The sun rose that morning like a golden mudskipper limply managing to flop just above the water. It was as dismal a metaphor as her life was.
Her name was Generic SYOT Tribute, and today she was going to volunteer.
She watched the sun from her perch on a roof, crying- but not in an ugly way, you understand. Generic (you can call her Genny) was not one to waste her energy on such wasteful fripperies as emotional response. She cried artfully, like a painting crying, except she didn't melt because she was not made of paint because she wasn't actually a painting.
My point is that Genny's really beautiful. I'm trying to avoid the point by using overwrought metaphors, in order to make my writing sound pretty. In my head, I'm the next Aaron Sorkin, and you are my devoted fans, hanging on my every word.
Genny wiped her tears on her Iron Maiden shirt, which she wears because she's indie and Different, and also because I temporarily forgot that this story is set in a post-apocalyptic hellcountry a few hundred years from now. She spread out her arms, spun with her back to the edge of the roof, and fell backwards as gracefully as a swan that is also falling backwards off a roof. Somehow, she landed perfectly despite not looking where she was going. She had trained to do that.
Her head had really hurt after that training. She also had broken her neck learning how to do it. It was also an entirely useless skill.
Still, she pirouetted into a landing, right on the front door of the house she had been standing on. The Mayor opened the door, because she had been standing on the Mayor's roof.
"Oh, Generic," he sighed, smiling fondly. "You're such a little scamp!" He ruffled her hair.
"I defy you, disgusting pawn of the bourgeousie," Genny grinned. "One day, my people shall rise up, and you shall be ousted from your pedestal like the despicable cockroach you are."
"Such a little scamp," the Mayor continued. "Going to volunteer, Genny?"
"I've already established this to the audience, you despicable sounding-board for my feelings," Genny simpered in an artful manner. Tired of speaking to the Mayor, she pushed him back inside his house and left. She didn't like speaking to anyone. Monologuing requires a lot less effort to write, and she was too Artsy to talk anyway.
She walked through the streets to the Reaping, which is an action reduced to this single sentence because I've gotten bored of writing movement scenes and want to get to the Action. I randomly Capitalise words like 'Reaping' and 'Victor', but sometimes I don't, because I often forget which words were capitalised in the Source text and forget which I actually do in previous chapters. I have not read the source Text since 2011. I am an Artist.
Genny's younger brother stood in the twelve-year-old section. All younger siblings are twelve in Panem, by law, and all of them are dying of some malady or another, also by law. Panem is a terrible place, truly. Genny's little brother, Shameless Prim Stand-in, was currently dying of every illness known to man. Somehow, he had survived to twelve. Genny took care of him herself, because her parents were both dead. Of dying. No parents are allowed to survive to their child's Reaping. Also by law.
Anyway, a throwaway escort that in your head basically just looks like Effie comes up to the stage.
"Ladies first!" She trills, because I'm pretty sure that she said that in the films, and I'm not Original enough to come up with a better line. She picks up a piece of paper, and I spin out this moment as long as possible even though you already know who's about to get picked. I've switched tenses and you either haven't noticed or really don't care. Art is meaningless and I've mostly forgotten what I was writing in favour of watching the golf highlight show over the top of my phone. The escort finally reads out the piece of paper.
"Generic SYOT Tribute!" She called. Genny gasped, and almost fainted but didn't because that's too emotional and Genny was too Trained for emotions. She walked stoically to the stage, which basically just looks like all other walking except she paused every so often to flip her long hair and bat her eyelashes and point out that No she wasn't just some pretty girl because she was Trained and Different and she wore an Iron Maiden shirt, see, they're some band you've never heard of, Mark. Goddamnit Mark, you're lowering the tone here. We only listen to bands that everyone has heard of but pretends that nobody else has. Just get out, Mark. Get the hell o
In any case, Genny reaches the stage.
"Any words, Genny?" The escort says, handing her the microphone, which would Never happen in a reaping but for some reason the escort just wanted to let Genny speak to the world.
"Yes. I would like to say that I am going to shamelessly and publicly despise the Capitol throughout this event, and yet also wholeheartedly engage in their Machiavellian killing for entertainment. Also I think I have a brother, and that's also sad. You should be sad for me."
Nobody in Genny's district had ever talked to Genny, because she was too Different to have friends or speak. But they all loved Genny, naturally, because she was a Katniss substitute without the depth or logical reasoning to her actions, and so they all cried and started loudly discussing rebellion. I mean, not that they would, obviously, but it's not like it ever hurt a District citizen to loudly and publicly talk about rebellion.
"Shit," the escort snapped. "Now we have to switch from talking about you to Reaping the male tribute, which will undoubtedly switch the reader's perspective and interest. I'll just do it really quickly and get it over with."
So the male tribute was Cardboard Brooding Man, who brooded manfully as he came up to the stage. All real men brood nowadays. Edward Cullen. Gale Hawthorne. Probably some other poor fictional examples of relationship material, too.
"I have never met you and am about to go into a camera-filled arena where I must kill you," Cardboard brooded. "I find you incredibly attractive and/or Different."
"I too find you incredibly attractive and/or Brooding," Genny flounced. "But obviously I'm totally conflicted because I must kill you, and despite training for a bazillion years I forgot that killing people involved killing other people."
"Once I showed emotion," Cardboard said. "It was rough. I'll never do it again."
"Oh, my love!" Genny said in a perfect monotone.
Far, far away in the Capitol, President Snow made furious pterodactyl noises into his sippy cup of Evil Rose Poison.
The legend continued.
I am literally so sorry. I think the workload of writing Jacquerie has broken my sense of humour. I thought this was funny and it so, so, isn't.
As an aside- before anyone gets worried this isn't based off of any of my current SYOT submissions. This is an amalgam of the SYOT girls I've read in both my old SYOT and other SYOTs around (not naming names, but there's a lot of these around). And yes, I did mean SYOT girls. While the male tributes are often given conflicted or complex characters, the female tributes are often relegated to one of two personas- a 'Bitchy Evil Career', or a 'Different Snowflake'. A BEC doesn't have to be a Career, and a DS doesn't have to be an outlier. But they are found in their droves, and they are eminently frustrating. Women are as complex as men- you don't have to play it safe and simple with their character. Make them flawed! Make their motives questionable, their emotions varied, their characters as varied as we are in reality! It shocks me that on a site with such an imbalanced male-female ratio, we all still struggle with the classic one-track woman problem.
Anyway. I needed to get this out of my system before I could write any more of Jacquerie. I am very sorry, everyone.