cara maslow pk | fin | Hunger Games: The RPG

cara maslow pk | fin Jan 15, 2016 13:19:56 GMT -5

Post by Lyn𝛿is on Jan 15, 2016 13:19:56 GMT -5

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Cara Eveline Maslow

thirty-two. Peacekeeper. female

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a schoolteacher, or maybe a principal. My parents could only try to humor me, as they'd heard of no kid knowing exactly what they wanted to do when they grew up, but I was a natural-born leader. Ever since I was in elementary school, I could just imagine myself standing at the front of the class, my words going straight to the younger kids' impressionable little heads. I would grade their assignments, and know exactly who were the good students and who were the bad ones. Oh, and I'd discipline them, since if I were the teacher I'd be able to actually enforce the rules. For kids who broke the rules needed to be punished, and my watchful eyes could spot the details that even my teachers missed. The ones who called me a tattle-tale were just all sour-grapes about being caught misbehaving. It wasn't fair that the teacher cracked down on some people and not others, because the discipline chart oversaw everything as the rascals climbed up its levels.

When I was a teen, I wanted to be a scientist. I did grow up in District Six, after all, and it didn't take me long to develop much bigger ambitions than the prospect of teaching at the shabby little high school I attended. Psychology, in particular human behavior, fascinated me, and I could think of a dozen experiments in my head that I would perform if I had the resources of the Institute and the power to do what I pleased with them. Oh, how zestfully I pored over the textbooks, studies about swaying bridges and salivating dogs running through my brain like an obsession. If I ever had kids, I thought, I would want to raise them exactly like the psychology experiments, so I could test the theories out for myself. I watched the professors writing grant proposals, and my heart swelled to think of myself joining their ranks when I graduated and never having a shortage of people to manipulate again.

But as I found out, being a Peacekeeper is way more fun.

Turns out, lab work is pretty shitty and boring, most of the time. Looking through numbers to find a six percent difference at the statistically significant level is not my idea of a good time, and neither is submitting rough draft after rough draft to change the wording on a reviewer's whims before my papers could get approved. I wanted to explore, I wanted exciting stories and subtle manipulation and watching the subjects as they fell apart, but a scientist had to repress all that for the sake of getting accurate data.

I could do those things empirically, with the students I TAed for. But teaching was such a small part of a professor's duties, and the others in the labs only spoke of what a chore their teaching duties were and how they hoped to only do research all day, every day. They saw their students as faceless leeches draining their time and energy, but I found that my students energized me, as I was able to see each of them as individuals, their test scores and homework patterns painting vivid narratives in my mind, weaving together a palette of the University.

Oh, I was strict on them, of course. I could always tell who was putting forth their best effort and who wasn't, and I had high expectations for their performance. Students who were slacking off deserved the low grades they got, those who worked hard got rewarded. I was a fair TA, after all. And under my guidance, I watched relationships bloom and wilt, tributes from District Six coming so close to victory only to have it snatched away, students rising to the challenge or falling under pressure. And that was the best part, knowing that because of my challenging curriculum, I changed my students' paths, that I was there when they cast aside their bewildered freshman gazes and grew into budding young scientists.

But it was not enough.

District Six does not often produce Peacekeepers, but we were recruited from occasionally, when the Capitol desires the more scientific minds the district has to offer. I hadn't been accepted to the Institute, so when they came the year I graduated from the University, I didn't think twice before joining them.

The physical training was tough for someone as flabby as I was. I was still built more like a scientist than the former Careers that made up the bulk of the Peacekeeping forces. With my frizzy, reddish-brown hair tied in a bun and a pair of rimless spectacles perched on my nose, I may look vaguely authoritative, but not intimidating the way an enforcer of the law should. Some of the people in my class have remarked that I look "too pretty to be a Peacekeeper", seemingly intending it as a compliment. Indeed, I have prominent cheeks and a rounded face, unblemished skin the picture of innocence.

But I would not consider myself innocent. I enjoy pulling others' strings far too much for that, making their plots turn out just the way I want them to. With a quirk of my thin eyebrows, I gaze at them questioningly, my eyes widening and staring into their soul. Having amply examined the target's history, I can peel away their layers of personality like an onion. When I worked with psychology study subjects, I wore white collars and lab gear, but now I don a Peacekeeper's uniform for my job. Even out of uniform, however, I still dress sharply, my suits and pencil skirts marking me as a respectable member of the community. Now, underneath the curves my body still possesses, I am thickly muscled, having risen to the occasion just as they demanded of me to become a Peacekeeper. I would settle for nothing less, of course. And it was all worth it.

Hardship builds character, after all. Just as that holds true for my own education and Peacekeeper training, I strive to apply it to the criminals we catch. In the great legends, the heroes only become heroes through hardship, and the villains receive their due comeuppance. And each person is the hero of their own story, so we are the ones who try to fit their punishment to their narrative. Even I had been a humble researcher once, until I found my calling as a Peacekeeper, as the true heroes of Panem striking down the miscreants in our midst. And I enjoy watching them as they suffer, because without suffering there is no story, no growth, no progress.

Those whose characters were flawed shall see that flaw become their tragic downfall. I'm a great believer in poetic justice; slanderers get their tongue cut out, arsonists get burned, embezzlers have their fingers sliced off bit by bit. They are playthings, putty in my hands as I dole out their just desserts. I know more than anyone that a harsh enough punishment can force even an entitled jerk to reconsider their lifestyle, that life-changing consequences are the best way to change how a person sees the world. In my own situation, if it weren't for the professor who refused to recommend me to the Institute, as foul as that man was, I might not be here right now, might be still chasing after the elusive grail that was a job in academia.

So when I sentence someone, I choose the punishment carefully, in hopes that I'll get to watch them change and develop. Trust me, if I honestly thought they were so hardened of a criminal as to be incapable of responding to anything, I'd have sent them off to the torture techniques experiments, or just plain executed them. Ultimately, it's up to them whether they truly take the lessons to heart, but I like to think that I see the potential in everyone, even if it takes a pound of flesh or a pound of blood to make it emerge. That's why being a teacher was enjoyable, being a psychologist was fascinating, and it's why I love my job as Peacekeeper.