District 4
Malakai Mavericks
Did I not do enough? Is it my fault that Noelani's dead?
Tiernan assures me it isn't my fault, but I can't help but feel guilty. It was difficult for me to fall asleep when she was alive, but now that she's dead I can't drift off at all. I'm just sitting in bed with my head brewing with thoughts.
I used to hate the mentors who didn't do anything. The ones who immediately disregard their tributes and almost refuse to communicate with them. But now I understand.
I'm not going to become a negligent mentor or anything, but I do understand why some would. It hurts that she's gone, and it's almost enough to make me not want to become attached to any of my future tributes. I don't want to have to deal with this feeling! I don't know how I'll be able to deal with it next year…
Because this is my life now, isn't it? Just me getting transported to and from the Capitol, getting attached to tributes, then having them die because I didn't do enough to help them.
I thought that after I won the Hunger Games, the guilt would be done. I was done spilling blood. But now, I have even more blood on my hands.
I'm not done killing. And that hurts me, because there's nothing I can do about it, just like when I was in the arena. I never really escaped from the 247th Hunger Games, did I? I'm still killing.
I'm still in the inferno.
EULOGIES:
9th: Noelani King (D4F): Stabbed by Glorian Stafford (D2M) - God, this is so hard. This has to be one of the most difficult deaths and I absolutely hate that I'm writing a eulogy for this girl. Noelani was incredible, and her death was especially hard since she was so popular. Being one of the most well-liked tributes, she could have won (or at least survived). Unfortunately, that just didn't happen. I know a lot of people wanted her and Cecelia to survive together, and I was so glad their relationship was so popular. I had the idea for it during Training Day 3 or so, and I honestly began to ship it so much. However, I wasn't sure whether it was a good idea or my soft spot for femslash was deluding me. So I began trying to leave subtle hints about a possible romance in hopes that someone would point it out and agree that they'd be a cute couple. And someone did! (Thank you, Team Shadow). So I went for it, and I got super attached to both of them. I loved the idea of them both surviving, but as the gems started to go out to other tributes, it became less and less likely. I knew that someone had to die at the Career split, and I was really unsure of who to choose. One of the only reasons I ended up killing Noelani was because her submitter has been the only person with two tributes remaining for a while. I was planning on killing off the less popular one, but both Noelani and Lennox are so popular which made it a really difficult choice! But I knew that since one of the Career has to die, Noelani just worked the best. She also shared a problem I faced with Necessity in my last SYOT - for some reason, I completely butchered up their personalities and they became so different from what their original submissions looked like. No matter how much I tried, I just couldn't portray them the right way, and eventually, they were so popular, I was worried that if I tried to change them, they'd end up being suddenly disliked or inconsistent. I just couldn't have her win when I knew I messed up her portrayal so badly (even if it's a stupid, selfish reason that's completely my fault). I am glad that her personality didn't become dependent on her missing arm, though. In fact, there were several times when I completely forgot she was missing an arm and I would catch myself referring to her "arms", which became a little stupid. I fixed it every time I noticed it, but there might be a handful of times in this story when Noelani's missing arm magically regenerates for a paragraph XD. Sierra, congratulations on having both of your tributes make the Final 9 (which is quite a feat!). I'm sorry for killing Noelani, but at least Lennox is still pulling through. Thank you for submitting her, because she was one of my favorites and I had a lot of fun with her. And I realize that my eulogies are getting ridiculously long. This is nearly a full page on Google Docs, and it's only one paragraph, so this must be painful to read. I suspect that whoever gets 2nd place will have a full ten pages devoted to them, so I'll apologize in advance XD. RIP Noelani.
- Lilah