Hey everybody. It's the Marine Corps birthday. Know what that means? It means I'm PLASTERED. So if there are mistakes here, it's because I am three sheets to the wind and had to type pretry much every sentence twice trying to see the letters clearly. OORAH SEMPER FI!
Blake Armani- District One mentor
Peridot and Azure were horrified when they found out about Grande. Me, I was happy. Every One Tribute has demons. Otherwise we wouldn't volunteer. Grande was mature enough to acknowledge his and enlist the help of a therapist. That showed that he knew he was mortal, which was more than most Ones could say. Elissa was a little less… pragmatic, shall we say, but her kind had won before. Religion wasn't something I had any experience with or could honestly say I understood, but it had worked before. Tillo won. Nubu won. I had to confront my own biases and remember it was the mentee that mattered, not me.
Pray Jager- District Two mentor
"You volunteered. And you have a kid."
Donatella looked back at me guiltily. We both knew what she'd done.
"All right. I'll focus on the one worth my time," I said. I turned to Atticus.
"I'm ready," he said. From what I heard, he was. I heard he crippled a kid to get this position. Good. A kid that could get crippled by his opponent didn't deserve the Arena.
"I hope so," I said.
Gidget Ford- District Three
I couldn;t look at Colby. My own children were so much like him. In the coming years, who could say they wouldn't make the same mistake. My mom did it, they might say. So can I. I couldn't even look at him.
Yttria, on the other hand, didn't volunteer. She was just a normal girl who got sucked into this, just like me. She had the same chance as me. Better, probably. I honestly wasn't that smart. She could win this. I could help her. And if I lost her, it wouldn't feel like losing my own children. I could bear to help her.
Shane Donegal- District Four mentor
Caio was just like I had been. He gloried in the fight. He thought the fight was its own end. He wanted to hurt someone just to prove he could. I wished I could condemn him. But I used to be him. I couldn't say he was evil. Not when I used to do the same thing.
Careen Ellis- District Four mentor
"So," I said.
"A mermaid. Told you to volunteer," I said.
"No," Seychelle said.
"I was already going to volunteer. I'm the moon knight," she said.
"Oh. Good," I said. "Much better."
Sky Levings- District Five mentor
"You know silver comes from Two?" Meenah started, looking at her fork. "It's mined in the colloidal sector. It's very difficult to extract. It's very labor-intensive…"
She went on, telling me every detail of why silver was so valuable and why I should invest in it. I half wanted to sink my Victor's allowance into silver speculation. Meanwhile Klaus stared at his own fork, silently crying. Some things don't have any words.
Lancia Audren- District Six mentor
A messenger boy and an animal lover. What could I do with them?
"You must be charismatic," I said to Enzo.
"What's that mean?" he asked.
"Good at talking," I said.
"Yeah, I guess so," he said.
I looked at Gasoly. She had the genuine and sincere air of a child trapped in an adult's body, unable to accept the coldness and cynicism that came with maturity. She wasn't so easy to reach. The only animal I knew was the wild boar that ate Camellia. She got better, but it still wasn't a memory I liked. The way its tusks glinted. Camellia's high shrieks, and the moment worst of all, when they stopped….
Animals weren't my forte.
Hades Rodriguez- District Seven mentor
"Darts," I said.
"Yeah," Jezzebel said. "I'm good at darts."
"People have won before," I said. "I recommend poisoning them."
I wasn't like this before.
I won my Games by hiding and getting lucky. I never imagined this. I never imagined advising someone how to best kill someone.
Adair looked at me, waiting for me to tell him how to best kill someone. And damn me, because I told him.
Tillo Peters- District Eight mentor
Let them win. Let them lose. Let them do what they will do, and it's not my responsibility. The Capitol can put me in charge of them, but it doesn't make a difference. Games are won by Tributes, not mentors.
And if this Games was won by one of mine, it would be Linden, not Othella. I bent over her records, reading about a girl occupied with an imaginary friend in place of reality. Othella would rather talk to herself than face the world. Linden had a chance. Not that I cared. He didn't deserve victory, not morally. Othella deserved it, and Linden was capable of it. So let them both die, and let me not care.
Nassor Doyle- District Nine mentor
Visenya could do it. I wished she couldn
't. I wished I could get two cripples every year, two children incapable of winning. It would be easier to waych them die than to think they could live.
Porter couldn't do it. He could run, and that meant he'd survive the Bloodbath. He'd live, and curse me to watch them come for him until he died.
Visenya was worse. She could win. She'd curse me to something worse that watching. She would curse me to hope.
Bambi Kirkland- District Ten mentor
I'd never seen it before. A Reaped girl who'd refused a volunteer.
That was what it was, of course. That nonsense about assigned gender was just a ruse to make sure Paloma's sister was safe. Verlynne was a girl, just like Paloma. And Paloma was noble enough to stop it. That meant she was noble enough to die.
In contrast, Gavin seemed mundane. Just another boy. Reaped. Chosen to die. Chosen by lottery to satisfy the bloodlust of a decades-old vendetta. And so he would die, like so many before him. Like the ones I killed, and could never forget.
Frankie Disney- District Eleven mentor
Vera told me I should take the pills before the Reaping. She said I should see the Reaped as people, not just names on paper. I couldn't see that without the chemicals that told my brain was normal brains already knew: that life was valuable. That people were worth living.
I didn't take the pills.
Vera had to feel the pain. She had to see them as people. She had a human mind, that saw things in the human way. I had a robot's brain, seeing nothing but equations unless I took supplements to replace the chemicals I couldn't make. I saw the way she cried after the Reapings. She was stronger than me, dealing with what she couldn't avoid. I could avoid it, and I did. I let them be nothing but names and faces. Vera couldn't not take the pills, but I could, and I did.
Nubu Sanders- District Twelve mentor
He was committing suicide. Argent, a child, wanted to die.
There was no other reason he'd volunteer. Every Twelve knew that was a death warrant. From the moment we could walk, from the moment we could read a word, we knew the Reaping was our death.
Argent chose to die so someone else could live. I wished I could talk him out of it, but I wished I'd done the same. I shouldn't have won. I would never scrub from my mind the girl who should have. The girl I should have died in place of.
And then there was Sundew. So complicated. So beyond what I could categogrize. And yet so worthy of life. I knew in my heart that I hoped Argent would live, and that it meant I wished Sundew would die. God judge me for making that decision.
Happy birthday oorah semper fi literally cannot see the keyboard right now I'd write more but I'm hammered see you tomorrow and if you want to do me a solid, thank a Marine today. Best birthhday EVER some former MArine gives free food and booze to MArines in New Orleans SEMPER FI!
