96th Tribute Interviews

marceline jeon, 15, district 8.

"thought i was the only one,
turned out i was everyone"

wearing. (sans tiara)

Did Capricious King's costumes do too good of a job catching the Capitol's attention? While they were getting her ready, her stylists spun her around and around, commenting on her long, slim legs and delicate shoulders, and about how they needed to be brought out, how they couldn't be wasted. They fussed about her for hours, hours that could've been spent sleeping or training or anything else in the world, but at the end of it all, Marceline finds herself categorically unable to be angry. She's now dressed in the finest dress she's ever worn; a slinky black number with pink trim that imitates a sash. It reads, in joined handwriting, 'Marceline Jeon.' She sees now, in her sling back heels and embellished glove sleeves, something she'd never seen before -- she is beautiful. It's a word she's been told all her life, but never has it been a sentiment that she's agreed with. In her own eyes, Marceline has always just been herself; unremarkable with bad teeth. Now, she feels so beautiful that for a split second, Marceline allows herself to smile, bad teeth and all, before she comes back to her senses. Yes, they've made her eyes pop, and the dusting of blush across her cheeks cancels out the more obvious signs of prolonged malnourishment, but not even the Capitol had the technology to fix her teeth in just two weeks. 

The dress and sleeves, she's told, are an ensemble specifically sourced from her factory back in District Eight. She bites back a shocked sob. Her eyes remain dry, are trained to be dry, but still Marceline lurches from the effort to remain composed. Her team straightens her up and sends her on her way to the stage to meet Caesar Flickerman, and by extension, all of Panem. There's a tiara that she was meant to wear but vetoed. Wouldn't that have been too much?

On stage, she may as well be naked. Exposed shoulders, sternum, legs; Marceline wishes she had that crown on her head now, to imbue her with confidence. But no, she has to find that from somewhere within herself, which Marceline barely manages. She clicks across the floor to her seat, and waves to the crowd, like her escort told her to do. Her smile is thin. Her eyes smile too, but separately to the one on the bottom half of her face. She's been practicing this face in the mirror for days.

"Check the tags on your dresses, ladies, you might have something made at the atelier of Marceline Jeon! District Eight's very own fashion fairy!" 

She tries to remember what angles they've taken with District Eight tributes from the past, if they leaned into this bizarre trendsetter angle before, but comes up blank. Atelier? She laughs as she sits down across from Caesar, and hopes it comes across as good-natured. He seems to think it does, but that might just be him being good at his job.

"I must say, your District made quite the splash at the Tribute Parade. Tell us what you were feeling up there! Confident, nervous, excited?"

Cold, she wants to say. Resisting the urge to scowl, she supplies him with the following: "Nervous, definitely nervous. Capricious King really... came through for us. I don't know what Garnet and I would've done if she hadn't been there."

That's at least mostly true, and because of that, Marceline is able to deliver her answer in a gentle, likeable tone. On the advice of her escort, who'd been drilling her between training sessions for days, her strategy is to be truthful, but delicate. She's a bad liar, and a careful word chooser already, so that suited her just fine.

"How confident do you feel about the games now that you've seen your Training Score? You can do much worse than a six!"

Marceline laughs again, and nods. "I don't think I can call myself confident, but it's..." She pauses, puts a finger to her bottom lip as she thinks. How is she feeling? No, definitely not confident. Totally useless? Not as much as before. "I'm happy with the score. I expected less."

"What about the other tributes? Intimidating? Interesting? Irritating?"

Half of them are bloviating careers, the other half are normal people she could get along with, in other circumstances. Marceline starts her answer with a shrug. She gently drums her fingers on her knobbly knees. 

"It's been interesting to meet people from all around Panem."

"How diplomatic, Marceline!"

Shit. Marceline forces herself to giggle.

"Well, of course that includes yourself, Caesar. But it really has been. I've always wanted to visit... well, everywhere, and this is the closest I'll get to doing it."

It's a truth -- but not one she ever realised before meeting everybody at the Training Center. Maybe she never wanted it before then. Marceline has to remind herself to keep smiling, to lean towards Caesar Flickerman like the cream in his hair doesn't turn her stomach.

"Ah, hold on a second! You never know, there could be a victory tour with your name on it!"

She doesn't laugh this time, just continues to smile and shakes her head. Caesar Flickerman clears his throat.

"What has impressed you most about the Capitol since you've been here?"

"The buildings, the facilities," answers Marceline, quickly and honestly. "There're a lot of buildings in District Eight, but I don't think any of them have made as much of an impression as the ones here have." And it's a damn shame too. What she wouldn't give for her nieces and nephews to have access to all of the things that Capitol children do. In her mind, it's already too late for her to take advantage of all of those wonderful tools. Her eldest sister was only a year older than her when she had her first baby. Fifteen is an adult where she comes from.

"Tell us what a typical day in your shoes is like back home. Do you work? Do you have any hobbies or secret talents?"

"No secret talents, and my hobbies all revolve around my work. I work most days, making dresses that," she gestures to the audience, like she rehearsed, "maybe some of our audience is wearing tonight. I work at a sizable factory where we fill orders for shops and privates customers here in the Capitol." 

"Oh, really?" Flickerman raises an eyebrow.

"Oh, yes. I'm proud of my work.  I never thought I'd get to see so many of the dresses we make in real life, never mind wear one."

This all rolls off the tongue far easier than Marceline would like. She's fulfilling a lifetime dream here, dressed up like this, but the whole experience is shadowed by guilt and fear. Fight or flight. Is this, this whole interview thing, fight too?

"And are you? Wearing one, that is?" asks Caesar, and Marceline nods, tucking a curled strand of hair behind her ear. "Stand up then! Give us a twirl!"

On shaky legs, wholly unused to even the tiniest of heels like she's got on tonight, Marceline stands up and spins slowly on the balls of her feet. The crowd cheers and back again is that word: beautiful. It's in Caesar Flickerman's voice this time, as he claps along with the audience and motions for her to return to her seat. She's dressed, she's dressed and made up and so aware of it all that Marceline can't enjoy a second of it, feeling nothing but naked. Answering all these questions, letting all of Panem in, telling the whole country things her closest friends and family have to pull teeth to get out of her, it's all so wrong. Marceline feels her eyes start to well up. She blinks it back, but her skilled host notices and teases her, which she takes on her chin, of course. Strong, reliable, ice sculpture Marceline: beautiful, cold, wet, and slowly melting all the while.

"And your family. Sensitive subject, I'm sure, but... could you tell us about them? What about romance? Cute as you are, I bet there is someone back home waiting, right?" 

He moves on, suddenly sombre, suddenly thoughtful. He suddenly cares. Marceline shakes her head.

"Romance has no place in my life, Caesar. But I can tell you about my family. Between them and work, my schedule is fit to burst. I was the baby of the family for a long time, but now my sisters have all had kids of their own." That's as much as she practiced, but Marceline feels Caesar's probing eyes on her, digging and digging. She shifts in her seat. She only ever looked into the camera once so far, during her entrance, but forces herself to do so again. Marceline hates eye contact. It's too intimate. Everybody gets looked at on the eyebrows instead, except for her little nieces and nephews. They always get her at her most genuine, her closest. Here, she makes herself stare into the metaphorical eye of all of Panem, just for them. "Are you guys watching back home? I miss you guys." She holds up her hand, and points to her mother's ring, slipped over her silky gloves. Just for them, undoubtedly watching in silent tears, Marceline smiles, big, wide, toothy and all the way up to her damp eyes. "Mom, I'm taking good care of your ring, don't worry." 

"I want to know: What is it that you'll be fighting for in that arena? What is it you want to get back home to? It's those kids, isn't it? Your family?"

Marceline tears her face away from the camera. Now that she's started looking, she never wants to stop. She fiddles with the ring on her hand and looks at Caesar Flickerman. She, once again, steels herself. She nods. 

"I'm afraid we're almost out of time. Parting words to the crowd? The tributes? Anything else for your friends and family back home?"

Marceline looks again, looks right into the red dot. It looks back at her, glaring at her with intent to kill. Its the eyes of the tributes who need her dead. Its the eyes of the crowd, who are hyping her up now, who will hype her up when they watch her die. Its nothing like the eyes, the faces, of her poor, delusional family back home, who smile, smile, smile. She smiles for them, gentle this time, and holds her hand up to wave goodbye. Her face is warm. No doubt it's flushed.

Marceline says the only thing she can think of; the words she's lived and worked by for years --

"Whatever it is you're doing, do your best. Thank you."

m a r g u e r i t e

Ready or not (Uh-huh), here I come, you can't hide
Gonna find you and make you want me

"I must say, your District made quite the splash at the Tribute Parade. Tell us what you were feeling up there! Confident, nervous, excited?"

“If I had been afraid, I wouldn’t be ready for all of this, would I?” Marguerite stared out at the crowd with a fixed smile. She only had to get through a few of these questions, a little wave, and then she pig out in the apartment and roll around in the covers of her bed.

"How confident do you feel about the games now that you've seen your Training Score?"

“An eight is a pretty solid score. I don’t really know what they were looking for, so to come out toward the top is good enough for me.” She’d wanted to be among the top tributes, but she plastered on a smile as best she could. It’d eat away at her for the next few days, recounting how she might’ve done just a little bit better to get a ‘9’. An ‘8’ seemed perfectly average for a career. God. Was she average?

"What about the other tributes? Intimidating? Interesting? Irritating?"

“I don’t… really think much of them at all.” She hadn’t. It felt foolish to judge them thus far. Having to kill someone in cold blood was what truly stood out as a test. This was all just pretend.

"What has impressed you most about the Capitol since you've been here?"

“You all will say exactly what you want to say, when you want to say it.” She fixed her face and gave another wave to the crowd.

"Tell us what a typical day in your shoes is like back home. Do you work? Do you have any hobbies or secret talents?"

“I live in a school that helped me train before getting here. I got a scholarship, so I don’t really have to work but – I clean my own clothes and help make some of the meals.” She thought about what might make her stand out. “Hobbies? I – I don’t know. I learned how to knit last summer?”

"What about romance? Cute as you are, I bet there is someone back home waiting, right?"

“I’m a free agent. I’d rather not get tied down.” She hadn’t had much of a stable relationship to speak of, after all.

"And your family. Sensitive subject, I'm sure, but... could you tell us about them?"

“Oh no, not really. My dad passed away and my mom’s out getting milk somewhere.” She gave a shrug. Her father had died years ago and her mother had ran off to who knew where. She could’ve probably hammed up what she needed, but really, she just didn’t want to.

"I want to know: What is it that you'll be fighting for in that arena? What is it you want to get back home to?"

“Umm probably the cold hard cash that comes with the crown. Being alive. Those feel like good enough reasons to walk away from here right?”

"I'm afraid we're almost out of time. Parting words to the crowd? The tributes? Your friends and family back home?"

“Just don’t.”