It was mid afternoon, and the meeting was in progress. It was a close call with the tribute list; the president, and a few other Gamemakers as well, seemed to waver in their confidence for it. Gregorrie had snuck glances at Plush the entire time, whether looking for help or sending death glares, she couldn't be sure. With Gregorrie, every facial expression looked the same: as if he had a bowl of rotten eggs shoved right below his nose.
As for the president, he seemed to be completely laid-back about the whole matter until the very end of Gregorrie's presentation. Then, he swiveled in his chair in the opposite direction of where Gregorrie was standing to stare straight at Plush.
"There seems to be quite a few younger tributes being drawn this year," he rumbled, his thin, wrinkled fingers tapping on the long conference table. "How do you propose this will work?" At the last sentence, the president turned back around to face Gregorrie. He seemed to be able to sense that Gregorrie lacked a good explanation.
He was right. Gregorrie's hands twitched, and he said, "Well, it's quite probable." He paused a moment to swallow. "Just because the risk is supposed to be lower for younger people, that doesn't guarantee them that they won't be drawn."
A voice spoke up from the farthest end of the table. "The districts are already beginning to suspect our tampering with the drawings." It was none other than Jassum Marks. Otherwise known as Plush's least favorite person in the world. He continued in a smug tone, "That many tributes under the age of fifteen is just not plausible."
Darn him and his stupid, persuasive golden eyes, thought Plush. Any time Marks looked at anyone with his surgery-enhanced, wide-eyed gaze, they seemed to instantly melt to fill his molding. I'll show him not to try that crud on my tribute list….
Having been sitting in silence the whole meeting, several people raised their eyebrows when Plush spoke. "Excuse me, sir, President. Could I please say something?" Her voice was small, but her gaze was confident, or as confident as she could manage.
The president stared at her for a moment before nodding curtly.
Plush took a deep breath and said a bit louder, "Past Game statistics show that we actually get more Capitol viewers when there are more tributes of a younger age. They absolutely adore them." She took one more fleeting glance at the president before turning to speak to the rest of the Gamemakers. "And just as well, it is more likely that people will volunteer if a younger sibling is chosen, which always gets better reviews. Just look at the raving reviews when that girl Katniss Everdeen volunteered! We hadn't had anywhere near that magnitude of views before that point."
"Yes, it's quite a pity she… died," drawled the president.
Ignoring her anger at the president's insensitive comment, Plush continued, "And there's always the sponsors. The younger tributes seem to catch the attention of quite a few that steer clear otherwise." Having finished her speech, Plush looked back at the president to see his reaction. His face was carefully emotionless.
"It appears we have our arguments for both sides of the matter. Now we must vote. All those in favor of this tribute list, say 'Aye' and raise your hand."
Plush held her breath as the Gamemakers all made their decision.
As it turned out, everyone was in favor of her list besides Marks. He just sat, mumbling to himself and glaring at the table. The president didn't even bother to ask if anyone was against.
Now that Plush has gotten the tributes out of the way, new stylists and escorts are able to start applying for a job in the Hunger Games area, and previous ones need to reapply! She also needs to figure out which victors are going to be mentoring which tributes now. Please keep in mind with these characters that it's the tributes I'm focusing, so these characters might not be featured very much, but I will do my best to fit in everybody entered. Escorts do have a guarantee of at least being shown in the reapings, though.
Plush will also accept arena ideas to suggest to Gregorrie because he actually participates in the creation of it. That's about all he does as Head Gamemaker.
So here are the forms:
*If you want to submit an escort, please get that done quickly because I need to start writing the reapings, and I need them before I write any.
**I won't be waiting a very long for these to come in, so if you don't have time to submit one immediately, let me know and I will save you a spot. But please do your best to get the escorts in soon. I will be accepting other mentors or stylists up until the chapter when they should first appear, though, so keep that in mind as well.
For ESCORTS and STYLISTS—
Name:
Gender:
Age:
District:
Appearance (feel free to be overly creative, though I don't want all of them too… outrageous):
Personality:
Anything else:
*There can be up to two mentors per district, one for each tribute.
For MENTORS—
Name:
Gender:
Age:
District:
Appearance (these people are from the districts, so they look relatively normal and not all Capitol-Barbie like, except maybe the first two districts; I will except a bit more unusual looking for those):
Personality:
Age when they won the Games:
What Game did he/she win? (84th? 92nd? 76th? Etc.):
How did they win their Games?:
What advice do they have for their tribute(s)?:
Anything else:
Okay, there they are. I hope I didn't forget anything. I will make up any mentors, stylists, or escorts as needed; this is just for those who would like to submit one. I'm not going to wait for the list to fill up, so there won't be a wait for this to get done like with the tributes. As I said earlier, I will accept any of these kinds of characters until the chapter when the character should actually appear.
I'm going to try to set up a sponsoring system, but that won't be up until after the reapings are over, in case anyone was wondering.
That's it, I believe. Ta ta for now!
-Tasting Raindrops-