22nd Throw - [ voice ]

[shenevermisses]

There are some things you just can't teach. Not after a certain point.

[She doesn't sound frustrated or upset. Just... interested, in a way.]

It's weird, in a way. Trying to teach someone to be like me and finding out that's not possible. I mean, we're doing good. Great student.

[For Rue's sake more than anything, she's not going to name her over the journals, not going to divulge what they're doing.]

But there's just something different. How we were brought up. You can't teach that.

Which I guess is why they start us young. Start training us when we're five, where I'm from. Parents who think their kids have potential agree to send them off to the Academy, where they'll only see them maybe every weekend.

Usually less than that.

From there, they weed out the undesirable. The weak, the emotional, the nervous. Every year, there are fewer students your age. By the time we're sixteen or seventeen, there's only the best left.

At that point, only the girls who are stupid enough to get pregnant get sent away.

I guess I never really thought about it, but trying to teach someone else what I grew up with? You realize that some things just can't be taught. Not after a certain point.

Comments

voice

[axed]

What are you doing?

voice

[shenevermisses]

Talking.

[It's something she's gotten used to doing. Talking to the journal, arguing or agreeing with whoever answers. It feels strange now, in a way, to hear a Victor's voice respond. Someone who knows -- really knows -- what she was.]

voice

[axed]

Don't act dumber than you already are, Career.

voice

[shenevermisses]

I got asked for training. So, I'm giving it. It's just... weird doing it. With someone not from Two.

[Voice]

[mountain_sage]

Hmm...it is true that we cannot change one's upbringing. The older we are, the more difficult it is to adjust to a new path.

However, it is not impossible, if both you and your student feel that it is worth the effort.

[Voice]

[shenevermisses]

But it is impractical.

It requires breaking someone who doesn't need to be broken.

Voice]

[mountain_sage]

...Does it? Hmm...

[He thinks back to what she said in her announcement. Breaking someone in order to be like her. It sounds like training someone to be brutal, to be heartless in order to be strong.]

...Then perhaps it would be impractical.

I assume you're teaching your student how to fight?

[Voice]

[shenevermisses]

No.

[Teaching someone to fight? That's part of it. But there's an entire mindset that she's trying to teach.]

I'm trying to teach someone to think like I do. To fight like I do. To be what I was raised to be.

voice

[foundafamily]

You'd be surprised how much people can change.

Are you sure you wanna be teachin' someone what you grew up with? Sounds like a crappy childhood to me.

[Going without a family at such a young age? Firo can safely say that'd be hell on earth.]

voice

[shenevermisses]

I had food and good teachers. I don't see how that's a bad childhood.

voice

[foundafamily]

You don't think there's anything more important than that? What about family or friends?

[Maybe she did have all that. But considering how competitive it all sounded, he doubts that.]

voice

[shenevermisses]

Family and friends come and go. Survival is what matters where I'm from. You live or you die.

[voice]

[girlverine]

People who are allowed to have a normal childhood, and are not made to become warriors, are fortunate.

The fact that she can't learn the things you were forced to do so is not a weakness.

[voice]

[shenevermisses]

[There are a lot of things she could say to that. But, well, only one comes out:]

I don't think she had what most people here would call a "normal" childhood. Just different from mine.

[voice]

[girlverine]

Mm. Still.

Children should not be turned into weapons.

[She would know.]

[voice]

[shenevermisses]

She wants to learn, so I'm going to teach her. Can't teach her everything, but I can try.

[Voice | Filtered 15%]

[rutagraveolens]

[Training hasn't been easy. Clove was a good teacher. Firm, demanding the best Rue could offer and then some, but not unkind. Clove was doing her best to teach, Rue was doing her best to learn.

But Clove was right; you couldn't learn some things.

When Rue responds, she does her best to filter her message to Clove.]

Thank you for teaching me anyway.

[Voice | Filtered 15%]

[shenevermisses]

Teaching you to fight won't be the problem.

[She smiles just a bit, and it probably carries into her voice at least a small amount.]

Just... Don't think I can teach you the career mindset. Which, according to just about everyone here, as you can see, should be considered a good thing.

[Voice | Filtered 15%]

[rutagraveolens]

You can't really blame them. I don't think anyone else has Games where they're from. Other things, but not Games. They don't know what it's like.

[Written | Unhackable]

[whiskytraitorfirefight]

[Ginia takes her time reading Clove's post, the messages that come in. It's horrifying to hear, would be for anyone, but she can't judge. Not when one of her best allies and friends grew up in a barracks and was a child soldier, a mercenary by sixteen.

Her world doesn't have games, but it's not any better.

But Panem... she remembers Peeta mentioning the place. And she remembers the girl from her own post too.]

Skills you can always learn. May never get as good as someone who's used them all their life or may turn out you're a natural. But mindsets, people always forget about those. You can't learn those, not really.

Train them well. They're your responsibility now. Make sure they know enough so they don't get hurt, don't die.

[Written | Unhackable]

[shenevermisses]

Yeah, no. I'm not making that kind of a promise to anyone.

They get killed, that's their own fault, not mine.

[She's learned a lot in two years. Learned to care about people, learned... little by little... how to be human. But she's still a Career, under it all. There's no one she feels responsible for except herself. No one she will sacrifice herself for. No one she wouldn't kill if it meant she lived another day.]

[Written | Unhackable]

[whiskytraitorfirefight]

Fair enough. You can train them, but they have to be able to use what you've taught them.

[When to run, when to fight, how to stay alive, it's all things to learn but it's different out in the field. When every situation is different and can go south in a second. And maybe whoever is being taught will never have to use those skills, never have to fight or kill or do what it takes to stay alive. Maybe. Maybe not.]

Hey. You once gave me advice about staying useful here. [About staying here, staying alive.] Thanks.

[written, camera obscured]

[readytobe]

Your brain - and body - are still developing when you are so young. Your environment drastically influences how they grow.

[So, he agrees, basically. :|b ]

What does your Academy teach?

[written, camera obscured]

[shenevermisses]

How to kill.

[Simple enough. And it's all she really needs to say. They'd been trained from the time they were five until seventeen or eighteen. They knew best how to kill.]

[written, camera obscured]

[readytobe]

[WELL THATS INTERESTING...]

And it is a place accepted by your society?