bakerstreet | the hunger games meme.

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the hunger games meme.

warning for adult content and possible triggers:
violence, death, nonconsent and all around questionable situations.

THE HUNGER GAMES MEME

Congratulations, Tribute.

You have been selected to participate in the Hunger Games.

The rules are simple: there can only be one victor.
You have to kill everyone else or die.

The last one standing wins.
May the odds be ever in your favour.

⚔

OPTIONS FOR THE SCENARIO-MINDED:

1. ENEMIES: in for the kill
The truth is you've been plotting each other's death for a long time. The only thing different about this situation is that everyone else actually wants you to off each other. Who cares if both of you are probably going to die anyway: no one is taking this bastard down except you.

2. ROMANCE: lovers in a dangerous time
What do lovers do when they know they're about to die? Last kiss, last words, last fuck? Maybe you're desperately trying to protect each other from the rest. Maybe you're the last two left alive. What sacrifices are you willing to make? How far will you allow each other to go?

3. ALLIES: set your arms down
It's in both of your best interests to stick together. Two together is more deadly than one, and you can pool supplies and weapons. Of course, this arrangement is most definitely temporary. Maybe it'll fall apart tonight, or tomorrow, or next week. Maybe your alliance has already run its course, and it's about to fall apart...right now.

4. TORTURE: death's not the worst
Sure, the point is to kill them. But why leave it at that? Maybe you've always secretly gotten off on this sort of thing, or maybe you've just cracked under the stress. When everyone is going to die, there's no point in sticking to all those rules society laid down for you any more. You've already incapacitated them; there's no way they can fight back. Might as well have some fun, right?

5. VICTORY: the finish line
You've done it. Last one standing. You've chosen to live, and no one but you knows how much that choice cost you, because they're all dead. At this point there's nothing that will stop you from stepping up to claim victory. You killed every other tribute. Or did you?

6. OTHER: write your own story
Anything and everything you can think of. In the arena, there are no rules.

⚔

Let the Games begin.

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[ Tying the sleeve over his leg, at least now he doesn't so so ridiculous with only one arm to his shirts. Eyes droop as she finished the job- nope. Stay awake. At Dave's question, Roxy mentally starts to go through who else is left. ]

They're by the water about forty minutes south of here. I snuck by when they were- [ She wasn't afraid of the Games, of the Careers, of what they had to do to survive this shit. But hearing that shy boy beg for his life, getting tortured, bones snapping- It was a great memory to think back on when she was feeling sleepy. ]

.. They've got a real comfortable set up over there.

[ Hands some of the food to Dave while she works on her own portion. Sitting back against the edge of the shelter, counting through who's left. ]

I got the catgirl at the Cornucopia, and the District 4 douche killed that girl who designed her own dress. [ Weighing their options over in her head. ] We could go kill the blind chick at least, I saw them before I found you. She was talking about that one eyed Career girl like they were gonna make an alliance. Get them before they get us?

[ Snacking away through this discussion, as if it's just a conversation about the weather rather than gutting their peers. ]

[He hesitates with a good dollop of peanut butter on a cracker halfway to his mouth.

He liked Terezi. She was one of the only Tributes who even bothered to try to scope out the dead meat thirteen-year-old from District Ten, and they'd let each other draw dicks on their faces at the camouflage training station. He didn't even know what a blind girl was doing at the camouflage station. He laughed then. It was like she was determined to die flipping the bird at everyone with both hands, cackling.

But one time the juggalo almost crept up on her, and Dave got a glimpse of what she could do.

He chews half the cracker.]

Nightfall?

[ Roxy sees the hesitation. So what if you liked somebody, that doesn't really matter when you're in the Games, right? She kinda liked Equius. He and Dirk got along really well and for all his poker faces in the world, Roxy could tell it killed him to watch two of his friends get onto that train, the idea that one at the most of them was coming back. But that was what had to happen. One of them would have to butcher the other, it didn't matter what they were before now. Equius and Roxy turned down the offer to train together immediately. Their mentor had laughed- not really team players, are they?

He probably was confused what Roxy was playing at now. ]

You're not listening. We wait much longer and they're gonna join the Careers. [Mouthful of cracker, points out. ] Then they're gonna send packs out lookin for us.

[ To be honest, Roxy can't be sure of any of this. But her head fucking hurts, she's hot and there's only a few more hours before she'll collapse from a lack of sleep. And if she has to have Dave die, better sooner than later. She can't do it, but she can lead them to a situation where he might get trapped, stumble on a bad leg. Then just use the void and get away and.. what? Fuck it seems really shitty to let Dave die after everything he did. The food feels like a dead weight in her stomach.

If the Careers want a bunch of comic relief circus rejects.

[He finishes his cracker but doesn't reach for another one, he just digs two fingers right into the peanut butter jar. You want manners, go to the Capitol and fuck yourself with the second sorbet spoon.

Roxy has a point, though. He never liked the way Terezi and Madam Bluebeard grinned at each other over the practice knives like coyotes in a henhouse. Still, he could probably fry an egg on the heat of his sunburn, and if he goes out there again he might just pitch face-down in the sand like a poleaxed cow. And Roxy doesn't look so hot, either.]

Excuse me for thinking we could both use some beauty sleep. We are on national TV, you know, we got swag to keep up, babes back home to impress. The second I get home, I plan to literally drown in bitches.

[ Mom Lalonde raised Roxy with better memories than that, but fuck that looks good. Scoops some peanut butter for herself. Ugh, they stuffed them with so much food prior to the Games just to make starving again worse. ]

I'm gonna get so freakin drunk.

[ Dismisses the thought of going home for now. Maybe she could protect Dave untill the end. Or maybe slit his throat when he lets his guard down. It's hard to sort out which would be the right course of action. ]

You telling me you'd ditch a hometown sweetheart for groupies? That's low.

[ Taking a wild guess, but Dave's cute, he'd have to have somebody. ]

[He snorts and slurps peanut butter off his fingers and pointedly does not think about any unbelievable dorks with perfect bucktoothed smiles.]

Where's a camera, I gotta make a public service announcement.

[He looks around, then just stares at a likely corner of their shelter's ceiling and points his thumb at himself.]

Ladies of District Ten--or wherever, anyplace in Panem, I'm a hella generous guy--hold the fuck onto your bloomers and listen up. For a limited time only, you can enter yourself into the Dave Motherfucking Strider sweepstakes for a chance at tongue-wrestling with this smokin' side of flesh. Better start sending shit in now 'cause while many will enter, few will win. I figure about twenty-five. What do you think I am, made of time?

[Dave leans back again and re-crosses his arms, then glances at Roxy.]

If I take my shirt off, d'you think the sponsors will send us some of that ice cream shit?

[ What is this kid thinking! She's not saving him from getting dunked in acid just so he can ho out to a bunch of skanks! Maybe District Ten is far enough from the Capitol, from having any potential victors that they don't get what happens after a person wins. The last thing you want to do is ENCOURAGE that shit! The cameras might pick up on Roxy's hardcore glare at Dave over this, but Caesar will probably spin it like she's in love with him. Whatever. ]

More like if I took my shirt off- cut it out.

[ Tugs the jar of peanut butter to her and pointedly does NOT look at Dave. ]

[He shrugs and settles in again. Maybe it was dumb and he isn't thinking straight, but at the very least, he's sure John's peeing his pants laughing. And, hey, a thirteen-year-old can dream, especially if he's probably going to die out here under a fake, pitiless sun.

He mumbles:]

I had ice cream once before all this bullshit. Last year, for my birthday. After I didn't get picked.

[Once, in his whole life. When he lives in the District responsible for cattle.

He adds, a little stronger:]

'Course I ate like my body weight in it my first night in the Capitol so it's not like I missed out on anything. Just thought it'd be nice to share a scoop here with such a fine figure of a classy broad.

[ Feels bad for snapping at him.. but sometimes a mom needs to give some tough love. Especially when the kid doesn't know what he's in for. He's cute and Five's had enough Victors Roxy knows what that means. Maybe killing him when his guard is down is the better option. ]

Why don't you take a nap and dream about some choice ice cream. I'll wake you up when the sun sets.

[ Roxy's tired as fuck, this situation just seems to be getting shittier, and she's not a very good liar. ]

You're the one who swooned like a damsel in a corset when I left you alone for five seconds.

[Fuck him, though. It's been a day and a half since he slept at all, too busy running--waiting--hiding without a real weapon to steady his hands, without a ready source of water to rely on. He's watched the Games since he was seven and blew up at Bro about this one insane attempt to shelter him, about how he needed to fucking SEE what he'd be up against if his name got called at the Reaping.

And here he is, doing it completely fucked up turnways. He should have stayed at the District Three dude's oasis and kept all that shit for himself.]

[Snarls. ]

It wasn't five mi-

[ Calm down. Do not make this a bigger deal than it needs to be. Do not turn in what is a crumbling alliance for a variety of reasons into a whole reveal about elements and whatever the fuck else Strider has up his sleeve. This isn't going to work. It just can't. Dave has no idea what is waiting for him if he wins, but Roxy really doesn't want to kill him. No matter how much he looks like Dirk, he's different, he's a kid, he's weak and it's not her job to protect him.

So why does she feel so shitty? ]

You got us these supplies, now let me help you.

[Dave doesn't say anything for a while. He just watches her, and behind his shades his eyes go from her face to the gash still oozing through his sleeve, then down to that pretty, elegant hand that drove a knife into another girl's throat.

His hard-won sword is warm against his shoulder.]

Are we working on a barter system of good deeds here?

[ Forced little smirk, setting the food in a neat little pile. ]

Trade you three scoops of peanut butter for the promise I'll make your death quick?

[ She's only mostly joking. ]

Well shit, I'm gonna sleep sound today with that truckload of reassurance you just piledrived into my face.

[Problem is, he really might. And as much as he kind of likes the idea of really teaming up, of taking on all the other Tributes like ninjas in the night, he can't trust her.]

If you nap, too, I swear I'll wake you up with my death throes if they catch up to us.

I'm not gonna sleep.

[ Shifts to touch the makeshift bandages around her head. Roxy's been sitting up long enough the blood has soaked through and.. ugh, this is a lot of blood to be losing, isn't it? Should really be lying down, doesn't have the right to be threatening Dave either seriously or jokingly. Feels another wretch come on when her fingers brush a sensitive spot through the sleeve. ]

You don't have to worry about some Career sneaking up on you while you catnap.

[There's a faint tug at one corner of his mouth. The kid is beyond spent.]

Is Mommy gonna keep watch for the monsters under my bed?

You know it!

[ Ugh, she likes him a lot. This is disgusting, maybe she can just leave when he falls asleep and let somebody else deal with him. Or her. That would be easiest.

Grins back encouragingly. ]

Aww, and does the baby need me to sing him to sleep?

Haha, Christ, are you going to serenade my ass to slumberland?

[He slides down a bit and resettles the sword against his shoulder, leaving his hand loose on the hilt like it's his lucky charm, or his security blanket. His beloved teddy bear guardian against the horror of the Games. He lets his head tip back and breathes out.]

Warning you now, the only lullabies I know can't be aired on public television.

[ Shifts across to sit closer to Dave, nudges him right in the ribs with her foot. ]

It's a good thing one of us was raised with a little class.

[ Reaches forward to push Dave's hair back from his shades, humming quietly and tapping his little sunburned nose. Starts singing a lullaby softly under her breath, whatever lullaby you feel like it should be. I currently have this song stuck in my head, but go with whatever you need.

Neither of them are going to win these Games, so they won't have to be embarrassed about this later. ]

[Whatever it is, he doesn't know it, because he never had anyone but Bro and Bro wasn't that kind of songbird. Bro rapped him back to sleep when Dave bolted out of nightmares of crows plucking out his dead eyes, Bro taught him how to swing a stick in that grey hour before the chickens woke, Bro took tesserae every year until he turned nineteen so that Dave wouldn't eat hay, but he never coddled and he never treated him with this easy, casual sweetness. And it just makes Dave miss him more, and god, if he doesn't make it out, Bro's going to take the legendary piece of shit he's got stowed in the attic and march right up to the Peacekeepers and to the Capitol and to the President and make them pay. And they'll kill him.

Striders don't cry and it would be an unbelievably heinous waste of water, so when he hides his face in his shoulder it's to cover a yawn.]

[ It's tough to live without the person who's supposed to look after you, even if they were never quite as hands-on as other guardians. But Roxy imagines the reverse is true, or would if she knew what Dave was thinking. There's Dirk, but he'll survive without her. He has his own bucktoothed somebody to pine after, no need to worry about him. So it's tough for her to understand the thought that somebody would go ballistic at her death when she's never felt that connection to anybody.. but that's more of a loss for her than anything to fault Dave for.

Not going to draw attention to it, but Roxy's voice trails off. Maybe this was laying it on a little thick. They're not getting any parachutes for this display, it's possible they switched over to another couple of tributes rather than focus on this maudlin display. Sad children doesn't sell as well as kids prepared to murder each other.

Better get back to the show then. Watching Dave's breathing, taking her hand back, testing how to gradually turn the element on, blur herself out from the cameras that aren't too focused on them anymore. Let Dave have some privacy and keep them from playing this horrible game of house within an already horrible set of Games. ]

[He almost nods off once or twice, but the memory of the cloak dude's strangled death cry and the jump of the handmade blade in his guts jerks Dave out of it with a shiver each time.

Eventually, though, exhaustion wins out over even his overactive imagination, and even if his hand doesn't fall from his sword, he's clearly out. His head lolls against the wall and the tightness in his face smooths until he really does look his age.

He may even be lucky enough to be dreaming about choice ice cream instead of his own gruesome death.]

[ Yeah this sucks, but. Better to get away from the kid before she has to kill him. Keeping herself cloaked form the cameras in case they want to try and sic some Careers on them, or a fucking cave in of their shelter or some bullshit the Gamemakers could do to mess with this kid. Or you know, in case he wakes up from all this moving around. Takes her canteen of water but leaves the food- judging by the blood on the sword, Dave definitely earned it. Roxy creeps out of the opening of their shelter and heads off in the direction of the blind chick and her crew.

Or maybe she could just forget about the kid and these weird maternal feelings she could definitely do without. ]

[The cannon wakes Dave with a gasp at sunset and immediately the sword's in his hands, ready for an enemy that isn't there. Roxy's gone. How long did he sleep? Heart in his throat, he scrambles to the exit to see who's been killed, but the sun comes in at an angle right into his eyes and he can't make out a goddamn thing.]

Shit. Fuck. Christ on a spit.

[He hurries back inside, shoves the food into the pack, and crouches at the exit again with it all on his back, squinting into the sun. Terezi. She'd have gone after Terezi and that Karkat guy while they're still not a threat. But Terezi is a threat, all by herself. She has a dragon's smile.

They're near the Watering Ass Hole where Roxy found him, right?

Not caring about the cameras, barely rested from his nap, he grits his teeth and rewinds.

He comes across them only minutes before the cannon, the sun a bloody circle melting on the horizon. They're in the long shadow of a building's skeleton, two of them. Karkat's curled up tiny with his back against the loose, long body of the juggalo, whose limbs lie across his chest like dead, bleached bones. Dave can see them both breathe slowly from his perch atop a broken wall, his shadow swallowed by the larger ruin behind him. He's surprised it's the juggalo and not Terezi. Maybe she abandoned her doomed boyfriend to team up with Pirate Patch. The thought disappoints him. There's no sign of Roxy.

That leaves him, his sword, and two sleeping sacrifices on the ground. At the very least, he can off the juggalo and make a break for it while Karkat struggles with his corpse. It'd be almost a mercy to kill Karkat, though. The jerk was a pity party.

He lifts his sword, judging the distance to the ground, but then he notices a glimmer. The clown's eye is open a sliver. And he's looking at something behind Dave.

Dave whirls and parries the thrust of Terezi's slim sword and she cackles, pressing him backwards along the broken wall with her razor-keen ferocity, the precision of her strikes. Brick crumbles under Dave's foot and he falls and rolls, and he can hear Karkat's startled shout--he was asleep, at least, even if everything else was a trap--and Dave gets his feet again and brings up his sword, but then something smashes into his head just above his ear and he's down, he's down, the world is spinning and someone heaves him up and wraps a thick arm of iron around his neck.

Dave tries to break the stranglehold but it's no good, his sword's in the sand next to his twisted shades and his feet are half a foot off the ground. Terezi alights like a manic pixie, but her smile's fading, and he can see himself choking in her glasses. It's Equius. He tries not to appreciate the irony.

Her sword gleams like fire in the setting sun, and he knows that there's only seconds before the cannon fires. Terezi's not smiling at all, now.

Dave squeezes his eyes shut and has time to think, Sorry.]

[ Time travel doesn't effect the void. You can skip through all the timelines you want, but you try it in front of someone who's say, hiding in their own element, they see exactly how you manipulated the tiny rip in time to appear in that instant, even if anyone else watching saw the hour long footage of Dave tracking them. But there's too many holes in that reality anyway- Dave would've had to have left at the same time as Roxy to get to where they were now, and there couldn't be another Dave being filed asleep in their makeshift shelter! Either way, Dave just screwed himself over royally with the Gamemakers, which is more than enough reason for Roxy to stay hidden and let these freaks take him out.

She's still not gonna though.

Roxy figures this group has deduced they're not sitting by an actual source of water, but instead are using it as bait to lure others to a massacre. That probably explains how they were expecting Dave. It also explains why they aren't keeping a lot of distance from the pool- they know better than to drink from it, but can't tip off any of the other Tributes of that.

Terezi was from an outlying District, so she was all skin and bones, probably only living off of whatever meager portions tesserae could buy. Roxy's mother never left her wanting for much in the way of food, so it's pretty easy to crack her shoulder into Terezi's side, weight knocking the girl over, down into the pool of acid.

Karkat's screaming over Terezi's dying howls and Equius's gaze has snapped back to the new arrival, the girl who killed Nepeta bloody within the first three minutes of the Games. Roxy straightens up, trying to keep from gagging by the smell of burning flesh, from the sound of Terezi's death gurgle, the way her head swims from moving so damn fast. ]

Hey, boys. Did you miss me?

the hunger games meme.

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SORRY I LIED and I can't edit comments

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Wrap-up 1/2: The Upstart Crow from District 10

Wrap-up 2/2: Months in the future (but not many)