Herman LaPorte, 18
District Five


"All right, are we all here now?" Mack asked, frantically trying to set up the supplies on the table in his and Noel's house. "We have a limited amount of time before the results of the competition are announced so I want to make sure we can get in at least a little bit of play today."

"That sounds good," replied Ella, who was fiddling with her set of dice. "I'm excited to get really into the campaign. It seems fun"

"Yeah! I was thinking today we'd just do a bit of combat practice today, more or less where we left off, and then pick up a bit more of the storyline of the campaign next time, seeing as though we didn't get any time to practice with combat earlier this week."

"Combat sounds good," Herman agreed. "I'm excited to give it a try!"

"Yeah! It takes a bit of practice but you should be good at it. Now, if everyone could position their avatars on the map we'll get started."

As the other competitors placed their virtual player figurines onto the virtual map, Mack began to set the scene. "So, you're walking through the meadow that we talked about last time, beginning to hunt for the guardians. Ringing bells? We remembering? Great. So you're walking through the field and all of a sudden you come across an owlbear!"

"A what?" asked Sigmund.

"An owlbear." With a few flicks of his fingers, a figurine dropped down in front of the heroes, screeching as it reared its bird-like head. "This."

"Oh. It really is an owl and a bear."

"Precisely. Everyone roll initiative!"

Herman watched as Jack, Ella, and Sigmund rolled their dice. Then, he carefully took his twenty-sided die and rolled it across the table. Unfortunately, he rolled a little too hard, causing his die to fall off the table and onto the floor. "Oops. I'll get it!" Herman exclaimed, embarrassed that he was, yet again, holding up the group. He got out of his chair and crawled under the table, slowly groping around for the die but struggling to actually spot it, because the other competitors' legs were blocking out the light coming in and because he had accidentally knocked his glasses off of his face at some point in between sitting in his chair and being on the floor. After a few moments of blindly searching, Herman finally felt the small, smooth surface of the die he was looking for. "Got it!" Herman exclaimed. Somehow forgetting he was under a table, Herman stood up, knocking his head on the table. This in turn, thanks to Herman's six foot six stature, caused him to overturn the table, despite the fact that Herman was a rather lanky teenager. As if in slow motion, the table fell over, causing the map, tablets, dice, and shield to go clattering all across the floor.

"Herman!" exclaimed the other competitors, with varying degrees of exasperation in their voices.

"Are you ok?" Ella asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine, replied Herman groggily. "My head just hurts."

"Competitors!" announced Violet Emerald. "It is almost time to announce the results from this morning's competition. Everyone should please immediately return to their houses. You should find that the fourth room in your house is now unlocked. Please enter that fourth room and close the door behind you, for the sake of sound quality, and await further instructions."

"Welp," Mack said, "it looks like we'll have to pick this up afterwards. I'll try my best to make sure that everything is all ready to go so we don't have to waste time with that. Are you all good to come back later?"

"If we're not in the challenge, I'm happy to!" Jack asserted. "Maybe I'll see if Paisley wants to come with me. She said she needed some time to herself, so I hope she's OK."

"I'm sure she's fine," Herman said comfortingly. "Everybody needs a break."

"That's true. Well, good luck, everybody!"

"Good luck!"

Jovially, Herman left Mack's house and threw the door shut behind him, inadvertently slamming the door in Sigmund's face. He strode home confidently, or at least as confidently as he could, enjoying the warm, sunset orange glow that bathed the Arena; Herman didn't have much of a sense of how the other competitors did in the morning challenge, but he knew that he and his team didn't do so great and that a lot of that was because he was clumsy and fell and spilled water a bunch. It wasn't that Herman felt that he had to win, but he didn't want to lose if he was losing because he'd messed up, and he couldn't help but feel that he had messed up. Admittedly, things weren't over if they lost, but if Herman and Kiyo went into the elimination challenge; even though Pax and Pax might not be the best Career team, they were still Careers, and Careers were hard to beat. So Herman just had to hope that at least one other pair of teams did worse than he and Kiyo did, or he'd be going back to Five feeling like he'd let everyone down.

Herman was so deep in his thoughts that he didn't realize he'd already arrived at his house; he was maybe four steps away from walking into his window before he noticed where he was and diverted his course so that he instead walked in through the door. "Hi Kiyo!"

"Hello, Herman. Did you have fun?"

"Yes! Well, we didn't get to do all that much, but we're probably gonna go back later. Are you sure you don't wanna join us?"

"I dunno," Kiyo shrugged solemnly. "Maybe."

"Well, shall we?" Herman asked, gesturing to the purple door in their house.

"I suppose so," replied Kiyo. They stood up, went over to the purple door, and opened it, then stood back to allow Herman to enter first.

The room in which they found themselves was small, smaller than they expected, and well lit, even though it had no windows. On the wall to their left was a large television screen, which was ringed by a strip of some sort of lights that, by some miracle, weren't all that blinding. Just to their right were two plush, white chairs, positioned on opposite sides of some sort of podium; the whole setup was centered underneath a large, circular plaque of Five's seal affixed on the orange back wall. Hung around the seal were some small, metal hooks that had a bit of a rustic quality to them, somehow matching the texture of the wooden plaque even though the hooks were probably made of metal. Waiting for the competitors on the podium was a wire display stand, on which the medallions that they had now been presented with twice, once at the send-off and once in Thirteen, were hanging.

"Well, I guess we're supposed to sit in the chairs," Herman said.

"I suppose so."

"Do you think it matters who takes which medallion?"

"Well, the ribbons are in our assigned colors, so I guess they want it to matter," Kiyo replied, sitting down in the chair on the right. They carefully took the medallion with the teal ribbon off of the stand and put it on, then took the other medallion, which had a lavender ribbon, off of the stand and handed it to Herman. The much taller boy took the medallion, then sat down in the other chair and desperately tried to get comfortable, but given that Herman was so tall and the chair was pretty low to the ground, it was hard for him to find any position where his knees weren't parallel to his face. After a bit of squirming, he found something that was remotely decent, or at the very least not the least comfortable position he'd ever been in. Hopefully his feet wouldn't fall asleep.

After a few moments of silence, the monitor in front of the pair from Five lit up, displaying the seal of the Capitol. The anthem of Panem played, and then the face of Violet Emerald appeared on the screen.

"Good afternoon, everybody. I hope you had pleasant afternoons. Welcome to the first results ceremony for the Second Events! I'm going to explain to you how the results ceremony will normally work first. I will normally begin by announcing the team that has won the morning competition. In most cases, that team will find out that they have won earlier in the day, so they have time to think about the team they will be sending into the elimination challenge. But it will not be until the results ceremony that they will receive their medallions, which I'll explain more about in a bit. After I announce the winning team, the first-place team will submit to me their choice of team to compete in the evening's challenge. I will then reveal to everyone the two teams that will be competing in the elimination challenge.

"With that being said, let's move on to the reveal of the first-place teams! This was a hard-fought challenge, with only a few ounces of water separating the first-place pair of teams and the second-place pair of teams. But in the end, there can only be one winning team. And for today, that team is… the pairs from… Six and Eight! Congratulations to all of you."

"Can't say I'm all that surprised," admitted Kiyo, as the image on the screen shifted from just showing Violet to also showing the video feeds from Six and Eight's houses. Paisley and Jack seemed very excited, giving each other strong high-fives and chattering excitedly, while Sigmund and Ella were a bit more subdued in their happiness, though they also seemed proud to be safe. "We had a rough go."

"Yeah," replied Herman, beginning to sweat a little. He started to fiddle with the ribbon of his medal. This did not look good.

"Now," Violet said, "about the medallions. The winner of each morning challenge will receive a medallion representing the value of that challenge, that will come into play at some later point in the Events. If you have a medallion and your team is eliminated, you will be asked to bequeath it to a team that is still in the game. If you have multiple medallions, you may choose to give them all to the same team, or you may divide them between multiple teams, but you may not divide a medallion in half. I say this because my new, er, assistants gave me the wrong version of the script this morning, which was from before we decided that each team competing in today's challenge will receive one whole medallion instead of half of one, as for the fourteenth district's challenges, there can't really be a winner."

"That makes sense," Herman explained to Kiyo, who did not seem particularly interested in what Herman had to say. "If one team is eliminated every day, by the fourteenth day, there would only be one team left."

"Uh-huh."

"So," proclaimed Violet, "Paisley and Jack, I am pleased to present you with the Medallion of Teamwork, and Sigmund and Ella, I'm pleased to present you with the Medallion of Trust." Herman watched as the medallion stands in Six and Eight's house seemed to lower down into the podium. After a moment, the stands rose back up, each bearing a circular plaque that was without a doubt bigger than the medallions that the competitors were wearing, yet still smaller than the larger plaques on the walls. The cameras zoomed in on the medallions, helping Herman to clearly see the wooden texture on the two plaques. However, while the wall plaques were still the color of wood, these new plaques were painted; Sigmund and Ella's was orange, while Paisley and Jack's was baby blue. "Once we are done, if you would each please pick a hook and hang your medallion up, that would be great.

"Now, the part that I am sure has made you nervous. The two last place teams. When I announce the pair of teams that came in last, those two teams will immediately return to their rooms and change into their uniforms for the elimination challenge. You will then go to the Elimination Challenge Arena, which is due south of the courtyard. The remaining competitors are allowed to hang out in each other's houses and in the courtyard, but you may not join us for the competition. When the challenge is over, the team that returns is at liberty to share what they want to about what happened to your fellow competitors.

"I believe that is all I have to say. So, without further ado, the teams heading into the elimination challenge are… the pair from Seven and the pair from Three."

Herman felt a huge wave of relief wash over him. Yes, there was still a one in two chance that a team in his alliance would be eliminated today. But at least that team wouldn't be Herman and Kiyo.

Herman still had a chance to prove himself.


Mallory Farro, 16
District Eleven Mentor
Competitor in the First Events


"So, without further ado, the teams heading into the elimination challenge are… the pair from Seven and the pair from Three."

Mallory felt a huge wave of relief wash over her body. It stressed her out that there was really very little she could do to support her competitors, even less than in the Games. Well, Mallory wouldn't know that firsthand, but that was Ivie said, because you couldn't sponsor your competitors or anything like that. Hopefully, once popularity began to factor in, there would be ways to talk up the Capitolites and influence their decisions on who to vote for; as neither girl was particularly strong, their survival probably depended on whether or not they could keep themselves popular enough with the Capitol to not end up in the elimination challenges. It seemed as though they might have a leg up on some of the other outer district teams on that front, though, as Xayah and April had been paired with the Capitol pair for the morning challenge. Maybe then the Capitolites would pay a bit more attention to them (or, at least, Mallory hoped so).

But for now, her two children were safe. And that was what was important.

The same could not be said for everyone, though. As Mallory felt her heart rate slowly decrease back to a more or less normal rate, she found her eyes drawn to the District Seven station. Sawyer was one of Mal's closer friends from the Events, so while Mal was happy to see her team live another day, she could only imagine how stressed out Sawyer must be about the fact that her competitors were some of the first on the chopping block. After all, nobody wanted to be the first district eliminated.

"Phew!" Ivie exclaimed, leaning back in her chair. "One challenge down, and it seems twelve more to go." She reached out her hand to Mallory, who high-fived it in response.

"It'll only get harder for them from here, right?" asked Crixus, exchanging his own high-fives with the rest of the team.

"Hard to say. This is the point where popularity starts to matter so I can definitely see us running into some problems, but let's not think about that right now. Our kids are safe and that's all that matters!"

"I love how you call them our kids as if the five us aren't basically all the same age," Crixus retorted with a slight smile on his face. "But yes, I see where you're coming from. What's next?"

"Funny you should ask. We actually have to run. We have a viewing party tonight in…" Ivie checked her watch, "twenty-five minutes. Come on."

Rather than live in the Training Center during the Games, the mentors had small apartments in the same building as the mentors' headquarters. This way they could dip into their rooms to get some rest when they had a free couple of hours without having to go all the way back to the Training Center, and they could quickly change clothes from the outfits they wore to sponsor parties to more casual clothing for the mentor room and vice versa. While they'd had some time to unpack their suitcases into their apartment before the competitions started, Mallory and Crixus still didn't really know her way around, so they followed Ivie through the hallways of mentor HQ until they reached their apartment. Mallory quickly changed into a cocktail dress and slicked her pale blonde hair up into a high ponytail before going over to Ivie for some makeup help. A quick flurry of brushes and a swipe of lipstick later, Mallory was ready for the party.

When they arrived, Mallory was surprised to find that the room was rather full. She had kind of assumed that because it was the Events, there would be fewer people who were interested in parties like this, but the room was just as full as she assumed Games viewing parties would be. Brightly-colored Capitolites milled about the room, taking food from the many buffets and visiting the betting stations sprinkled around. "I head that they doubled betting payouts for the Events to get people to watch," Ivie whispered to Mallory and Crixus.

"That would explain things," Mallory replied.

"All right, team. Try your best to interact with other people. Play up the sob stories of our kids; it's sad but it's the strategy we gotta use to get those votes. Remember that not everything is based on physical strength even though it might seem that way, and we just gotta remind them of that as well. And if they ask about how other people are voting, what do we do?"

"We lie and say they have a good fanbase."

"Very good. Now go have fun. And make sure to eat something."

Crixus nodded and wandered off. But Mallory chose instead to stick by Ivie's side. The two navigated around the room, Mallory letting Ivie take the lead in conversations so she could kind of get the hang of it. Especially as a more introverted person, going up to people to work them was difficult for Mallory to figure out how to do, but she felt much more capable and comfortable with Ivie. The two spent what seemed like both four hours and five minutes at the same time working the room before the anthem of Panem played and screens all over the wall displayed the seal of the Capitol. Then there was some sort of pretty animation of the districts' medals that played before revealing the faces of Harli and Dorian.

"Good evening, Panem! Welcome to the first night of the First Events! I'm Dorian Muir here, as always, with Harli Saleman."

"That's me! We hope you all are as excited as we are for tonight's first elimination. We'll begin with a quick recap of the morning's challenge for those of you who did not watch live."

As a trimmed-down version of the morning challenge played, Ivie guided the other two towards a small, sectioned-off area of the room where the other mentors were gathered. Most of the mentors seemed pretty relaxed, chatting with each other and kind of tuning out the television, but Mallory wasn't particularly interested in socializing now. "I'm going to go and look for Sawyer," Mallory said.

"Sounds good."

Mallory wove through the group of mentors until she got to Sawyer, who was sitting right in front of one of the televisions. She had never really seen Sawyer be anxious, but there was a first time for everything, and the way that Sawyer fidgeted with the hem of her dress with one hand as she stirred her drink with the other clearly indicated how the mentor from Seven was feeling. Mallory delicately took a seat in the chair next to Sawyer and gave the other girl a little tap.

"Oh, hi, Mallory," Sawyer said, taking a quick glance behind her before turning her attention back to the television.

"Hi, Sawyer. How are you doing?"

"Oh, just a bit nervous."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"I mean, you can't compete in the challenge for my competitors, so nope, but thanks for the offer."

"Of course."

Mallory kind of wanted to try to make small talk, but she could see that Sawyer wasn't having it. So instead she just sat, there to comfort Sawyer if at all possible, waiting for the elimination challenge to start.

After showing the challenge, Harli and Dorian introduced the results ceremony, which the mentors had also already seen in its entirety. Once it was done, Harli said, "While the competitors will not find out their exact placements if they are not in first or last, we will, of course share that information with you!" A graphic appeared on screen that showed the placements of the other five teams. Mallory was happy to see that the combined pair of Eleven and the Capitol had managed to pull off a second-place finish. That would definitely prove that Eleven's competitors were a force to be reckoned with.

Finally, it was time for the elimination challenge. The camera switched to the Arena, where the teams from Three and Seven were set up for the challenge. Kubi and Oksana were standing on platforms high above a maze, while Darcy and Kamela were at separate entrances to the maze, both blindfolded. "This evening's challenge is rather simple," Harli explained. "As you can see, one member of each team has been blindfolded. Their partner will be instructing them from above, navigating them through the maze; the first team to ring the bell at the end of the maze will win the challenge. Now, the competitors have been given some time to strategize already because there is one little twist in this challenge. They can either navigate right to the end of the maze, or they can navigate to the middle of the maze where the blindfolded competitor can grab an earpiece that will allow them to hear their partner more easily, and then get to the end. It's up to them which path they choose to take and what they think will be the fastest."

"So you're telling me that Darcy and Oksana voluntarily decided to have Oksana be the caller?" Sawyer exclaimed.

"It seems that way," replied Mallory.

"You've got to be kidding. You've actually got to be kidding. That is the worst possible idea they could have had."

"Hey, Sawyer, relax. Remember, they're not gonna die," Alvin, Sawyer's co-mentor, pointed out. "And Oksana did seem motivated earlier. Maybe she and Darcy have talked things over and this will go swimmingly!"

"Well, even if they don't die, I don't want our kids to be the first ones out," Sawyer remarked. "So I really hope so."


Darcy Spades, 17
District Seven


As Darcy stood at the entrance to the maze, waiting for the challenge to begin, she couldn't help but feel her heart race, for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, she was nervous about the challenge; after all, her and Oksana's fates would be determined by whatever happened in the next twenty or so minutes. There wasn't any danger of dying or anything of the sort, but nobody wanted to be the first to be eliminated. Not only was it a poor reflection on your abilities, but it also reflected poorly on your district. Darcy certainly didn't want to let down the district that had put its trust in her, and she assumed Oksana didn't either.

Darcy was, admittedly, worried about Oksana though. The two had agreed that they'd rather go slower and steady through the challenge; it was a far better option than rushing through it and getting lost and having to backtrack or walking into a wall or something, and once Darcy got the earpiece, they'd feel a bit more comfortable taking bigger steps. Oksana had insisted that she was able and ready to call, and that she'd be able to keep her cool under pressure and keep up with their strategy. But the girl was young, and still a bit emotionally volatile, which made sense as she'd already gone through so much in her short life. Darcy had to trust that Oksana would be able to do what she said – if she didn't trust her partner, who could she trust? – but she could only hope that the pressure would not get to the younger girl.

And of course, there was the minor detail that she was blindfolded. Whatever material this blindfold was made out of was really good at blocking out light, far better than the strips of cloth that she and her classmates would use to cover their eyes for the games they would play as children. She could only imagine that this was what it must be like to be blind; it was absolutely petrifying to have absolutely no sense of where she was or what she was doing. She was totally at the mercy of her partner, which was unbelievably nerve-wracking for reasons that she'd already reviewed in her head multiple times.

"Competitors!" Violet's voice bellowed through the Arena. "The challenge will begin momentarily. It will begin at the sound of a gong."

Darcy took a deep breath. She wasn't sure if she was hearing things but it almost sounded like there was more noise in the Arena now, as if the Gamemakers were piping some sort of white noise (or maybe it was the sound of the Capitol crowds watching the Events; Darcy wasn't sure) into the Arena. Either way, whatever was going on, she couldn't seem to discern the sound of Oksana's voice from the other sounds she was hearing. She closed her eyes – not that she needed to close them, she was already blind enough – and tried to tune herself into the sound of her partner's voice.

Finally, Darcy found what she was listening for. "Darcy!" called Oksana from above.

"Oksana?" Darcy called back.

"Are you ready?"

"I think so. Are you ready?"

"Yeah," replied Oksana, her voice shaking, betraying nerves that up until then had been well-camouflaged by her veneer of confidence. "Let's do this."

And with that, the gong sounded, and the challenge was underway.

"All right, Darcy. So you're holding on to a bar right?"

"Yeah!"

"Good. Move a little bit to your right… a little more… keep going until you reach the end of the railing and that's when you'll reach the entrance to the maze."

Darcy moved slowly and delicately until she felt her hand slip off of the end of the bar. Panicking a little bit, she groped around until her hand was on the bar again. "I'm there!" she called. "What next?"

"OK, so the entrance to the maze is going to be just to your side."

Darcy waited for more instructions, but when they didn't come, she asked, "Which side?"

"To your right! There you go. Now, at this point, there should always be a handrail to hold onto on your left… yes, your left side. Can you take a few steps forward and grab it?" Darcy carefully followed Oksana's instructions, slowly shuffling forward and vaguely reaching out with her left hand until she managed to grab hold of another bar. She carefully took her right hand and gave Oksana a thumbs up. "Amazing. Now, we're gonna start walking forward…"

"…step step BACK step step BACK!" another voice cut in.

"Forward! Forward!"

"… step step BACK step step BACK!"

Darcy furrowed her brow, desperately trying to discern Oksana's voice from Kubi's. Unfortunately, Kubi's prepubescent voice was rather similar in tone to Oksana's, and so with both of them screaming out, it became nearly impossible to figure out whose voice was whose.

"Oksana, what are you telling me to do?"

"Go FORWARD and then-"

"… step step RIGHT!"

Darcy took a few steps forward, then took a step to the right. As she did, she found herself stretching to keep her hand on the bar. "Do you want me to keep going?"

"No! Yes! Wait! Uhhhh… Ahh! I don't know!"

"Take a deep breath, Oksana," Darcy attempted to console her teammate over the sound of both Kubi and whatever piped-in white noise they were using. "We have time to do this. Just… here. Try saying my name at the beginning of each sentence. That might help. And remember, slow and steady. Just give me little instructions."

"OK. Slow and steady. Slow and steady." There was a pregnant pause, during which Darcy tried her best to desensitize herself from all the sounds that surrounded her. "Darcy, take three steps forward." Darcy did. "Darcy, take two more steps forward." Darcy did. "OK! Now I think if you take like two steps forward from there you'll be able to take a turn left. See if you can do the same thing with the bar on the side that you did earlier. So like when you make the turn you'll kind of feel the end of the railing, and then when you take the left turn there should be another bar to your left."

"Yeah, I got it!"

"Great!"

Darcy and Oksana continued in this pattern for a while, Oksana having Darcy move maybe three or four steps at a time so that if Darcy got confused, Oksana could easily redirect her. It was a slow process, sure, but even though there was a small sense of urgency in the back of Darcy's mind, she trusted Oksana. Darcy could see- er, sense that the younger girl was committed to executing this challenge the way that the two had agreed upon. But as the challenge continued, Darcy began to get the sense that Oksana was getting anxious about their chances; the girl's voice was getting shakier, and she was slowly starting to give Darcy larger and larger step counts. Not to mention that it had been quite a long time since they started, or at least it felt that way, and Darcy still had no earpiece.

"Are you taking me to the middle? That was our plan, right?"

"We're already past the middle. We… we don't really have time," said Oksana.

"OK, I trust your decision. We've got this. I believe in you."

"Take a couple more steps forward…"

Suddenly, the clear tone of a bell rang out across the Arena. Darcy froze as she heard the echoes that reverberated across the Arena, almost feeling the sound waves wash over her, carrying the news that she had hoped not to hear: she and Oksana had lost.

It was like a cloud of fog rolled into Darcy's mind, making her memory and even her hearing fuzzy. She knew that Violet was announcing… something, probably somehow related to the results, and then there was some sort of interaction with Kamela and Kubi, who she vaguely remembered seeming rather shocked, and then some sort of hovercraft appearing, but she couldn't process anything that was happening. She was kind of surprised that she was feeling so shocked about being eliminated. If you'd asked her earlier, Darcy would have said that she wanted to win, of course, but that she wouldn't be too devastated if she lost. But now that the moment actually came, she felt… not devastated per se, but... deflated. That was the word. Deflated. She knew that she had more to show of herself, and she and Oksana were just hitting their stride and figuring out how to work together. And now… now it was all gone. It seemed so surreal.

The ride back on the hovercraft was solemn, the two girls sitting next to each other in stunned silence. Darcy could see the tears bubbling up in Oksana's eyes as the younger girl futilely attempted to keep it together. When they arrived, the girls quietly followed a Capitol official to an elevator, who pressed a button and left, leaving the girls alone. The silence was stifling, but while there wasn't much to say, Darcy certainly didn't want to be alone with her thoughts. And she could only assume Oksana didn't either.

"Hey, Oksana?" Darcy said.

"Yes."

"I… thank you for sticking with me through the challenge. I don't know what it looked like from your perspective, but it must have been kinda hard to see how Kamela and Kubi were doing and to not compare it with how we were doing. You stuck with it, and I'm really proud of you."

At that moment, the elevator doors opened. The girls stepped out together and surveyed the apartment that they'd left just a few days before. Suddenly, Oksana gasped. Darcy followed the girl's gaze, which had landed on two plates of steaming chocolate chip pancakes that were waiting for them on the kitchen counter. Before Darcy could say anything, Oksana made a beeline for her room and slammed the door behind her. Darcy made a motion to follow the younger girl to offer some words of comfort or support but decided against it.

Oksana probably just needed a little time alone.


Full Placement List:

1st: Six and Eight

2nd: Eleven and Capitol

3rd: Ten and Nine

4th: Four and Twelve

5th: Two and Thirteen

6th: One and Five

7th: Seven and Three


Well, here we are, the first elimination chapter! I'm sorry I left you guys in suspense for this long; I think I've learned that I have to have both chapters in a pair ready to post before posting the first one. It took me a little while to kinda get into the flow of how to write this chapter, not to mention that thesis work is really starting to pick up, but I am really happy with how this turned out.

Oh, right, I have to do eulogies – well, not eulogies, but sendoffs, I suppose. It's been literally years since I've written one since I didn't do any for IDIDE1, so bear with me as I get used to doing stories with eliminations.

~.~.~

Darcy Spades:

One thing that I've noticed about this story is that sometimes I have an idea for something I want to do for one character, but as a result, another character kind of gets dragged along that plotline. That's exactly what happened with Darcy here. I loved the idea of a character who gets to see karma firsthand as a gravedigger, and getting to explore that character and, by extension, the death rites of Seven was a really great opportunity. Thanks so much to The88Constellations for Darcy!

Oksana Devlin:

Oksana, Oksana, Oksana. I always love my subplot characters and Oksana was the perfect character to play into the subplot of this story. Consequently, I actually don't have all that much to say about Oksana at this point, as we've only really just begun her arc and some of the plans I have for her. I have loved getting to explore Oksana and some of her feelings about Avery, and trust me, I have a whole bunch more I'm excited to explore! Thank you so much to TheEngineeringGames for Oksana!

~.~.~

Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter! What did you think of the structure of the eliminations? A little spoiler here, but it's going to be quite a bit before we actually get to the point where the eliminations work precisely the way that Violet explained them, so if anyone is confused feel free to reach out here or on Discord! Also, if you have not filled out participation, please do it soon! After December 10th (2020) any participation responses that I get will not count towards what participation is going to be used for so please please please get them in!

I'll be back here (after doing an OTWT intro) with a new district's challenges! Any guesses on who it might be? Oh, and by the way, you might notice that neither she nor Darcy has a placement yet. What's up with that?

See you soon,

goldie031