In your fanfic, what made Effie want to be an escort?
Status and public approval. Prior to becoming an escort, it's briefly mentioned that Effie worked for a couple of years in a clothing boutique (mostly to escape her father's house), and no one wants to work retail forever lol. She has a strong desire to be loved, courtesy of her abusive upbringing. Also her friend Celestina was already involved in the Games (training to be District 6's stylist) and Valeria - even before she was an apprentice Gamemaker - was financially and socially invested in the Hunger Games. So the Games were always part of her life, and seemed like a good route to social advancement. Half of Effie's close friend group (Valeria + Alseid) were patricians, so she was always going to have an inferiority complex around her own more humble upbringing, and try to find ways to raise herself up.
Effie has always had a complex relationship with the Hunger Games - her father liked to watch them, and made her watch them too (fun father-daughter bonding activities), but Effie has always been uncomfortable with what goes on in the actual arena. I imagine that as a young girl, she was very much into the styling, opening ceremonies, interviews, etc. - the aesthetics of the Games over the actual killing. She's not a bloodthirsty or sadistic person, so watching the events in the arena came from both obligation via her father and the sense of patriotic duty which is drilled into Capitolites. She was under the impression that the tributes dying was necessary for social order, à la Snow propaganda.
One thing I do believe is that there is some degree of vicarious trauma which the Hunger Games inflicts on Capitolites in their youth. Growing up watching kids your own age die brutally, all the while being told that they're subhuman (but also, to some extent, desirable) is going to fuck up your psyche. I don't actually think that I've explored this enough, how it actually was for Effie + Cori as they were raised watching the Hunger Games.
Thus the tributes don't really 'register' as real people until she actually begins working as an escort. She grew up fairly desensitised to the Games as that's all she's ever known, but of course there's a difference between watching a tragedy on a screen and being there as it happens. Hence her meeting Haymitch as an adult (after having a crush on him as a young girl) was an eye-opener to her. She knew, ten years down the line after the Quarter Quell, that Haymitch was something of a train wreck, but it's the proximity to him - and getting to know him as a person - that makes her realise that his alcoholism / general abrasiveness comes from a place of deep trauma. And this, of course, is the impact of the Games in action.
I know that SOTR made Effie an 'appointed' escort rather than a voluntary job applicant, but I prefer my own interpretation (sorry Suzanne) simply because I think it makes her personal responsibility in the Games more ambiguous and open to interpretation.
