Tear Jerker / The Victors Project

Main Story

• Ahenobarbus confronting and killing the Undersee siblings.
• Luxe's depression over being a murderer and throwing his sketchbook into the river.
• The fourteen-year-old District 9 girl from Wheaton's games crying on the stage, and the mother of the boy he volunteers for screaming.
• Wheaton's father being executed after everything Wheaton did to get him a pardon.
• Tiberius's descent from a somewhat noble kid just desperate not to be turned out on the streets, to a degenerate rapist and hedonist.
• Connor's sense of grief and guilt over Jules' death and how that came from his mourning for Blight.
• Seaward having to kill his brother's fiancee in self-defense and the brutal effect it has on him.
• The events before Camden's suicide. Camden lost most of his family due to the Rebellion, with two of his relatives being reaped for past Hunger Games. Five years after his victory, Camden's sister Ryla was reaped and dies in the arena. Ryla also blames herself for Camden's reaping, as she was named after a major rebel which helped helped attract attention to the family.
• Bovina being treated like dirt after winning by most of her family, not for killing to survive, but just for the shame she was perceived as bringing the family for being reaped in the first place.
• Woof and his sisters' sense of fear and confusion in their abusive household, and Woof's horror at accidentally killing his father (and the effects it brings in making the family homeless).
• Woof's horror at realizing he killed his friend from training in an Unstoppable Rage.
• Silk tearing her hair out in the middle of nightmares and Luxe saying her victory wasn't worth it.
• Wren watching her ally Rem get cut down.
• Gates being subjected to a brain-damage causing post-Games retaliation, and his District being starved as well.
• Granyte volunteering in order to win money to save his family business but then being shunned by them after he comes home a crippled amputee and a killer, having never even had time to say goodbye to his youngest siblings.
• The cold, harsh reception Evelyn gets in Districts 8 and 5.
• Eli, the (implicitly widowed) father of District 10's male 1st Quarter Quell tribute, is seen "on the ground in a pool of his own sick, shaking and screaming something".
• The First Quarter Quell's Reapings, as told from the perspective of a District 10 Settler, is described as "some of the most brutally twisted footage that Rick can remember from twenty-five years of the Games". There are descriptions of teenagers vomiting all over themselves, or having their neighbors cheer that they're going off to die, or glaring defiantly at the crowd, or screaming obscenities and trying to attack the escort. It's unsettling, even without reading the stories of those characters in Quell and knowing how many (although not all of them) don't deserve that fate.
• Rick McNulty's guilt about the boy he voted for ending up in the Quell and dying, as well as losing his own son to the Games.
• The District 11 volunteers being placed next to the Careers and their weapons so as to die instantly when the Games start.
• The gruesome death of Nellie Mills as Capitol children treat it like a spectacle on the other side of the forcefield.
• Chevy's PTSD and All the Other Reindeer treatment after his games.
• Beetee missing Wiress as he works in his lab after the war.
• Beetee's nightmare about Cashmere's death.
• Just about everything in Seeder's chapter; her father being left a vegetable and her brother disappearing, being whipped while stealing fruit that seemed to bring her dad's memories back, watching the faces of the other tributes in the sky, the death of her first tribute, the death of her husband, her death at the hands of a reluctant Enobaria, it goes on and on. It's telling (and accurate) that the chapter is titled "Thirteen times Seeder Crue didn't let herself cry".
• The entire second half of Elena's chapter after all the hope and beauty of the first half: her children and nephew are reaped and die in the Games. Her husband kills himself and she suffers a brutal Descent into Addiction.
• Mags' reactions to Wheaton's death.
• Mags' horror at realizing she was used to help Snow gain the presidency.
• Barty being beaten by his stepfather for speaking against the Games in a confused and curious fashion.
• Barty having to join the Institute to avoid being sent back to his stepfather right when he'd finally found a kind home.
• Wonder's reflections on being taken to the Academy of Evil from the home that he loved.
• Wonder and Scipio's attempt to Screw This, I'm Outta Here being foiled, and Scipio apparently Killed Offscreen and presented to Wonder while Wonder is drugged and forced to attend some very ugly "Victor's Duties".
• The blind girl from District 6 in Nolan's Games reciting a poem in her interview.
• Nolan's reaction to the death of his District partner.
• The Mercy Kill of the girl from 5 in Nolan's alliance.
• Ares' PTSD and reflecting about how he injured his nephew.
• Eamon leaving his ally, the young girl from 5, to die above a fiery pit as she begs for his help.
• Ermine's reaction to finding the hanged body of Esther, and the way Luster later forces her to Volunteer for the Games.
• Maeve being taken away to the community home as a child.
• The deaths of Justinian's family in the city circle and how it drives him to suicide. Yes, Justinian was past the pale but they were innocent.
• Most of the tributes deaths from Chaff's chapter:
  • Chevy mourning how he forgot to tell his boy to boil any water he found.
  • Elena recounting all the details about her tributes personal life and crying, hugging a picture of her family as she watches the girl die.
  • Beetee seeing his tribute targeted and murdered for being "too clever" and trying to remain composed about it.
  • Gates going into a seizure as he watches the District 7 tributes reluctantly kill his boy simply due to recognizing it might be the only way to buy time from the Gamemakers.
  • The last stand of those same District 7 tributes, and how Vera angrily tries to smash her computer as they fall.
  • Wren's girl just giving up and dying of starvation as Wren vows to whisper all the things she wanted to tell the girl.
  • Ermine losing the tribute who reminded her of Esther after a prolonged Hope Spot, when its mentioned she already has PTSD over the last tribute she lost. This is followed by Ermine getting a tattoo to honor the dead girl.
  • Briesis's grief at having her tribute murdered by the tribute of her best friend.
  • Emerys throwing up as he watches his tribute die of infection.
• Everything Nolan and Luxe have to say about lives in their respective districts during the rebel meeting, as well as the hints of All the Other Reindeer feelings at the end of Luxe's speech.
  Nolan: They send kids out into the tesserae fields every summer. Even the ones younger than reaping age. They have to pull the weeds and water the wheat if it hasn't rained enough. They drop like flies. Heat stroke. And more are sent in to replace them. We freeze in the winter, those of us who can't afford coal. We burn dung and try to make it last. You'll find them in dark corners, behind buildings. Dead from the cold. ... And when our children go into the Games, they cry and run and hide and they die. They always die. The Peacekeepers take our food and call it tax. They take our water and say we use too much. They take... They take our wives, if they want them, before the first night and say it's their right. They give them back and tell us they're better broken in.
  Luxe: In One, pregnant women hope for birth defects. They whisper in the dark, wishing for their children to be born ugly so that they won't be taken away. Some of them drink and smoke, hoping that will damage the unborn just enough for it to escape the analysis in eight years. For some it works. For others, it doesn't. Our women go blind at fifty from a lifetime of setting tiny gems in a dark room. Our men are left to fend for themselves when they lose a finger to the graphite compressors and aren't fit for work. The rich and well-off live in perpetual terror that a rival will choose to put a hit on one of their children in a fit of revenge or pettiness. And when the Capitol takes our girls and our boys, whether to the Games or to the brothels or the DAEYD, they never, ever, ever come back. I'm not going to pretend to know what you endure in Nine, Nolan, but don't you dare tell me what it's like to survive in my home. And one more thing, you're too young to remember, but you should have known that my name came out of the reaping ball, same as Plat's, same as yours. Don't you act like either of us chose this life. So don't you ever call me "Career", boy. Do you understand me?
• The reveal that Wonder (by suicide) and Gates have both died, and how Wonder's parents were killed as well in retaliation.
• The description of Gleam and Silk assisting Luster's Academy of Evil just out of a desperate hope it provides some good, especially in light of the people they were in earlier chapters.
• Brutus' reaction to the Trials.
• Brutus giving his reasons for volunteering and being willing to be seen as a villain for it.
• The mock trials and executions of Granyte, Ermine, Brilliance and Ares, for voluntarily "upholding" a system that kills children (read: being Career Victors). It doesn't help that all of them at least slightly sympathetic Victors.
  • Ermine's death in particular. Ermine didn't choose to attend the DAEYD, nor did she want to be named tribute and wasn't in a position where she could commit Suicide by Cop, due to Luster's threat of killing Esther's family. So it would be jarring for her to be told that she was voluntarily doing so, when she was only doing so for her survival (and that of Esther's family).
• Jade's reaction to hearing about the deaths of so many other Victors (both her fellow Ones and Finnick).
• The other forty-seven tributes mentioned in Haymitch's chapter. It emphasizes that all tributes entering the arena have a life outside, which really captures the sadness and lost potential of those 47 dead kids.
  • Dazzle Brooks, one of the District One girls who volunteers by accident. She dies during the bloodbath, implicitly due to Suicide by Cop as mentioned during Arrow.
  • Miracle Vermeer, a District 1 boy wanting to bring pride to his relatives in 5 despite being teased for his hair colour.
  • Sue Jones, a brilliant inventor remembered more for her gory death in the arena than anything she did in life.
  • Dattery Nakamura from District 3 being a Death Seeker who lost his whole family to the Games and industrial accidents.
  • Coralle O'Keefe, a District Four girl known for her shrimp gumbo to a point where a Capitolian Supreme Chef was petitioning the government to let him hire her as a commis. Then the Hunger Games happened, leading to her dreams being crushed.
  • Both District Four male tributes, Brock Burns and Ulysses Blackwater. Brock deeply cares about two relatives, who were both killed by the respective Victors after volunteering. Meanwhile, Ulysses Blackwater volunteered just so his parents would notice him.
  • Jenna Dunne, a District 6 girl. Her mother stayed sober for sixteen years just for her sake, so Jenna has a better life than she does. However, once she's reaped, her mother goes Off the Wagon four hours later.
  • Weaver Browne, a Gentle Giant from 8, going crazy.
  • Aramanth Copeland, a dart-playing lad-ette from District 9 having the District raising sponsor funds for her, only for Aramanth to die before the money can be sent.
  • Veala and Charlie, Elena and Danny's children who were blatantly rigged into the Hunger Games. Charlie also promises to Mercy Kill Veala if he gets a chance.
  • The simple description of how Layla Forrester from District 12 had never tasted anything besides tesserae grain, dandelion leaves and tepid water before she was reaped. Justified because District Twelve is one of the poorest districts in Panem.
  • The description of how no matter how drunk Haymitch gets, no matter how close he comes to alcohol poisoning year after year, he can never forget a single one of those 47 names.
• Lyme having to kill her Parental Substitute in order to assuage Boudicca's suspicions about her loyalty.
• The description of how Granyte's adorable little brother turned into a neglectful parent and junkie.
• Nolan watching his promising tributes die during Wiress's year.
• Wiress and her grandfather's Stay with Me Until I Die moment.
• A shell-shocked Wiress winning on her birthday and running away from the hovercraft coming to collect her.
• Copper imagining his girlfriend as he dies from ebbing poisoned by Halibut.
• Liane being betrayed and drowned by Priam and feeling relief that at least she's not dying of thirst.
• The District 9 substitute tribute from Mitt's Games' sense of panic and being wronged after the first one was shot by peacekeepers.
• Mitt's Break the Cutie experiences in the arena, where he loses his confidence and past personality after leaving.
  "The once wisecracking clown was now a yellowed skeleton, his lips pulled back from his teeth, his eyes wide and tormented."
• Cecelia recalling her dead sister.
• Brutus's reaction to learning he has a son but being forbidden from seeing him.
• Roan murdering his District partner after she offered him help, due to being blinded by his racism.
• The sight of Marty Sickle, once a kid who had the potential to see the tributes of the Hunger Games as real people, now a hedonistic old man even less mature about things and more in awe of the death and fighting than before.
• Phoebus having nightmares about his arena.
• Phoebus's horror at seeing his surrogate brother die at Johanna's hands.
• Cashmere's reaction to learning that Crystal is dead and she'll end up as tribute.
• Brilliance's confusion about Crystal's suicide.
• Enobaria nearly being Driven to Suicide.
• Gloss, as a kid, being pressured to make friends in his own social class (and punished for trying to make other friends) when his family is too looked down on for that to happen, with it being noted he never has a real friend outside of his house.
• Gloss and Cashmere's Parents' worry about losing them to the DAEYD (after already losing their older sons to the peacekeepers) and their argument driving the twins to go to the Academy together.
• Gloss's father saying goodbye to him with "pride, love and something approaching immeasurable grief".
• Gloss and Cashmere avoiding their family to keep their parents from seeing the sign that they've been made Sex Slaves.
• Gloss's sense of guilt after his first attack as the Midtown Mincer and Cashmere's desperation to keep him from going too far.
• Gloss and Cashmere's fight about "Victor's Duties".
• Halibut watching his son die in the Games.
• The reveal Snow had Cashmere's father killed.
• Cashmere admitting her misery at mentoring girls she doesn't want to survive (and have to go through what she did) and how she feels her brother is dead.
• Beetee being forced to name which one of his fellow rebels are the most expendable.
• Finnick's reaction to the first time he gets sold.
• Song's father's reaction to her announcing her intent to train for the Games.
• Song and Quintus's death in the Rebellion, and their son finding their bodies years later.
• Johanna's grief about the deaths of her family and being Forced to Watch Snow murder them in high-definition.
• Johanna's first tribute wanting a Mercy Kill.
• Johanna's premature death saving a boy from a crane did not win Oisin55 any new fans.
• Honorius's feelings of tired defeat about the Games.
  Honorius: How many more children must we add to this macabre carnival? How many more can the nation hold?
• Cecelia's justifiable bitterness about losing her first really promising tribute to Executive Meddling over a petty reason.
• Abram's being bullied for most of his childhood.
• Abram's These Hands Have Killed moment.
• Abram having to mourn Ben. Especially since there's a strong possibility Ben was his biological father, and that Ben never told him about this.
• Abram returning to District 9 to find his mother executed by the peacekeepers.
• Annie's PTSD attack remembering her Games and muttering her Happy Place words.
• Cotton's Heroic BSoD about her Games and not saying another word for six months after watching the deaths in the recap.
• The Last Stand of the older Quell mentors.
• Haymitch having to help kill la peacekeeper who sponsored Katniss and Peeta.
• Cotton's Heroic Sacrifice, especially considering that they might have had time to escape without it.
• Lupus's Abusive Parent burning his brothers toys and Lupus's hand when he's six (and he's made Lupus watch three Games already).
• Lupus's fury at his father callously wanting to spend both of his siblings into the Third Quarter Quell (when at least one would surely die) but being too cowed to say anything.
• Lupus's general state of trauma when he exits the arena.
• The death of Emrys in the Rescue Arc.
• How far Justus has fallen, trying to murder a fellow District 2 Victor.
• Peeta watching a friend of his die in Lupus's games.
• During Mockingjay, Peeta making a cake for Katniss, then seeing he wrote "Mutt" into it.
• Boudicca's sense of defeat, sadness at the loss of her family and admitting it was all for nothing.
• Katniss's pained memories of Prim.

The Lumberjack and the Tree-Elf

• The general abuse Blight gets from his father and brothers, and all of it based on a lie (and their reaction to realizing this).
• The description of how Mayor Lourdes' wife was taken away and how he has to watch his youngest daughter taken away as well.
• YMMV on whether it's more sad or touching, but the moment of similarities between Blight and Plautia as she implies volunteering for the Games to deal with family pressures.
• Jason's sadness over losing his cousin in the Games.
• The girl from 5's mother trying to hang onto her and being slapped away by peacekeepers.
• Blight's reaction to seeing that his mother is a Sex Slave in the Capitol. He takes note of "[T]he hands that combed my hair, that wiped away my tears, that held me tight when I woke up in the night crying."
• Devon's guilt at being unable to save his District partner.
• Plautia being betrayed by her allies.
• Charlie's alliance breaking up, especially after they'd been such good friends (two of them anyway).
• Devon, arguably the nicest tribute of the whole 52nd Hunger Games, being tortured to death over seven hours while his family (on the TVs) and Blight have to watch every second of it.
• The death of Abel, the mutt Blight had befriended, dying for him.
• Charlie's descent into a Feral Child and ultimate death.
• The Deadly Distant Finale where a biological attack on Seven has killed Vera, Jason, the surviving members of the Lourdes family, most of the leaders of the District Rebellion and so many more (although some turn out to have been Faking the Dead in Arrow). Blight is going into the Quarter Quell not really wanting or expecting to live.
• The suddenness of Blight's death and how hard it hits Johanna.

Fall Into the River

• Cecelia's stoic feelings about being made to sell her body at 14 to feed her family.
• Cecelia's family's grief at her being reaped.
• The depths Cecelia and her ally Rowenna both sink to, and how Rowenna tries to stab Cecelia in the back at their last meeting.
• The reference to Blight and Jason's fight after Blight had to submit to Capitol sponsors to get the axe needed to save Connor's life.
• Cecelia having to Mercy Kill Loomer right after he saved her life.
• Cora's story about why she was sent into the Quell.
• The brief Call-Back to Qin Li in the form of her mother appearing.
• The sense of numbness and resignation of the District 1 family who sent two of their children into the same Games, as they realize it was All for Nothing.
• Andromache's sadness about hearing of the death of the District partner who saved her.
• Andromache being killed by Cecelia.
• Cecelia finding out about the victor Sex Slave ring hits her pretty hard, especially since she's a former sex worker who thought that winning the Hunger Games meant she'd never have to degrade herself like that again. As she realizes what Cora and Paylor are talking about, her voice gets "small and high-pitched", and then she lets out a Big "NO!".
• Cora being tortured into naming a Rebel leader, and Snow taunting her about the Quell while making it clear Cecelia will die there and refusing Cora a chance to save her.

The Bonds of Blood

• The description of the death of Enobaria's family.
• Enobaria seeing her friends die at the hands of the Reavers.
• Kerry being reaped, and everything that follows with her.
• Most of the arenas, and Enobaria's realization that these are people she'll be killing.
• Hera and Tiller's goodbye when she's kicked out of the alliance.
• Rob's death after being tortured.
• Enobaria killing the boy from 11 on his birthday.
• Genner's death at the hands of the boy from 10 after he went so far without killing anyone.
• Enobaria's My God, What Have I Done? moment about being Snow's assassin and depression on the years that follow.

Quell

• The girl from one actually campaigning to be voted in because I Just Want to Be Special.
• The District 2 volunteer wondering about how the girl she volunteered for will live with the District.
• The District 3 boy being voted in to punish his drug dealer brother and said brother's horrified apology.
• The District 4 girl being sent in for trying gin to feed her mother.
• The District 5 boy thinking that his District voted him in for wanting political change when the voting was rigged (although he did in fact get a fair number of votes).
• The District 5 girl being voted into the Games over an accident that wasn't even her fault, and that happened at a job she took just to buy clothes for her sisters.
• The District 7 boy's mother's fear coming true.
• The District 9 boy being voted in out of homophobia, and saying he hadn't realized his district hated him so much until then.
• The fate of the District 10 girl, Nellie Mills — she was Reaped because her father hunted Anasazi residents of the district, and she died a gory death, while Capitolians cheered it on as they watched the carnage in person.
• Bovina's guilt over the fate of Jon Parsons, and how he is sent in even though no one really hated him just as a message to the Settlers and a hope that he might win.
• The District 11 volunteers, doing so just to spite the Capitol and feeling they have nothing to live for.
• The District 12 girl being followed to the stage by her cat, the only one who will miss her, and then her cat being killed and eaten by her fellow orphans while trying to find her after she's taken away.
• The District 12 boy's utter confusion about why he was voted in (just as a sacrificial lamb due to having few relatives anyone would miss) and trying to remember things like his sister's eyes on his way to the parade. Worse yet, he isn't even remembered by the Capitol as a human, just as a statistic.

Secrets

• Ahenobarbus missing his Rebel mother and tying to remember her through her shawl.
• Platinum denying cancer treatments to be Together in Death with his only friend after Luxe dies.
• Jules' My God, What Have I Done? moment after accidentally crippling a man in a fight.
• Seaward finding solace in his music.
• Gleam holding onto hopes of his parents circus reopening.
• Tiberius's unanswered letters to Minerva begging for forgiveness.
• Woof's unfulfilled longing for a male Victor to treat like a son.
• Vera getting plastic surgery to avoid seeing the face of a murderer in the mirror.
• Virtus selling his District token for less money than it takes for him to get drunk.
• Chevy watching his youngest brother succumb to drug addiction.
• Beetee seeing himself as the Token Evil Teammate of the Rebellion.
• Eamon's father leaving his mother for another guy.
• Chaff's fear of Dying Alone.
• Haymitch's inability remember the colour of his girlfriend's eyes.
• Mitt sleeping next to the heater on his floor out of a depression to stay warm after surviving the Antarctic arena.
• Halibut's I Let Gwen Stacy Die feelings about the loss of his son.
• Annie killing dogs to train for the Games and her PTSD over it.
• Peeta blaming himself for Prim's death.

Arrow

• The reveal that Gleam and Song weren't supposed to die in the District 1 rebellion, but it got out of control due to a Gambit Pileup, causing a Torches and Pitchforks mob to get to them before the main District rebels.
• The sheer sense off loss and sadness making so many people revolt, from the workers to the Great Houses, and the description of decades of watching their children be Death Seekers in the arena.
• Lyme finding most of her home village killed by the Capitol, including her friend Mesa. Just to really twist the knife, every last body strung up in the ruins - old men, young women, and children alike - has a silver arrow driven through their heart, all to taunt Lyme and remind everyone of the Capitol's strong arm.
• The entire Viking Funeral of District 4: Mags' sister Dora mourning being the last survivor of their seven sisters. The deaths of two hundred former or current Career trainees. Deputy Peacekeeper Lockwood and most of the men who followed him into the Heel–Face Turn and most of the Victors.
• Dora consoling herself with the knowledge that Annie and Finnick are both alive and will get a happy ending, not realizing that Finnick is just weeks away from a gruesome death.
• The horror in District 5 as they watch their children rebelling and dying (despite their efforts to stop them) while being too afraid to intervene themselves until the end.
• Chevy being executed by peacekeepers (offering them cookies as they come) after having rejected an opportunity to go into hiding.
• Several members of Chevy's family dying in the Rebellion as hostages of power-hungry gangs after all they've survived.
• Victoria lying to Cecelia about Spindella's plans for a Heroic Suicide.
• Cecelia and Hector's goodbye as she thinks about how he's probably the last person she'll see who isn't trying to kill her.
• The reveal that Mitt is so rattled that he went into the Quell stoned with some morphling Chevy slipped him rather than face that.
• Elise Mahon's family wanted no part in the war, but the fighting started a grassfire that reached their homestead, and her parents and siblings failed to outrun it.
• The depression and cynicism experienced by District 9's surviving people. Evelyn's niece says that once the Rebellion had Eleven for food, Nine was left to burn. Another woman pleads, desperately, for someone to say that it all mattered. One boy who was 10 during the rebellion just says, "It wasn't worth it. I lost everyone. They're not coming back. They're not ever coming back." It's further noted that the District's people are spread out too far to come together to heal. All that kept them together was the Capitol fence, and without that, they're not one community anymore.
• The story of Fabius Kip, a teenaged peacekeeper prisoner who begged for his life, for the sake of his siblings and dog. Kip had trained to be a Career tribute, which caused a rebel who'd lost two of his daughters in two different Games to torture him to death. The storyteller then reveals Kip's name and where he's buried, in case his family is still alive and interested.

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