open;

[aintyourdad]

Who| Joel, Ellie, anyone else!
What| Joel shows up and gets tossed into the ring. Let's see how he does!
Where| I can put him just about anywhere in the museum you need - he'll be scoping the place out.
When| Mid-Week 1
Warnings/Notes| Joel is a highly suspicious dude and may assume anyone he meets is hostile until proven otherwise. This means he might punch first and ask questions later! I'll update this if anything else comes up.

Finally, please specify if you would like to meet Joel before he finds Ellie or after - if before, he'll be on his own, really worried about his baby girl, and slightly more prone to violence. If AFTER, you will probably get Joel and Ellie (two for the price of one!), and a lower chance of Joel trying to throttle you immediately.



"Put your hands in the air!" "She's not breathin'."

He woke with a start, phantom pain in his head and surrounded by - military? They were clearly military, but not any military he was familiar with. When they grabbed him, all sense went out of his head - normally, Joel would go quietly, because struggling tended to get people shot, but all he could think, all he could remember, was Ellie, her body so still. She's not breathin'.

"Where is she?" he demanded, over and over, landing a few punches but never able to break free. The pajamas they made him wear, the explanation given, all barely registered as he had only one thought in his head - find Ellie now. "What the hell did you bastards do to her?" he demanded yet again, attempting to yank his arm free when they came at him with a needle. Still, nothing. His shouts and struggles were in vain, and the next thing he knew, he was... in a parking garage?

With no one around to confront, and the knowledge that he was here to kill, or be killed, Joel quickly shoved his feelings to one side, dropping low and seeking a stairwell to climb to higher ground - it would take him a bit to realize the only way up was via elevators that actually still worked. They were far too slow and noisy for Joel's taste, but it became obvious that they were his only option, and he needed to get to higher ground, if he was going to find anything. Especially Ellie.

Joel moved quickly, quietly, and with one singular purpose: find the girl, and get the hell out of here.

Comments

[aintyourdad]

Joel made a disdainful kind of snort. "Bored, rich assholes," he said. He'd known the type, back before the outbreak, anyway. Most of them didn't seem to have survived the infection, at least, but there were always the soldiers, too. The ones on duty inside the QZ, with itchy trigger fingers, excited at the prospect of putting down the Fireflies and other agitators, then got bored when things were too quiet.

Bored soldiers were dangerous soldiers.

These bored people just preferred not to do the killing themselves, apparently.

"Probably got tired of watchin' the fake stuff."

[celebrityskinned]

"It's not meaningless. It's something they can believe in."

Venus knows she's in the minority in this conversation, but she finds herself protective not of the system, which she's come to sour on, but of the idea. Of taking meaning through the vicarious lives of others.

When she was a little girl, sometimes it was all that would get her through. And sometimes it wasn't enough and she'd wake up in the hospital.

"The people watching aren't the ones who pull the strings to make this happen. They're just watching a fairytale with real props, as far as they're concerned."

[privilegecheck]

"Nevertheless, they enable it," Kankri mutters in discontent. "Their inability to see us as people does not make us any less so. They may believe as they like, but forcing others to participate for their own satisfaction is simply - wrong. Disgusting. We aren't props."

He takes another, rather more savage bite of his pastry as he glances over at their guests.

"I'm sorry you both have been pulled into this, for what it's worth. I wish you luck in surviving or in escaping this arena, whichever is your priority."

A pause, and then he pokes Venus in the side. "You need to eat, not just pick at that, you know."

[onlyimmune]

"Look, there's no point arguing about it," Ellie said quickly, holding a hand up. "Not here, anyway." Not where everyone was watching.

"We're here, and it's shit, and it's going to keep being shit. And thanks, Kankri. You guys, too."

[aintyourdad]

Joel rolled his eyes rather emphatically at Venus's comments, but he didn't say anything to it - Ellie was of a similar mindset. He saw no point in arguing about the ethics of putting people unwillingly into a death match. Anyone who honestly thought it was okay on any level wasn't someone Joel felt like dealing with. At all. But arguing about it was stupid.

"Thanks for the food," he said, addressing Kankri directly for the first time since he'd made his appearance on the scene. It was probably the closest thing to an apology he'd get, for the way Joel had reacted.

[celebrityskinned]

"I'm eating, I'm eating, Christ on a cracker..." Venus puts another hunk of cinnamon roll on her mouth and swallows it, looking like she wants to spit it out the whole time.

"All I'm saying is that you have to be the change you want to see in here. That's Gandhi, right? We're in a morality play, and what message they get out of this is partly based on what we do inside the Arena. We can live by their rules or we can tell them what rules they want to live by." She looks towards where she's convinced a camera is hidden and gives it a rather intent stare. She's not really talking to Joel, Ellie and Kankri right now.

"Anyway, stay safe, Ellie. I'll know if you aren't." It's a threat to Joel, too. Watch over her.