deadalready | 13th Swing

[It's still so weird that he and Clove are getting married. That it's actually happening like they acted like it could in their more stupid moments where they were both alive in the end. Maybe only one of them went to the Games and won, maybe neither of them went. Cato had wanted to with increasing desperation the closer he got to 18 but he'd told Clove before he would only volunteer if she needed him to.

Thinking about things from before the Games; about his sad, pointless life and his parents and their house and his room and the town...he wants that. He wants his mom and dad to be happy and see him get married.

Cato wonders if anyone will even show up for the wedding (still weird) or if it'll just be him and Clove and the person marrying them. The only thing he knows with certainty is that he's been here almost two years and hasn't made one friend. (Or so he thinks).

It makes him miss his parents even more fiercely and, without really thinking, he opens his journal.]

If you could have someone from back home be here, even for just a day, even if they were dead, would you make that happen?

[It seems selfish to even think about it, to him at least. He's curious to see if other people don't give as much of a crap about the life they'd left behind. He just misses his family.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There was kind of an apocalypse. When you've been living with rationed everything for months, and wondering if tonight is the night the wall gets breached, this place is pretty idyllic.

[Cato never experienced an apocalypse but he was always told something bad had happened before Panem was created. It was never explained in detail but it was enough to create the Capitol, the Districts and the War.

And the Games.]

It's the closest thing to paradise I've ever seen.

[Which was very true.]

Bringing the whole District here would be a lot nicer than just my parents...

[He wasn't that considerate to think of it himself.]

It kind of is, yeah. I mean, it could do with internet and video games but those are luxuries.

[And Sam's standards for what he needs to be content have drastically lowered in the last few months.]

I just want my people to be safe. They deserve that chance. They all do.

[And maybe one day, Alice might show up.]

[Oh no here we go...]

The hell are video games?

Uh- [Oh god, that does remind him that there is a whole generation of children in his world going to grow up not really knowing what video games are.]

Well you... uh... on TV? You plug in a machine and on the screen you can see people moving around and you control them. Depending on the game, you can fight monsters or- or drive cars or build things.

Oh.

[Sounds vaguely like the Games he's familiar with.

And then he really thinks about one thing Sam said.]

Wait you can control the people?

[If he sounds panicked it's because the idea of someone from the Capitol paying to control what he does in the Arena makes him sick.]

[The sudden panic takes Sam aback a little and he has to think about it for a moment.]

Well, yeah. They... wait, do you- they're not real people, y'know? Just drawings I guess. Really well done drawings. And it doesn't have to be people. I used to play a game where you were a blue hedgehog wearing trainers.

[....You lost him at drawings Sam.]

Why would you want to be a blue hedgehog?

Uh, it's a game character. He runs super fast and collects rings and fights brainwashed robot animals and...

maybe it's one of those things you have to experience.

13th Swing - Voice

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[ voice ] (Sorry for the late, I just got back from a trip)