Fanfic / Checkmate (Anla'Shok)

Checkmate, by Anla'Shok is a The Hunger Games story mainly following Mags, from tribute to Rebel Leader, over the course of 65 years. It focuses heavily on the Fire-Forged Friends nature of the victors community, long-term plans to covertly build up sympathy for the Districts in the capitol, and the culture of District 4. The story has occasional Mood Whiplash between dystopian drama and Camp.

Tropes:

• Affectionate Nickname: Johanna likes to call Finnick, her closest friend among the other victors, "boytoy".
• And This Is for...: The night before the 3rd Quarter Quell interviews, Whittle, the District 9 male Victor/Tribute unleashes his pent up rage by smashing every surveillance camera he can find with a hammer while screaming the names of the dead tributes he mentored at them.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Phoenix, the youngest of the "family" of District 2 victors, is also described as being the most chipper and "offensively sane" (she rarely directly interacts with a POV character) and spends a lot of time playing music on a flute she carved or making snow angels in the winter.
• Badass and Child Duo: There are a few alliances in the games between twelve-year-olds and 17 or 18-year-old volunteers: a Career victor named Magister and an acrobatic young girl, Mags' first mentee (a naive twelve year old who volunteers while not understanding the games) and an unhinged girl from District 1 whose Only Friend was allies with Mags the previous year.
• Betrayal by Inaction: President Coin has an opportunity to rescue all of the 3rd Quarter Quell tributes before the games start (and has told those of them involved in the rebellion that she will save them), but she makes the cold decision to do nothing until Mags is dead in order to eliminate a potential rival and arouse more anger against the Capitol.
• Broad Strokes: The story shares a few original characters (like District 3 victors Mercury and Aster, District 3 escort Dante, and Snow’s murdered predecessor) and plot elements with Showdown: No Holding Back, an earlier The Hunger Games fanfic Anla'Shok wrote. However, there are some big differences between the stories that make it clear they do not share the exact same timeline.
  • Showdown is set in an Alternate Universe where Snow takes a decade longer to become President, while Checkmate has Snow be President by the 50th Hunger Games like in canon.
  • Mercury and Aster become victors in different decades than in their original appearance.
  • Mercury dies during the bombing that kills Prim in Showdown, but survives the rebellion in Checkmate.
  • Showdown features an elderly male District 4 Victor who mentors one of his grandchildren in the games that Mercury wins, but in Checkmate, the only male District 4 Victor before Finnick dies long before Mercury is even born.
• Bullying a Dragon: President Achlys learns the hard way that when punishing and threatening victors for acts of defiance, it really pays to make sure they have enough sense of self-preservation not to do something about it. When she arranges for a friend of unhinged and anti-authority District 4 victor Tang to die in the arena, he breaks into her house one night and tries to kill her husband, with Mags having to pull a pragmatic Save the Villain rescue (Tang killing Achlys or her husband would bring massive retribution down on the districts) that forces her to kill her first ever victor.
• Captured on Purpose: Chaff and Seeder spend the weeks before the 3rd Quarter Quell openly stirring up rebel activity, leading raids and sabotage. They let themselves get caught before the reaping (and let a rebel peacekeeper "capture" them to get an ally promoted) so they can help with the arena plot without letting Snow know they don't fear going back into the arena.
• The Casino: The Capitol sponsors a bar for gambling on the Hunger Games. This costs the government a fortune when Johanna wins the Hunger Games after 1/4th of the Capitol bet on her at 10-1 odds, and President Snow is a very Sore Loser.
• Cycle of Revenge: The back and forth attrition between the Rebels and Capitol, and how the Capitol is prone to Moral Myopia about their murders while the Rebels view theirs as Dirty Business, become a major theme as things go on. One notable moment is when the Capitol causes a train derailment that kills the relatives of several victors, and the Rebellion responds by assassinating relatives (albeit ones involved in Capitol politics) of Caesar Flickerman after he tells Mags that what happened was her fault and shows an awareness of what really led to the train derailment.
• Deadly Distant Finale: The book ends fifty years after the ending point of the original trilogy where, even with life-enhancing technology being available to the main cast, many prominent survivors of the Rebellion (Haymitch, Beetee, Gale, etc.) have died.
• Death by Irony: Invoked in the 72nd Hunger Games interviews when Caesar asks each tribute what their greatest strength is. When the Games begin, instead of having an opening bloodbath, each tribute is put in a situation where they have to live up to that boast about their greatest strength (the ones who said they are smart have to solve riddles or venomous insects will be sicced on them, the two tributes who said they were lucky have to cross a minefield, etc.), claiming six lives.
• Disc-One Final Boss: President Alchys, the ruthless creator of the Hunger Games, is the target of Mags' scheming and plotting for about half of the story, spanning a period of about thirty-five years. Alchys' eventual assassination raises the possibility that the Capitol's evil subjugation of the district can be ended without outright war under the guidance of Alchys' successor, Zephyr. However, despite the Rebels trying to identify and eliminate the ambitious psychos who might overthrow Zephyr, they miss Coriolanus Snow, who poisons his way to the presidency and spends the next 25 years and approximately forty chapters subjecting the districts to worse mistreatment than ever before.
• Doorstopper: At over 661,000 words (counting author's notes) the main (there are are a few companion pieces) story is longer than the original Hunger Games trilogy and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes combined.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • The Capitolians are sickened enough by the spectacle of a frightened and confused tribute with a mental disability in the 10th Hunger Games that President Alchys grants such children exemption from the Games. That being said, she also decrees whipping and avvoxing as punishment for any families that lie about having a child with a disability to take advantage of this rule and dooms a lot of kids to starvation since kids with disabilities are among those who most need the tesserae that comes from submitting extra reaping slips.
  • Mags recalls an incident where a visibly pregnant girl was reaped for the Games and the escort sent her home and drew another name, declaring that the Games were meant to take twenty-three lives, not twenty-four.
• False Flag Operation: Once President Achlys, the creator of the Hunger Games, finally realizes Mags is a rebel, she plots to kill her in a staged rebel attack to crush sympathy for the rebellion. She ends up Out-Gambitted and is killed herself by a genuine rebel during the attempted assassination.
• Fight Unscene: Mags sleeps through the end of the 10th Hunger Games (which are Outdated by Canon and thus do not feature Lucy Gray Baird) and another mentor, Vicuña, wakes her up to tell her that sociopathic District 2 tribtue Mordred (who terrifies Mags) won. Vicuña starts to describe how he he won, but Mags sadly says that all that matters is he did and she doesn't want to know what happened to his last two opponents (Little Miss Badass Skye and Stealth Expert Cally).
• The Hero Dies: Mags, who is Doomed by Canon, gets a Surprisingly Sudden Death in chapter 95 out of 102 when she makes her Heroic Sacrifice in the 3rd Quarter Quell.
• Hidden Supplies: Johanna Mason keeps several loaded guns under her floorboards. She isn't in a position to use them during the rebellion, but her fellow District 7 victor Keith is when he decides to take on 20 peacekeepers singlehandedly.
• I Never Told You My Name: A corrupt peacekeeper who burns down a house as part of a Protection Racket is caught when he refers to his victim by name. He is unable to name any other District 4 citizens his suspicious Reasonable Authority Figure boss points to in a crowd, his claim that the arson victim has been in trouble with the law before is quickly disproven by a records check, and these circumstances give probable cause for an arrest and search.
• Involuntary Battle to the Death: The Hunger Games is this in general, with the one victor premise, but Mags' memories of the Second and Third games' emphasize the "involuntary" part of the trope. Both years, every single tribute refused to fight or kill anyone until they either got parachuted messages threatening the tribute’s families or the gamemakers threatened to have carnivorous mutations eat them alive.
• Jumped at the Call:
  • Lyme (a long-standing rebel here) has a tribute who did this, a Sociopathic Hero named Wolfe.
    Lyme had just had to tell him, show him that he was unique, and he had given her his loyalty. She'd stood by him after the arena, as he woke up a cripple, his pride shattered day after day as he learned to walk gracefully again, to speak with a hoarse voice he couldn't recognize and hated. By the 68th, barely twenty, Wolfe had been obsessed with leveling the power field.
  • Her other Victor, Bahamut, is slower to join the Rebellion but shows willingness and almost relief when Lyme makes it sound like an order. His victor, Enobaria is also quick to join Lyme after surviving the Quell, saving Lyme from being turned in by a victor who refused her offer and admitting that "I want Snow gone. I want to be free. I want to be allowed to be proud to have been born here when it's over."
• Karma Houdini: Caeser Flickerman is monstrously cruel to many of the tributes who appear on his stage and are being sent to die for their ancestors’’ actions, and also seeks to stop the Rebellion at any cost while approving of murdering the relatives of Rebels. He changes his face with Magic Plastic Surgery, gets a job with the new regime, and is apparently never punished.
• The Last Dance: When the 3rd Quarter Quell is announced, several victors feel that they have nothing to lose and stop holding back at lashing out against the Capitol in the weeks before they will go back into the arena.
  • Gloss and Cashmere vandalize the Academy of Evil where they were raised and kill the headmistress (a victor who consented to Snow pimping out her mentees).
  • Whittle from District 9 schemes to blow up a Peacekeeper barracks, although he abandons this when his withdrawn and depressed death-seeking sole victor Scythia comes out of her shell enough to spend time with him and he decides he would rather have one normal and healthy friendship in his last weeks.
  • Chaff and Seeder lead a bunch of raids, Johanna sneaks out of her house to spray anti-Capitol graffiti, and and Beetee poisons the soldiers in a peacekeeper barracks (although they are only partial examples, since they think they will be rescued from the arena).
• No Name Given: The District 10 3rd Quarter Quell victor-tributes (a woman who can't feel pain and has been Playing Both Sides in a somewhat sympathetic way and a man who lives a feral existence and avoids other people out of fear he will kill them) are among the only unnamed victors in the story.
• The Poorly Chosen One: The decision to make Katniss and Peeta joint victors is the culmination of Mags and her allies constantly trying to bring attention to duos of tributes (including Finnick and his District partner, a Tragic Bromance between Wolfe of District 2 and Sawyer of District 4, a Badass and Child Duo, and twins from District 3 who Beetee rigged the reaping for in the hopes that the Capitol would spare them both). However, all of those previous efforts ended in failure and tragedy (although they helped Finnick, Wolfe, Magister, and possibly others win), especially with the twins from 3, who were murdered by their supposed ally, Bale of District 10 (who wins and later goes on to be the only non-District 2 victor to fight for the Capitol in the Rebellion).
• Public Secret Message: During the 3rd Quarter Quell, Cashmere wounds Beetee at the Cornucopia while screaming "Where is your plan now, genius?" Only Plutarch and the rebel tributes within earshot realize that her rebuke is actually for the rebels who had earlier promised her that they would rescue all of the tributes but didn't keep that promise.
• Related in the Adaptation:
  • Mags is Finnick's great-aunt, while there is no confirmed blood relationship between them in canon.
  • Plutarch Heavensbee is the father of Cecelia's children, when the two never interact in canon.
• Screw the Rules, They're Not Real!: The 72nd Hunger Games are played as a series of elimination rounds, with some traps and some combats, rather than a straight up free-for-all, and sponsor gift breaks between each round. However, no one actually said the tributes couldn't attack each other during the breaks between rounds. When the final 5 becomes the final 3, Moire from 8 (who just tricked two other tributes into attacking each other and then pushed them off a cliff as they grappled) stabs another tribute as soon as the end of the round is announced and the others are relaxing. Since all three of those people are unrepentant multiple murderers and Moire's last opponent is a Death Seeker, no one minds too much.
• Script Swap: During the 64th Hunger Games, the Capitol Rebels hack into the teleprompter of Claudius Templesmith's predecessor as he recites the Hunger Games. Partially due to being high on drugs, it takes him a painfully long time to notice that he's revealing the overt acts of Rebellion that the Capitol has been trying to cover up, resulting in his removal from the job.
  Announcer: Could it be, the sister of a previous victor, breaking through? Not that we'd complain. Look at that vixen. Switching to the outliers, now start listening, because this is what you wanted. District One's gold miners blew up the mine last winter, yes that's the miners in Distract One. District Six poisoned the pesticides to protest against the increased repression, hundreds were ill or worse in the District, but thirty died in the Capitol and you can bet District Six's two tributes weren't reaped by accident. In District Seven, five main peacekeeper posts were eaten away by termites, and District Eight ruined whole shipments of expensive evening wear, it was panic over here last month. The Rebellion lives, they lie and make you think you're alone with your doubts and anger. They will keep the information from you, but the rebellion lives in every district. Panem isn't under control like they would make you belie- what the hell am I reading? Who wrote that?
• The Shut-In: The unnamed victor of the 47th Hunger Games has a hard time interacting with people without unwillingly imagining ways to kill them, although he doesn’t act on those thoughts. For the last twenty-three years, he has only come out at night to get food and wander the areas between District 10's farms and slaughterhouses. He once had prostitures come over, but for the past six years, hasn't trusted himself to be around anyone.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Twelve-year-old District 4 volunteer Petrel only appears in three chapters out of over a hundred, but a young Capitol boy who sponsors him takes his death badly enough to develop the seeds of rebellion in his mind. That boy is named Plutarch Heavensbee, and his involvement with the Rebellion plays a very big role in it succeeding in both canon and this story.
• The So-Called Coward: Keith from District 7 and Moire from District 8 are viewed contemptuously by some characters for not volunteering to save Blight and Cecelia during the 3rd Quarter Quell. However, both feel bad about this and fight fiercely in the rebellion, with little regard for their own safety.
• Someone to Remember Him By: Johanna Mason comes from a long line of tributes; due to some ancestor doing something to piss off the Capitol several generations ago, at least one member has been reaped for the Games every generation. Johanna says that her mother deliberately got pregnant in order to leave someone behind due to suspecting that it would be her turn the next year, and she did indeed get reaped when Johanna was a couple months old.
• Suicide Pact: Mags' second year as a mentor is the first year with the landmines and countdowns. Her male tribute (who was forced to volunteer by the peacekeepers in lieu of being executed for trying to destroy her career academy) makes a speech about the injustice of the Games and then he and his three allies all use the mines to blow themselves up. After a brief stunned paused, one of the other tributes follows their example.
• Un-person: She never gets to follow through with it, but as the rebellion approaches, President Coin vows to dismantle the Capitol brick by brick once she wins, scatter or kill the residents, and outlaw any mention of the Soiled City on a Hill’s name.
• Walking the Earth: After killing her boyfriend during a PTSD attack, District 5 victor Victoria spends most of the year aimlessly walking through the woods surrounding her district, not caring if she lives or dies but always coming back in time to mentor for the games.

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