, it didn't seem to matter how strong she became - people kept getting hurt anyway.
She didn't know what to do, or to say. ]
...why would anyone do such a thing? [ Her voice is tight, gaze still on those names. So many children... ] What possible reason could they give, that so many people would allow it to happen?
no subject
[Aang remembers the parties. He remembers the fans tattooing themselves with arrows and stopping him in the street to get his picture and talk to him about how it was so sad when he was crying over the body of his friend in the most recent arena, and how they totally almost cried while they were watching.
When Aang writes the next name, he presses harder on the pencil than he should.]
It was this big thing for the Capitolites. They had viewing parties and people would make big bets and stuff. Then they'd treat Victors like they were celebrities and give them all this money and attention. It was just a big TV show to them.
no subject
She remembers, for no reason at all that she could mention, being burned. Her legs, her back, curling up in the cage as they all mocked her... how tiny and helpless and terrified she'd been.
Quietly, but with feeling: ] That's disgusting. There is something wrong with people like that.
[ There must be something broken inside their heads, inside their hearts. How could anyone treat people this way? Something must have happened to them. ]
no subject
[Aang remembers hearing how Jason Compson talked about Districters, and he had a friend who was a Districter. How bad was it among the people who never met Districters?]
You should've seen the videos. There's so much food in the Capitol that they have these drinks at parties to help you throw it up so you can eat more. But then most of the Tributes that come from the Districts have ribs sticking out. It was like a monk after fasting for two months. [That extra part spills out, like it's been fighting to be said for a long time. Aang's grip on the pencil is getting harder, the imprint of the letters he writes beginning to cut into the paint.]
no subject
She's not sure if she should seek to draw him out more or move to comfort him. In the end, she just says a low: ] That's terrible. There's no excuse for that.
[ And there wasn't. None. ]
no subject
[And it's a relief to talk to someone who can say that there isn't. Of course, his fellow offworlders would often agree with him, but it's dangerous to criticize the Capitol too much even behind closed doors.]
There's something wrong with the Capitol. It's not just their weird thing for plastic surgery. It's like an entire city that stopped seeing anyone outside of it as people. And then they make all their Victors play along, and sometimes the Victors are okay with it. I don't understand it.
no subject
I don't either. I don't know if I want to. Maybe in order to understand how anyone could excuse being as horrible and heartless as that, we'd have to be that broken inside too.
[ She both feels sorry for them and wants to crush them at the same time. More - feeling sorry for them wouldn't stop her from doing everything she could to stop them and punish them either. ]
I hope that they don't stay in power much longer.
no subject
But I don't know if I believe that. The Capitol knows that that's the kind of thing I'd like to hear.
[Aang so wants to believe in it, but he can't help but remember how well the Capitol has played on people's wants before. Their brutal and base violence is a skill, but their mind games are really where their skill shines.]