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Can we know more about the hunger games au you posted a while ago? If there's more to know, of course. I just have been thinking about it A LOT recently. Why did you choose X characters to be in X districts? What is the dynamic between mentors and tributes?

Funnily enough, I was actually about to write another Hunger Games AU. This post is the original Hunger Games AU but know that there is another in the works.

To start, there would be multiple Games per year, not just one, so I can keep everyone the same age

District 1 and 2 were easy, the career tributes would be the most dangerous because they're spend their entire lives training for it. And District 1 is also the ideal place for Mim to be, because District 1 basically specializes in producing living weapons and that's her favourite hobby, so most of the Mim kids would be concetrated in D1. And then D2 has most of the most noticeably dangerous non-Mim characters, the characters who have needed to learn how to fight and kill to survive.

District three has the genuises- the de Vils, and Vira, who managed to escaped to 2 with Morwenna and made a name for hirself because's xie's a genius. By the time people figured out what had happened, Vira was already established as a software super genius and was allowed to stay there with Morwenna. Of course, rebellion like that can't go unpunished regardless of how beneficial it ends up being. An example needs to be made.

District four got the sea creatures- the Hooks, Faciliers, and the Smees. Because D4 is a coastal district, the people there practically live in the water. These characters also really fit as career tributes- I mean, look me in the eye and tell me that Harriet Hook would not make a killing as a career tribute- just based on who they are in IoD, so it made sense to put them in a career district.

Agony and Chaos are in D5 because Chaos would absolutely thrive working at a power grid but is too much of a creative genius to really be able to stand the tight leash Panem has on 3, so it was the best place for him and obviously his sister has to stay with him. Constantine and Anna, genuinely forgot why I put them there. Maybe because their stored magic thing is kind of like an energy power? I'm sure I had a reason but can no longer remember it.

Yzla and Zevon were put in six because they'd be very useful there. Yzla is a master at simple medicine, meaning she'd make an excellent healer in the poorer district, and Zevon's power enables it to help by turning things into other things. And because six isn't under as much surveilence as the previous districts, they'd be able to save a lot of lives without Beast noticing them and finding a way to exploit their gifts. Murph is only there because he got sent there- six's previous mentor died and there hasn't been a new one since, so he got sent in to mentor the tributes from six until one of them wins.

I put Mal in the woods of seven because I think fae inherently belong in the woods, it's their natural habitat, and because she fits. She's small and nimble and fantastic with a knife, perfect for climbing up high in the trees to cut off branches before the tree is felled. Plus, sevens are borderline career tributes, lethal with blades because blades and cutting are their lives, and I thought that fit Mal. Justice, I just thought being a lumberjack really suited her, so I figured I would add Dawn in seven, too, and make it so that a bunch of the gods are in seven. Davin just lives there and he was chosen to be reaped as a bloodbath tribute (more on that in a second.) Seven also has quite a few Mim refugees like Mystica. There are a lot of Mim refugees spread out through the districts as a kind of secret railroad to help their family members get away from Mim

Mora was originally supposed to get to twelve, but Peacekeepers caught her. Mystica, who had volunteered to mentor for eight, lied like a rug and told everyone that yeah, that was eis little sister, Mora, what, had they seriously all forgotten Mora who moved to eight with eis? And Mystica is both public and dangerous enough that they couldn't really contest eis, so instead they just reaped Mora (transphobically, I might add) to get rid of the problem. As for Evie, I feel like the textile district is her ideal environment. She loves sewing and designing. And Desdemona just transferred there because she was trying to keep Mal from being reaped, as reaping balls love making it so that parents mentor their children or siblings mentor their siblings, but sadly, that wasn't enough to protect her sister. At least now Des isn't the one sending Mal into that arena

Cissa and Belle are in nine because their father works as a peacekeeper there, and Jonas is in nine because Frollo's travelling ministry stopped through and he decided to stay because he made friends with Cissa and literally anything was better than travelling with Frollo as a token Black kid.

Morrigan and Morticia are in ten as part of that railroad, they both volunteered for ten in absence of a mentor so they could have a legitimate reason to be there. Mavis is there because it was trying to go up to twelve but found the whole livestock business surprisingly up its alley, so it stayed and Beast realized and is trying to get rid of this situation quietly. Tarzan is just there because he loves animals so I thought the livestock district was perfect for him

I do not remember if there was a specific reason for Gigi's family being in eleven, but they're in eleven. Mabuz and Mace are both in eleven because of the railroad.

I feel like twelve, with its vast underground caves and relatively low amount of people bothering others, would be perfect for Hades. When Riah was born and Mim tried to leave him to die, Maverick left home and did her best to get him as far away from his parents as possible. No one would come looking for them in the Seam and it was unlikely someone would recognize Maverick as a missing kid and report that back to her mother, so it was the safest place in Panem for them. Hades kind of happened across them a few weeks later. He doesn't know when but at some point, Maverick had seen him accidentally doing his riches magnetism thing, and he saw her in the Hob using his magic to pick pockets. A peacekeeper caught her doing it and Hades, both out of curiousity because she was using magic just like his and out of concern for this eight-year-old child unsupervised in the Hob of all places, made the decision to cover for her. He told the peacekeeper to get his hands off of Hades's kid (they look enough alike that it was believable,) that she wasn't intentionally doing anything wrong but just couldn't control her power, and he did a bit of intimidation by making the metal objects from nearby stalls rattle and the scraggly grass at his feet wither until the peacekeeper let Maverick and him off with a warning. The second they were out of the Hob, Maverick (being Maverick,) kicked Hades in the shin and took off like a shot, not knowing that he'd managed to read a bit of her mind when he'd put a hand on her shoulder to lead her out of the Hob. He knew where she was going to go and that she was apparently living in an abandoned Victor's Village house with an extremely premature baby, so he used shadow travel to get there before her. And just like what happened in IoD, he kind of fell in love the second he saw the baby. When Maverick made it back home and saw the random guy from the Hob holding her baby brother, she panicked. Hades managed to calm her down, mostly because he still can't socialize at all and Maverick was having a hard time seeing a guy this awkward as a threat, and told her he wasn't going to hurt them and he wasn't going to tell. Swore it on the River Styx. And when Maverick grabbed his arm and used his own tactile telepathy to go into his mind and make sure he wasn't lying, she accidentally saw that he'd once lived in D7, what had happened with Maleficent, that he had lost some of his own children, and from what she could see in his memories, she could see he was the opposite of her mother. He'd taken care of his kids with everything in him, loved them more than anything just like parents should. She also saw that he was concerned about the scar on her face and about her situation in general and really wanted to help... and Maverick's gut really, really wanted her to let him. So she heard him out. Eventually, she decided that he was safe to go with. After a few years, he kind of became the dad she never had (she did not have Facilier and Ursula in this.) Maverick's Games were a lot like Lucy Grey's Geames, the Game where everything changed. Because year ten of the Games was when they decided to reap children instead of adults to see if it improved viewership, and it did. Maverick was reaped in the tenth Hunger Games as Maverick Olympian, at thirteen years old. Mim isn't stupid, she recognized Maverick, so she and Beast spent a few years trying to either trap her or kill her every year when she came back to the Capitol as a mentor, but it never worked because Maverick is extremely smart. So, they've got a new strategy, to use someone she loves to hopefully keep her off-balance long enough to kill her. So Hadie was reaped, and Riah volunteered.

Little do they know that they aren't the only ones concocting plans- well, okay, they do know, they know there's a rebel named Destiny who's been a massive thorn in their sides for years, but they don't know Destiny is Maverick. They also don't know that she's been taking advantage of her time with the other past victors while in the Capitol, and that she's become extremely good friends with Harriet Hook, who was the only twelve-year-old in history to win her Games. They kind of know the victors have been plotting, which is why there are so many siblings in this year's Games, but they have no idea the scope of what's in the works.

Now don't ask me about the exact math on this because I don't know, but here are the victors I mentioned

Harriet, youngest to ever win the Games, was freshly twelve. Her Games were the only ones that weren't ended by conflict. She was actually banding a good portion of the tributes together to fight to survive (we all stand together or we don't stand a chance and all,) so the game makers had to flood the arena so that she didn't ruin the show. Harriet survived because she's half mermaid. Her Game was also where she lost her hand, in a fight with the career pack, and no one really expected her to survive, but she did. Her mother and father died for her refusing to play the Game.

Maverick was thirteen. Her score was so high (she and Harriet are the only two in the history of the children's Games to get the highest scores, both of them getting twelves) that they actually placed a handicap on her, magic restraint cuffs, just to give the other tributes a fighting chance. She won anyway. Usually, winners from eleven or twelve are extremely unexpected, but not her. Pretty much everyone, from the audience to the makers to Beast himself, figured she would.

Diego was also fourteen. His Game was one of the most brutal, the leader of the career pack was a real piece of work- like, doing things that were too violent and disturbing for even the Games. It was so bad that the game makers decided to throw a pack of mutts in the arena the tributes had no hope of fighting against and just naming the last man standing (if there was one) the victor. The mutts went after the careers first because the makers weren't going to allow them to win, and that gave Diego the chance to raid their stash. Similar to Wiress, he was able to fashion bombs, using the landmines around the cornacopia and the bits of technology he'd found to create remote triggers. He stayed on top of the cornacopia and was good enough at ducking to avoid being driven off, so when the makers drove everyone into one place to end the Game, he was safe on top of the cornacopia while they weren't. Those landmines are how he won.

Mara was thirteen. She was reaped as a bloodbath tribute, tributes who are meant to die fast and brutally in the beginning for entertainment and to give the serious tributes a thirst for blood, but that's not how it went. They saw her disabilities and assumed she'd be an easy kill, they underestimated exactly how dedicated she was to getting home to Molly. And they forgot that disabled though she may be, Mara was still raised as a living weapon. The second she got a knife in her hand, it was over. She kind of Johanna Mason'd her way to victory, letting everyone assume she wasn't going to be a major player, until she got something useful, and then the Game was pretty much won.

Mordred was also a bloodbath tribute, but the arena was one of the worst in history- similar to the freezing arena with no supplies to make a fire, where the majority of tributes froze to death. Mordred survived by using faer power to keep hypothermia at bay.

Mischa won by being fast enough to outrun the Career pack until it was just them and him. He didn't have a weapon until one of the Careers ran him through with a sword, at which point he pulled the sword out (they stabbed him with it so now it belonged to him) and killed all eight of them. Had he not had the Rasputin Curse on his side, they would have killed him at least ten times over. But because he's nearly impossible to kill, he was the one who walked out of that arena

Ace was thirteen, three years ago. It got a score of eleven, spent its entire time training building up a reputation with the other tributes as a terrifying fighter, and genuinely scared the entire Capitol during its interview because if there was one thing it knew how to do, it was scare people. Ace's Games were the fastest in history, lasting only three days, and most of the kills were Ace's (it didn't kill anyone brutally, knowing that they weren't its real enemies and also not wanting to be the reason an innocent family would have to have a closed-casket funeral.)

Rose was fourteen. The reaping ball favours legacy tributes or tributes related to previous victors, and after the show Ace put on the previous year, it chose Rose. Rose intentionally got a low score and did everything she could to sabotage Cesar Flickerman's attempts to make her look interesting just to be contrary. But once she got into the arena, despite the game makers doing everything in their power to kill her, she outsmarted them and the other tributes at every turn. Her kills were all relatively clean, all except the last one. It came down to her versus a Career tribute who had sexually assaulted another tribute in the arena and the makers had to decide if they were going to sabotage him to avoid crowning a rapist (that kind of violence is not allowed or rewarded in the arena) or sabotaging her to avoid her family becoming a symbol, and they chose to sabotage him. Rose is one of Beast's least favourite victors because she should never have been allowed to leave that arena, the makers should have just killed both of them, and he's made sure Andi, King, and Queenie weren't reaped just to avoid more potential victors from the Hearts family.

Ivy had the same arena that Wiress had and outsmarted it in a similar way, finding a blind spot where the makers couldn't find her and staying there. She's the reason they put tracking devices in the tributes. She stayed in the blind spot for the entire game until it was just her and two other tributes. They tried to attack her and she used the arena to her advantage, using the reflections and mirages to confuse them and the weird accoustics to basically make them chase their own tails through the maze until one of the tributes fell into one of the maker's traps and the other threw an axe at Ivy's reflection and the axe bounced off of the wall and killed the girl who threw it (sort of like what Haymitch did.)

Rick's arena was uniquely dangerous in that it was stylized like an abandoned building, it looked sort of like Gault's Citadel. It was falling apart and very hard to navigate, most of the deaths were because people stepped where they shouldn't have and the floor collapsed out from under them. Rick survived by having a very fast reaction time, being light on his feet, knowing how to test the floor before putting his weight on it, and being able to catch himself on something if he did fall. He made it to the final five by getting as high up in the citadel as he possibly could, where no one wanted to follow him because the arena was more dangerous the higher up one got, and won by getting the career pack to chase him and leading them to dangerous areas he had figured out how to navigate, using the arena to kill them rather than killing them himself.

Sammy also had an arena that worked to their advantage. It was similar to the arena for the 75th Games, just excluding the clock aspect, and they discovered underwater caves with air pockets during the bloodbath. They would hide in the caves during the day, when the career pack was in the jungle hunting other tributes, and would go into the jungle at night to gather supplies. Usually the makers would have done something to force them out of the caves, but the viewers were actually loving what Sammy was doing because of how they used their underwater advantage to attack- like a crocodile, they would wait for people to get too close to the edge of the water and then pounce, either grabbing them and dragging them under or using the element of surprise to attack them on land. They'd attack the cornacopia while the career pack was out, killing whoever they'd left to guard the supplies and then taking what they wanted. They let the career pack do most of the work in killing the other tributes until they were one of seven people left, at which point they went on the offensive. They killed four tributes using skills they'd learned on a fishing boat, climbing the trees like they could climb masts and hiding in the foliage until someone passed below, at which point they would attack, using the vines to make nets. They killed the final tribute by braiding a noose and managing to get said noose around his neck from up in a tree, then jumping down to snap the guy's neck. The Capitol lost their goddamn minds over that.

Constantine's arena was the one that would randomly go dark and giant weasels would appear from the shadows and kill the tributes. Constantine found a small cave and sealed the entrance with rocks so that it was too small for the weasels to appear in there, and used a latern he had gotten from the cornacopia just to be sure they couldn't get in, as he'd figured out they could only travel through the dark. The Games were entertaining enough that the makers didn't bother trying to force him into the action until the very end, when an earthquake collapsed his hiding spot and forced him out into the night. Still, he didn't actually wind up fighting any of the other tributes. The weasels killed the remaining four, Constantine was just the last one standing because he still had his lantern.

Agony's Games were in an underground labrynth arena, similar to the Capitol Arena from Songbirds and Snakes, and hers were another Game where mutts did most of the work. Remember those horrifying lizard mutts from Mockingjay? Yeah, they had to deal with those. Agony used her gift to protect herself until the finale, when the labrynth began collapsing and forced the remaining tributes into the main area. She then used her gift to protect herself from both the other tributes and the mutts and while it didn't work perfectly and one of the mutts took off her arm and got her leg so badly it wound up needing to be amputated, she was the last tribute alive. The Capitol loved her willingness to sacrifice the other tributes- she literally embodied the "I don't need to outrun the bear, I just need to outrun whoever I'm with" joke and they loved that.

Justice's victory had nothing to do with the arena or her strategy, she was just a member of the career pack and killed the rest of them when the time was right. Look, she is a goddess of war, sometimes it is her nature to be cold and ruthless. So she was. And her Game really wasn't that interesting- everyone knew it would probably be her to win.

Murph had another ruins arena, this one more like the destroyed city arena we briefly saw in the first movie where the victor killed another kid with a brick. There was nothing very special about his game other than his victory, which was him killing the three remaining careers with his bare hands and an arrow in his stomach.

Dawn had a very standard arena but a very good strategy. Like Ivy, she evaded the makers and the other tributes, but she did so using her shadow gift. The career pack did not know she was there until after they turned against each other and only one was left standing, at which point Dawn finally reappeared and slit his throat.

Desdemona was seventeen, two years ago. Her arena was the desert arena with the snake mutts where the termperature kept rising and people died of heat stroke and thirst- Desdemona herself even has some brain damage from the heat of the arena. She survived because while the cacti in the arena were poisonous to humans, she was not human and was able to survive off of that. She also killed three separate tributes by grabbing the snake mutts and throwing them, which was both hilarious and efficient, and then killed the final tribute by kicking over a very heavy cactus (like, one of those giant cacti with the name I can't spell for the life of me) so that it fell and immobilized her long enough for Desdemona to steal her knife and slit her throat.

Mystica had an arena similar to the one for the 74th games. Ei, like Thresh, hid in the tall grass for most of the Game, until the finale. The makers sent in those dog mutts and killed three of the remaining five tributes. Mystica and the other tribute had a standoff on top of the cornacopia like Katniss and Peeta had with Cato, and eis victory stoof out because ei had no weapon so ei snapped off one of eis horns and stabbed the other tribute with it

Belle's arena was the one from Haymitch's Game, though hers also included a few mutts that didn't appear in his Game, like the rainbow snakes. She used the mutts to her advantage, figuring out what triggered their hostile modes and exploiting those triggers, luring the other tributes in and then triggering the mutts and getting the hell out of there. She survived by being very good at running and hiding. Belle had no direct kills in her Game as she just used the mutts to do that for her, but the Capitol loved her strategy.

The victors tend to be extremely close, kind of like a family. Even though they are all trying to bring their tributes home, there is never any bad blood over what happens in the arena (excluding rare occasions like the tribute Rose killed to win. His mentor saw nothing wrong with him assaulting another tribute and even thought it was funny, and the peacekeepers had to step in to keep the other mentors from committing an act of extreme violence. Even then, that mentor somehow wound up eating something with cyanide that night.) They all know that whatever happens in the arena is what someone has to do to survive, and that they can't fault a fellow survivor for doing what is necessary. The older victors look out for the younger victors, give them advice and help them stay safe and avoid Beast's wrath. Sometimes, Maverick will use her magic to influence things to keep the younger victors safe- for example, prostitution of the victors was a big thing back before she won her Games, but she used magic to put an end to it by making sure no one would buy time with anyone. If someone has a problem she can deal with subtly, she will.

Unfortunately, they all have to deal with the possibility of legacy tributes, tributes from their family. The reaping ball favours legacy tributes but legacy tributes almost always die because multiple victors from one family can turn that family into a symbol of hope against the institution of the Games. No one likes to mentor their family members, but it's too often a thing that happens. This year has the highest amount of legacy tributes ever, and everyone is pretty sure it's Beast's attempt at keeping the victors in their place.

Unfortunately, his plan to keep himself on top will wind up being his downfall.

#the darkness speaks #swearing #unnamedrat #dante anon

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