#whg

In the first rays of dawn, a booming announcement comes over the speakers. A masquerade is being held, and the tributes have specific outfits lying next to them that they must wear if they want to participate.

DO NOT PAY ATTENTION TO HAYLO. We have our first polycule! Congratulations to Dante, Téa, Malithra, and Nox! Rod and Emily are the last two remaining, so the Capitol citizens wait with baited breath to see what they do.

After the excitement of last night, the Capitol is hoping for even more excitement today! The arena smells like freshly baked sugar cookies.

Conor and Klara decide to become coupled after having multiple dates and a cuddle! DO NOT LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENED WITH GHEA EVERYTHING IS FINE. Dante, Emily, and Nox contemplate polyamory!

After the famous cuddle pile of the previous night, the citizens of the Capitol watch with baited breath, hoping for the tributes to become a polycule. But the cuddle pile disperses, and there is sobbing in the streets.

Not a very exciting day, but there are some couples hopefully forming. I am definitely eyeing the erotic wound-tending. Chess is also so valid, but the Capitol is cheering for her to wake up and find someone.

It is another nice day to fall in love! The sky is becoming an even more sickening pink, and the clouds look like hearts now. The trees rustle in the breeze, in ways that sound suspiciously like the love songs of the day.

One couple makes it! Otherwise, the tributes are mostly taking their time, not wanting to play the Capitol's games. Which might be a bad idea in the long run. The Capitol does not take kindly to rebellion.

The tributes have slept through the night, together or apart, and they're well refreshed for this next day! Hopefully, we'll see some flirting, some kissing, and some couples!

More wine, and more searching for love! Lyra and Warren have found it, and the happy couple is taken away! Ghea and Emily on the other hand decide to wait and weigh their options first.

It is time for the first event of the Hunger Games Dating Edition: The Blind Date! The tributes are brought up to a cornucopia that's filled with things you would need for a date: outfits, flowers, bags with information on other tributes, tables, food, and other various objects. The sky is a sickly pink color, and the trees surrounding the cornucopia have silver and gold heart-shaped leaves. There's no sound of animals or any other signs of life. It's just the tributes and the plants alive in here.

Quite a bit of planning, but no one making moves yet! Téa decides it's not a Hunger Games if no one fights. While Rod, Trevor, and Asher decide to work together to get supplies for dates. I wonder if they are eyeing each other for a date? Only time will tell.

It is time for the WHG to start, and I am the Master of Ceremonies announcing all the happenings! 20 tributes go in, and the Capitol expects them to all be happily together by the end! We are all so excited to see who gets together with who! Place your bets now!

(The simulation made me put one "death" event in each category for only one person "dying", and that inevitably showed up in each simulation I ran, so there will be a couple tributes who do not end up together. I apologize.)

No one knows what to expect when they walk into the final room before the arena.

District 1:

Pierre "Craw" Devine (he/him, genderfluid, panromantic) @jj-shubert-writes

Téa (she/her, bisexual) @bloodlessheirbyjacques

District 2:

Haylo (he/him, gay) @jj-shubert-writes

Adair (he/him, bisexual if he had to choose) @thegoddesswater

District 3:

Chess (she/her, pansexual, polyamorous (don't know if I need to mention it or not, but she's super polyamorous)) @concealeddarkness13

Conor (he/him, trans man, pansexual) @pen-of-roses

District 4:

Ghea (she/her, bisexual/demisexual) @bloodlessheirbyjacques

Klara (she/her, lesbian) @thegoddesswater

District 5:

Dante (he/him, gay) @abalonetea

Nox (she/her, sapphic leaning bisexual) @pen-of-roses

District 6:

Malithra (she/they, nonbinary, sapphic leaning bisexual) @pen-of-roses

District 7:

Warren (they/them, nonbinary) @maple-writes

District 8:

Helle Brynhildr (she/they, female-leaning bisexual/demisexual) @writingamongther0ses

Lyra (she/her, pansexual) @forthesanityofstorytellers

District 9:

Asher Sang (he/him) @maple-writes

Cirrus (he/him) @maple-writes

District 10:

Emily Spurling (she/her, panromantic, pansexual) @jj-shubert-writes

District 11:

Trevor (he/him, bisexual) @forthesanityofstorytellers

District 12:

Thorne (he/him, bisexual) @concealeddarkness13

WHG Prompt 1: The Big Day

It’s the day of the reaping. The Capitol decided to announce that this year will be different. The Hunger Games will take place in an arena where the tributes have to fall in love in order to escape and all of the tributes will be used for entertainment after the Games are over. Nobody knows who will be reaped yet. Work has stopped for most people in the District, and school is out. People are talking about the change, how it's so much better because at least no one will die. Or in the career districts, the careers are complaining about this, that this was not what they were training for. Adults can also be reaped, even if they have a partner already, the Capitol proclaiming that their relationship in any form is null and void if they're reaped. There's an air of tension and relief in both measures as everyone waits for the reaping.

How does your character feel about the possibility of going to the Arena? How do they prepare?

WHG Prompt 2: The Reaping

Now it happens. Your character is standing in the crowd, waiting. A brightly-colored escort stands on a stage with 1 bowl and reads off the Capitol-approved speech about how gracious and merciful the Capitol is for letting the tributes live this time. Ignoring how all of the tributes will be basically puppets after the Arena. 1 or 2 names will be called. After each one, there will be a chance for anyone of any gender or age to volunteer to go in the person’s place.

The reaping begins. A name is called.

WHG Prompt 3: The Last Visit

Every tribute is given one hour for others to visit them. No cameras. Your character sits in the bare gray room of their District’s Justice Building, waiting for the door to open. Does it? Does anyone come to visit them? Just one person? Whole parties of them? No tokens are allowed, no remembrances of their past life will leave this room with them. The Capitol declares that the tributes have no past now.

And finally, they are left alone in the room.

WHG Prompt 4: The Train Ride

After a brief trek from the Justice Building to the train station, cameras flashing everywhere, your character boards the train to the Capitol. Greenery flies past the window as the sky darkens.

The other tributes are there, along with the frilly Capitol escort desperate to get your character to talk about their personalities, plus a few previous District victors who usually would be mentors but now are just there, also confused about what they're supposed to do. There is a bounty of decadent food, screens to watch recaps of the Reaping, places to sleep, and places to speak privately.

What does your character do? Where do they go?

WHG Prompt 5: Chariots

The trains arrive at the Capitol. Your character is whisked away by a prep team and stylist to give them a District-themed outfit. Then they are put atop a horse-drawn chariot and paraded between cheering Capitol crowds to the City Center, then into the shadows of the Training Center.

How does your character react to being here with these other two tributes? What are their outfits like? Do they like the outfits? The limelight? The false glory of the Capitol?

You can coordinate with your District mates on this…or not! You don’t have to match.

WHG Prompt 6: Training

Once in the Training Center, "appropriately" renamed the Romance Center, your character is assigned to lavish living quarters with food and beverages at their fingertips. An elevator ride down takes them to a room with information about the Capitol, tables for them to sit at and talk to their other tributes, "trainers" who teach them about what to expect after the Arena, and wealthy Capitol contributors who can pay for time with individual tributes while they're still single.

How does your character prepare for the Games? Mentally? Physically? What about for their interview?

Do they talk to anyone? Avoid other tributes?

The judging is instead a time where the judges make an info card for each tribute: their romance strengths and weaknesses, physical strengths and weaknesses, and likes and dislikes. They might even tell the tributes how to play their "character" in the Arena as well.

WHG Prompt 7: The Interview

Your character’s stylists have gone all-out to make the most magnificent outfit for your character, regardless of their District. Your character walks out of the tunnel towards the huge crowd seated just outside the light—human shapes are identifiable, but not faces. Only Caesar Flickerman, done up this year in a "romantic" red and pink, is in full view, sitting easily in his chair next to an empty one. It seems like every camera in Panem is pointed at the stage.

Your character gets three minutes. Time starts now.