Fanfic / Champion

Champion by Kiliflower is a Spiritual Successor to The Victors Project by Oisin55, featuring the former's own head-canon about Panem and its power plays, as well as the trials, tribulations and triumphs of the victors inside and outside of the arena. The story thus far gives a deeper, more emotional, philosophical angle to the life of each victor. The link to the current incarnation of the fic can be found here.

The original version of the story had an (also deleted) companion piece, Epitaph, about each Victor-tribute who died in the 3rd Quarter Quell. The events of that story are Schrödinger's Canon to the updated version of Champion, but some tropes are included below.

The Victors:

• 1. Telechamus Folami (District 2)
• 2. Gold Pembrook (District 1)
• 3. Brandon Barlow (District 9)
• 4. River Cruickshank (District 4)
• 5. Kine Villanueva (District 10)
• 6. Shale Cotter (District 2)
• 7. Fen Kavanagh (District 7)
• 8. Garland Gatsby (District 1)

Champion has been recently updated and is active as of July 2023.

Tropes:

• Age Lift:
  • Brandon Barlow (the first victor to be in both versions of the story) won the Eighteenth Annual Hunger Games in the original draft of the story, but the Third Annual Hunger Games in the current adaptation.
  • Kine was the youngest of District 10’s victors from the first version of the story but their eldest here as the winner of the Fifth Annual Hunger Games.
  • Shale won just a couple years before the First Quarter Quell in the original story but here wins the Sixth Annual Hunger Games (while also having the same religious beliefs and some other shared traits with the District 2 victor who won the same Games in the original version of the story).
• Attempted Rape: River is nearly molested by the captain of his fishing boat at the age of thirteen, and ends up pushing him overboard, where he drowns.
• Awakening the Sleeping Giant: After years of toeing the line, River agrees to help Mags with the rebellion out of anger that the Capitol murdered a promising Career trainee just because he said the wrong thing to a reporter
• Berserker Rage: Telemachus's strategy in the First Annual Hunger Games. Shale's to, five years later.
• Big "NO!": When the First Quarter Quell twist is announced, River hears an angry scream from Mags' house.
• Blood Knight: Brandon enjoyed getting into fights, at least before his Games.
• Brother–Sister Incest: In the original version of the story, the District 5 Quarter Quell tributes are siblings who are in an openly passionate sexual relationship, to the disgust of everyone around them.
• The Butcher: In Epitaph, District 10 victor Veni grew up butchering cattle and reluctantly but efficiently uses those weapons skills and resolve to win her games, which made her popular in the Capitol but shunned by her neighbors.
• Caring Gardener: Gold and his grandfather are delicate gardeners who take great pride in their work.
• Child Soldier: Telemachus fought in the Dark Days from the age of 12.
• Combat Pragmatist: Gold won his games through "timing and the element of surprise", using defensive attacks to make stronger attackers retreat.
• Dark Horse Victory: The original story mentions that every District 6 Victor besides their first, Samaire (who used tomahawks to fight her way through several brutal opponents in the 1st Quarter Quell) was an untalented competitor who only won by a fluke.
• Death by Irony: Brandon dies in the Second Rebellion, storming the Tesserae Building thats creation he indirectly inspired before coming to hate it.
• Descent into Addiction: In the original story, Glamour, Distirct 1's fourth victor, proves to be a terrible mentor whose tribute nearly starves to death before getting a Mercy Kill, causing Glamour to start taking opioids to deal with the guilt and trauma and rapidly become an Empty Shell.
• Dissonant Serenity: President Thorn is described as looking flippant and jovial as he talks about the Games and how they will continue.
• Divided We Fall: The Capitol excels at this; making the District 3 workers feel inferior to the scientists, promoting religious conflicts in District 7 and exiling District 1 merchants to District 12. In District 10 though, with its three warring tribes - Karankawa (Native American), Mejoravida (interdistrict immigrants) and Shawnee (Capitol settlers) - little intervention is required from them.
• Doting Grandparent: Gold's grandfather is the one most comforting and supportive of him out of his family after he returns from the Games. River is also described as affectionate to his grandsons, with realistic feelings about how they would do if they were reaped.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: Bryony Blackwood of the Seven Sons has prophetic dreams, warning Fen, "You are marked for death, sapling. Your sentence will be your savior." The peacekeepers capture Fen and delay his execution so he can attend the reaping to make up for the number of teenagers who go into hiding rather than show up. Fen is reaped and comes home as a pardoned victor.
• Driven to Suicide: According to Epitaph, the District 6 victor who mentored the female morphing (possibly Samaire, their district's first victor in the original version of Champion) hung herself, either to avoid going into the Quell or for unknown reasons before the events of the books.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Brandon spends most of his life as a drunk out of guilt for his Nice Job Breaking It, Hero moment to avoid the trauma of all the people he condemned to back-breaking labor or being reaped due to the tesserae system.
• Driven to Suicide: Crixus Thread, Shale's mentor at the Peacekeeper boot camp, arranges for him to be reaped for homophobic and paranoid reasons. He is found out by Telemachus, threatened with exposure and forced to hand over his peacekeeper trainees for implicit career training. Soon afterwards Crixus kills himself.
• Due to the Dead: Gold brings carefully made, emotionally appropriate wreaths on his victory tour to place on all of the tribute graves.
• Exact Words: Fen boasts that he climbs trees better than anyone he knows, but mentally notes that he doesn't know many people.
• Executive Meddling: A particularly blatant version appears in the 2nd Quarter Quell when District 2 has tributes volunteer for the kids voted in. District 4 would rather get rid of its undesirables than go for a small chance or a Victor, and District 1 forbids anyone volunteering due to their lead Victor (headmistress Calliope)’s, fear it will anger the President. Calliope is correct, as the President feels slighted by District 2 ignoring the purpose of the Quell and has their tributes killed by having the gamemakers make the ground beneath those tributes give way as soon as the countdown ends.
• Eye Poke: Kine uses his fingers to blind another tribute the arena after manipulating his opponent into lowering his guard.
• Face Death with Dignity In Epitaph, District 9 victor Sheeran abandons his plan to fight his way to victory during the 3rd Quarter Quell (as he realizes he can't rely on stealth during a Quell with experienced killers in the arena and the gamemakers sure to want fights) after realizing his four-year-old son will have to watch the Games during mandatory viewing. Rather than let his son see him die brutally or become a killer, he approaches Brutus and Enobaria and respectfully asks them to kill him in a quick and dignified way at the start of the games, then calmly waits and lets them do so.
• Fantastic Caste System: In the first draft of the story, most of the blonde-haired residents of District 1 shun those with dark hair (there are a few exceptions, like Summer and Glamour), giving them lower class jobs, expecting them to give themselves unglamorous names, and calling them "murks". The first "murk" to compete in (and win) the Games, Linon, is reaped and none are considered as Careers until Jasmia Jespere, the second "murk" victor, who has a name they consider defiant in its glamorousness and she volunteers to try and advocate for "murk" rights if she wins, with limited success. The kids voted into the 1st Quarter Quell are also "murks", although Calliope takes some consolation in that they have the athleticisim to be contenders and aren't being sent to certain death.
• Formerly Fit: A flash-forward in River's chapter shows President Thorn being described as fat and with bloodshot eyes by the time of the First Quarter Quell.
• Friend or Foe?: According to Epitaph, Otto, the District 5 Quarter Quell male Victor-Tribute, wants to join Katniss's alliance and help protect her, but because he isn't an official Rebel before then, Finnick takes his approach the wrong way and spears him.
• Genius Bruiser: In the original version of the story, District 1's first (potential) rebel victor, Summer, is known for his eidetic memory and hand-to-hand combat skills and passes on a Public Secret Message about Rebellion in the districts to two older, disenchanted District 1 victors in the middle of a crowded room by mentioning the industries of various districts as things he wants to get (slacks for District 8 textiles, etc.).
• Half-Breed Discrimination: Kine's father is from District 11, his mother is a native Karankawa, and thus the various district tribes treat him with cold contempt.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Finnick volunteered for the Games at the age of fourteen, when River's twelve-year-old grandson was reaped.

In Epitaph, the famously dignified District 10 victor is brutally targeted by every mutation and trap in the Quarter Quell arena (at the reluctant direction of Plutarch) before eventually dying at the claws of The Beast. His chapter of Champion (the last one before the story's revamp) reveals that Lars is a rebel who volunteered for that fate to keep the pressure off the more important rebels (and ones who had something to live for, as his wife died giving birth to their son, who was then sent into the Games and died after a rigged reaping) and serve as a martyr who would anger the neutrals of District 10 into joining the Rebellion.

• Hated by All: The diverse communities in Kine's own district resent him, as due to his ancestry (part-Karankawa, part-Mejo) and his family's political decisions (selling out to the Shawnee for post-war immunity), he is a reminder of everything that they hate about each other.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: Fen's father spends six months in a paralyzed state after being stung by dozens of tracker-jackers before begging his son to kill him, which Fen does with a Vorpal Pillow.
• I Have No Son!: Telemachus disowned the memory of his brother for joining the rebellion.
• I Regret Nothing: River can't bring himself to feel guilty over killing the captain, which causes him guilt over how he isn't feeling guilty.
• Incompatible Orientation: Shale has feelings for Telemachus, who is straight.
• Inelegant Blubbering: Gold is described as having cried desperately after he was reaped, as did River's district partner.
• Just Like Robin Hood: The Seven Sons are a guerrilla movement in District 7 that robs the rich to feed the poor and tries to reconcile the district's warring religious factions.
• Mighty Lumberjack: Fen is a cunning tree climber, a good hand with an ax, and feels a proud connection to the forests of his district. Most District 7 citizens share those attributes: it even gets District 7 offered the chance to become a career district in both versions of the story, but their eldest victor (Fen in the new story, and Adapted Out Thorne Fitzpatrick in the old one) politely refuses. Wanting to preserve the decency of the District children.
• Miles to Go Before I Sleep: In the original version of the story (written before The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), District 12's first victor is a boy named Jerome who is mentally exhausted and nearly devoid of happiness a few years after his victory in the first decade of the games. Nonetheless, he won't leave the children of District 12 without a mentor and so he avoids the temptation to kill himself for almost forty years, until Haymitch wins the 2nd Quarter Quell. Jerome then writes a suicide note addressed to Haymitch (who is quite sore at Jerome), and leaps off the roof of his building, content with the knowledge that District 12's children have a new mentor.
• New-Age Retro Hippie: In the original version of the story, many of District 10's residents, including victor Oxalisa (who wins by reluctantly using spiders she can safely handle as Animal Assassins), are animal worshippers who believe in nonviolence whenever possible and have long hair and colorful, baggy clothes. This is omitted from the current version of the story.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Emboldened by his victory, Brandon requests to President Thorn to give the agricultural workers in 9 more food and oil, so that they in turn can feed the nation. What they end up being given is the thankless, back-breaking labor of providing tesserae grain, while forcing children to increase their risks of going into the Games in exchange for food. It is noted that Thorn does this deliberately as a way of sadistically showing off his authority and contempt for the districts to Brandon.
• The Nondescript: In Epitaph, District 9 Victor Ryna Witt survived her games by being Beneath Notice, but the Capitol (even Games officials like Caeser) have forgotten her entirely after less than a decade. She is thankful to avoid the Victor prostitution racket due to her plainness but resents how people like Beetee (whose life she saves during the Quell bloodbath) never consider that she may have intelligent contributions to offer them.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: During the original rebellion, District 7 isn't fighting for a claim to 1/13th of a Republic but for an opportunity to return to an autonomous existence in harmony with nature.
• Orphan's Ordeal: Telemachus, River, Shale, and Fen all had parents killed or separated from them in the rebellion and they spent the years afterwards struggling to survive.
• Papa Wolf: River to his trainees. One of them being murdered by the Capitol awakens rebel sympathies in him.
  River supported the Capitol, he always had, but he loved his district, and his boys, far more.
• Piranha Problem: Several of the tributes in River's games are killed by piranha mutts while wading out to the cornucopia in the middle of a bay.
• President Evil: President Tigellinus Thorn is no better than Snow, and quite possibly worse.
• Promotion to Parent: In the original version of the story, a very young Woof watches a crowd of people that includes the justice building librarian, the mayor's son, a few other "fancy folks" and a crowd of workers that includes Woof's father be taken away to be imprisoned or executed for participating in the Dark Days Rebellion. His father tells him to take care of his mother and younger brother. A Time Skip later reveals that Woof was too young to do this and his mom and brother are dead.
• Rape Leads to Insanity: In the original story, it is mentioned that most female District 4 victors go mad like Annie, and the first is a girl who is sexually assaulted by her final opponents.
• Religious Bruiser:
  • River comes across this way, with it being noted that the other District 4 victors give him a ceremony that they don't quite understand but know he would have wanted.
  • Gold also believes in gods, saying a prayer for them to let him live right before going into his arena.
  • Shale initially believes there is a higher power associated with the mountains after an earthquake keeps him form being sold at a slave auction. After Telemachus denies his feelings, he grows to discount this idea.
  • Fen is a devout believer in the Gods of his district.
• Revealing Reflection: Telemachus gets a glimpse of how covered in gore he is in a mirror while being brought to see Thorn.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: River gives his escort a speech to this effect for insulting his district partner.
• Sibling Rivalry: According to Epitaph, Gloss resents Cashmere for taking the spotlight away from him when they trained to be Careers together, and her winning the Hunger Games right after his when he'd enjoyed his year in the spotlight doesn't help. Cashmere acknowledges that their relationship mostly involved fighting, but is devastated enough by Gloss's death to turn into a Death Seeker and not dodge the axe Johanna throws at her.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Telemachus is the only person Shale ever feels romantic feelings for, and after Telemachus makes it clear that won't happen, Shale spends the rest of his life a bachelor - but still hopeful. In the original story, Shale is also gay and only ever shows feelings for an older District 2 Victor (Marcus, the man he is a Composite Character with in this story), but that story doesn't say that he never gets over the crush after learning it isn't reciprocated.
• These Hands Have Killed:
  • Gold's reaction to winning the games is dissapointment in himself for killing people.
  • According to Epitaph, whenever Wiress has to watch clips of her Games, she has panic attacks and needs one of her friends to hold her as she cries out that it's not her doing those things.
  • In the original story, Hemmard, the second District 8 Victor, does not like to be reminded how he set his opponents on fire after using his nimbleness and agility to soak them with flammable substances while dodging their blows.
• Tragic Villain: In the original version of the story, Peridot of District 1, the first victor, slaughters almost half of his fellow tributes without hesitation and later starts the Victor prostitution ring. However, he is far from an uncomplicated Hate Sink. He initially thought the Hunger Games would be a one-time thing if he and the only other tribute to actively hunt other kids in the First Games gave the Capitol a good enough show. He starts prostituting his victors (and himself) because he can't find another way to get them sponsors, and this ruins his marriage and his relationships with many of his victors. Finally, Calliope, his fourth and final victor, takes over the Career academy and relishes kicking Peridot out of it, after which he is implied to turn to drugs.
• Trap Master: In the original story, one Games has the tributes set upon by wolf mutations and a District 6 tribute kills many wolves with snares and pit traps. However, those skills are useless in his Involuntary Battle to the Death with future Victor Woof, who killed just as many wolves in head-on battles with nothing but a knife.
• Uniformity Exception: In the original version of the story, District 2 victor Brick Fergus, the District's only victor to begin as an unwilling tribute, uses a shield to block blows and then bash his enemies to death. His defensive strategy and hatred for the Games cause him to be marginalized by the other District 2 victors (Romulus, an Ax-Crazy psycopath, and the Careers who Romulus and his proteges train and corrupt to varying degrees), and when his grand-nephew becomes a victor, no one even mentions the familial connection in public.
• Villain's Dying Grace: In Epitaph, while Brutus diligently hunts and kills Rebel and neutral tributes in the 3rd Quarter Quell, he isn't that happy about it, and, after being mortally wounded by an apologetic Peeta, urges him to go and be with Katniss.