Application for thegames

[impaledqueen]

CW: Discussion of bidding and violence.

OUT of CHARACTER
Name: Smurf
Other characters: Bruce Banner, Aang

IN CHARACTER
Name: Peggy Carter
Alias: People have called her ‘The Queen of Swords’, ‘The Butcher Queen’, ‘The Double-Butcher’ and variants of the sort before, but don’t call her that to her face.
Fandom: MCU
Canon point/AU: Victor AU

Journal: impaledqueen
PB: Hayley Atwell
Age: Twenties
History:Peggy is a woman from District 10, meaning she grew up all around animals intended for food and she was never allowed to eat them.

Her family was loving but poor, meaning she had to work from a young age and develop a sharp, independent mind for finance and practicality. She quickly developed into a strong young woman who never had enough to eat but nonetheless made her family proud. When she was young, she came across two trouble-making boys by the names of Bucky and Steve, who she became fast friends with. Life was hard since Steve would get sick often and Bucky had three sisters to take care of, but Peggy helped her friends where she could and they helped her in turn.

The help was always appreciated. There were times when starvation threatened to kill her or her family, but between the three of them, they had always been able to scrape up a little extra food to help them through, and similarly Peggy and Bucky were always able to somehow find a little bit of medicine for Steve when he needed it. Through each instance of supporting one or the other, Peggy’s loyalty to the boys was cemented in a way only a child’s could be.

Unfortunately, due to poverty, Peggy had to put her name into the drawing for the Hunger Games more than once every year. It came to bite her in the ass the year she turned fifteen, and her name was drawn. She was allowed to say goodbye to her parents and to Steve and Bucky. She made her promises that she would do her best to come back to them, but she did it expecting that she would never see District 10 again.

Her games were extended and brutal, even by Hunger Games standards, but throughout it all her friends continued to help her. Steve and Bucky gave her moral support in the form of notes, usually attached to what miniscule sponsor gift District 10 could afford, and she credits them with keeping her determined enough to win. She won by impaling herself on a sword in order to impale her final competitor, who was pressed against her back; the image became sensationalized in Capitol media and questions about it would consistently come up in post-arena interviews, keeping the horror of the memory alive.

When she came back from her games, she was a different person. She became far less open about how she felt about things and avoided speaking to people, but as a small ‘fuck you’ to the Capitol, she opened her new house up for dinner parties regularly to feed the starving masses of District 10, though she rarely attended her own parties. Her trauma made her sleepless and pinned her down with a persistent feeling of powerlessness, which she struggled to cope with by learning how to fight in her basement, claiming it was just the hobby she was picking up as a Victor instead of her only method of coping with the sense that she had no control over her life.

After the Capitol began auctioning off her body, her training increased tenfold, to the point where she was destroying herself with ceaseless exercise.

Despite having no means of truly understanding what she was going through, Bucky and Steve still did their best to help her. She had occasional moments where she lashed out, but her most common reaction was withdrawing from them, which they did not tolerate. After nearly two years, she had begun to heal and was tentatively reconnecting with old friends and trying to insert herself back into normal life. Unfortunately, tragedy struck when Steve was drawn in the Reaping, and Bucky volunteered in his place.

Being a Victor, Peggy was the mentor for the female tribute of District 10. Unfortunately, despite Peggy’s best efforts, the girl was just too young to stand against anyone else and was killed in the Cornucopia.

Peggy and Steve both supported one another and did their best to help Bucky in his arena the way Peggy was helped in hers. Unfortunately, after Bucky’s victory, Bucky said the wrong thing to the wrong people and Steve was taken away for it. Before Peggy had a chance to process that, Bucky started a fight, was taken to prison, and reportedly killed himself. Not too long after, Peggy’s parents died of illness. In a two-month period, she lost all the people who still loved and supported her.

Peggy stopped opening her doors to anyone. She left any excess food on her doorstep for clever children to grab instead. Instead of allowing her grief to break her, she made it harden and hone her to a fine point and she resolved to survive long enough to avenge herself and the people she loved. She played along with the Capitol’s game, making herself the perfect Victor, just so she could ingratiate herself, help the Tributes she had to mentor, and position herself well for her eventual revenge.

The opportunity came three years ago when Bucky, who was supposed to be dead, contacted her about being an agent for District 13 and the rebellion. Predictably, she had very mixed feelings about his being alive, ranging from intense joy to intense rage, but she ultimately agreed and has been a loyal agent for the rebellion ever since.

She gets her information primarily through complying with the bidding process, as she is still considered young and desirable and she has developed her ability to extract as much information from her clients as possible. She doesn’t restrict herself to people who bid on her, however, and actively uses sex to get close to anyone who she believes might let their guard down and tell her something important.

Presentation: Peggy is, above all, very well put together. Her sense of style is very understated by Capitol standards, but she wields makeup and clothes expertly, and when she is in public, there is never a hair out of place. Her makeup is perfect, her hair is perfect, her clothes are perfect, and she always has a scarf to hide the unsightly scar she got from a tribute using a garrote on her in her arena.

She has the confidence to back up her style. She carries herself with the air of a woman who is perfectly comfortable with her place in the world, and moreover, who doesn’t care whether you like her or not. If anyone could rule the world or continue on after its destruction, Peggy feels like that person.

With her confidence, there’s an undercurrent of sexiness that she didn’t have before dealing with the arena. When she decides that a person can be useful, she sits closer to them than necessary, leans in just enough, shows just enough cleavage, and she manipulates them. Even when a person can’t be useful, her interactions with Capitolites (and sometimes with everyone) often have a sense of casual intimacy despite the fact that she rarely ever shares anything about herself. She has the ability to make people feel very comfortable with her, but the moment she decides to be serious, she projects a commanding presence and has a powerful personality that intimidates most people. That is what Peggy Carter is at heart: a driven, ruthless woman who will stop at nothing to achieve what she wants, and the people around her can either step in line or be mowed down by her sheer willpower.

Despite the warmth she can project, there is always a part of her that she hides from people, and she has been known to drive her suitors (or, more accurately, clients) crazy trying to get her to share it. She keeps people at arm’s length, but she will allow them to put her as close to them as they want, so long as they are never close to her.

Motivations: The reason for this is because inside she’s a complete and utter mess.

Peggy is a woman who has suffered, and she has suffered far more than anyone should. She struggles to maintain every ounce of control over her life that she can, and she does it by refusing to love anyone again. The Capitol uses love to hurt and control people, so she won’t give them that tool to use against her. They actively pressure her to do things she doesn’t want to do, like get married and have children and eventually have those children go into the arena themselves, and as long as there’s no one she loves within their reach, they can’t make her do it. Love has become poison to her, so she intends to never allow herself to care too much about a person again. She instead uses love against other people by making her clients fall in love with her and using that love to pump them for information. Her relationship with love and sex is thus a very messed up one, with both things being tools to be used and processes to be hated.

The thing that drives her most is her sheer determination to survive and the rage and hate that has been born from her suffering. Every time she’s mistreated by a client, her hate and rage grows. Every time one of the tributes she was mentoring died, her hate and rage grew. Every time she saw the people back home getting pushed around by the Peacekeepers, her hate and rage grew. It has taken on a life of its own to the point where when the rebellion no longer needs her as a spy, she will kill, and she will kill a lot of people.

This rage comes most from powerlessness. She’s a woman who needs to control her life. She will take control by rebelling. Yet despite all this, she’s not an irrational woman and her rage doesn’t blind her. Her anger instead has a focusing effect that makes her extremely meticulous and methodical in what she does, and this leaves her appearing perfectly composed even when she’s fantasizing about killing the person she’s speaking to. Thus, she is a very dangerous opponent for anyone who crosses her.

Setting: Peggy will focus any anger or grief she feels from the consistent violence in and out of the game by playing her role as a model victor and mentor and gathering as much information as she can. She will publicly praise the Capitol and play along with any propaganda they want her to play along with, but privately, she will feed all the information she can to D13.

SAMPLES
First Person Thread: An example of a first person post, at least 200 words minimum. Feel free to use introspection and scene setting if your character is not chatty. Please use one of the two following prompts:

For Capitols OCs and AUs: Somehow you ended up privy to a private post just gushing about how much they just LOVE the new games, how they think they are the best thing since sliced bread. Then the poster (Your friend? Some random person from a party who decided they wanted to send you their private thoughts? A rival trying to pin you into an uncomfortable spot?) namesdrops you for your opinion on the new format, versus the quaint, old-fashion style of the game.

Everyone on the broadcast is just waiting for your input.

[Well, this is uncomfortable. Peggy smiles at the camera, neatly folding her hands in her lap. She knows what she thinks of the new games: she thinks they don’t have any of the immediate danger of the old games, that the tributes know that they won’t stay dead and sometimes treat an arena as a vacation, that adults who won’t stay dead work together to protect younger people (and that never happened ever, not in the old games, not when you were a child yourself and you only got one wish to sacrifice everything you were for), that it’s a blessing that District children aren’t being slaughtered anymore but it won’t stem the tide of rebellion like the Capitol wants, that this is a transparent and weak attempt by the Capitol to stop a fire that they started themselves—

But she can’t say any of that.]

Well, it’s certainly different, but it’s a testament to the creativity and hard work of the Gamemakers that they sustain a never-ending game, isn’t it? I enjoy being able to get to know my tributes before and after the arena, so I like that change, but perhaps the constant game is a little too exciting? I’m afraid the Capitol can only handle so much excitement.

[She smiles and she adds a soft, lilting laugh at the end before turning off the camera.]

Prose: 200 word minimum. To mimic the style of the game, please write your third person sample based on the following prompt:

You have been set in a room in front of the Gamemakers to be judged on a score of one to twelve, with one being the lowest and twelve being the highest. The Gamemakers sit safely behind a force field and watch, and you are provided with an array of weapons and targets, though no gun to be seen.

If you are a new Tribute, you have been plucked from home and rushed in here with only a brief explanation of what is going on: You are about to enter an Arena death match that only one person will make it out of, and impressing these people will help you live.

If you are someone from Panem, then you are very unlucky. You know what's going on but... you were told all the Tributes were from a foreign land now. So why are you in front of the Gamemakers fighting for your life now? Are you a criminal, a traitor, deeply in debt? Or do you even know why you were shoved in to this room?

[Well, she was found out.

She smiles, but it’s not the false smile she’s perfected. It’s bitter with a razor edge.] I would have thought that a traditional hanging would have sufficed, but I guess we want to give my death a little bit of irony.

[She’s going to die in the arena. How odd that her entire life would revolve around that thing, from the destruction of everything she was to her eventual death.

She doesn’t expect extraction from District 13. Now that she’s found out, they have no use for her. Maybe Bucky will try to argue for her life, maybe he won’t, but either way, it’s a potentially huge expenditure of resources for a low-value person. District 13 is nothing if not practical.

She looks around the room, then strolls towards the knifes, picking up a beautiful butcher knife before dragging a mannequin towards the middle of the room. Hmm. Not enough. She considers, then goes to grab some of the camouflage paint.] Well, considering you know my talents, I considered just taking a nap, but a proper woman from District 10 knows how to give a show.

[She sits down in front of the mannequin, allowing her knife to gleam in the light as she starts painting on its face.] Let me show you what a butcher can do. [She turns the mannequin so they can see her work. On its face, she’s written President Snow.

Then she drives the knife into the mannequin, slowly butchering the human model on stage.]

What is your character scored: In her first games, Peggy would have been around a 6 because she had no combative skills, but she was strong and knew how to handle a butcher knife.

She has since been obsessively training herself how to fight, since it was one of the only ways she felt like she could take control of her life. Thus, I think she’s around a 9 or a 10, since she’s ready to kill and she has trained herself to properly manipulate crowds and hold her own in a fight.

She has no powers, but she can kick ass nonetheless.

Token: A note sent to her in her first arena, one signed by Bucky and Steve. Give em hell, Peg.

Additional information:

Past victor: Peggy’s arena was modeled after a very old war only remembered by Capitol historians: World War I.

There were big, barren fields with pipes running underground that would let out sudden blasts of gas, the effects of which would range from vomiting to melting flesh. There were also motion sensors on the field which activated some of the many machine guns that were rigged along the edges of the fields, which could mow down a tribute in moments. The only safe spaces from these guns were around the Cornucopia and within one of the trenches. The trenches were deep and created a network all throughout the arena. They were safe from the guns and had less frequent instances of gassing, but they weren’t without their dangers. They were overrun by big rat mutts that liked to strip the flesh from bone and spread disease with their venom.

There was no naturally growing food and all the water was filthy, but throughout the trenches and the no-man zones, there were human bodies. These bodies were modeled after dead tributes of games past, and they would be dressed in warm clothes and have rations of food and water on them, but moving the bodies carried risks of cracking open the bones, which would release a swarm of man-eating fly mutts who were growing inside the marrow.

Peggy survived by stripping the bodies she found. She accidentally cracked the arms open of the first body and released the flies, which gave her big open sores on her body before she ran through gas to kill them. She was successful, but the gas made her violently ill and she dehydrated herself from vomiting. Luckily, the gas killed any bacteria in her sores as well, so while they didn’t heal well, they didn’t get infected. Afterwards, she was far more careful and was able to strip bodies without cracking the bones. She supplemented her diet by killing and butchering the rat mutts, which were surprisingly edible raw.

She became a force to be reckoned with when she stole a butcher knife from a tribute killed by mutts, and she used the knife to kill enemies and butcher rats, which kept her going long enough.

She decided that in order to survive, she had to destroy the ample Career food supply in the Cornucopia. She waited until it was dark and dug from the closest trench to the Cornucopia and found the pipes that carried the gas beneath it. Then she found the nearest machine gun, crawled on her belly to avoid tripping the motion sensors, and tampered with its pole until it could no longer hold the gun upright. She balanced the gun on her shoulder and pointed it at the exposed pipes beneath the Cornucopia and tripped the motion sensor.

In this process, she released all the gas that ran beneath the Cornucopia, enough that caused the metal horn itself to begin dissolving. Career skin melted like candle wax and they threw themselves into the trenches where mutts devoured their convulsing bodies.

This shorted the system of pipes, so there were no longer bursts of gas anywhere but around the Cornucopia, and the Gamemakers decided that the games needed more excitement. Old-fashioned planes flew through the arena and dropped shrapnel bombs near the remaining tributes. This took out everyone but Peggy and one other person, who happened to be a Career that survived her attack on the Cornucopia (though not without a half-melted face). They fought and disarmed each other. When Peggy tried to run away, since her opponent was older, bigger, and healthier than she was, the Career grabbed a wire and pulled it around Peggy’s neck as a garrote. The wire was sharp enough to almost cut all the way into Peggy’s throat (and has left a lasting scar), and in desperation, she grabbed the Career’s sword from the ground and stabbed it through her own stomach; once the sword had completely impaled her, it went through her attacker’s stomach too until they were both pinned together and completely impaled. The Career dropped the wire and struggled at first, attempting to break Peggy’s neck instead, but every movement made the sword move inside of them both so any movement quickly ceased. The struggles had already done their damage and shredded the Career’s insides, and Peggy just waited until he was dead while she herself was dying at a slower pace.

The idea of a victor winning by stabbing herself with a sword became sensationalized in Capitol media, and it earned Peggy many admirers and attention, none of which she actually wanted. After the arena, her stylists scrubbed her body clean of any scars she had earned save the scars she got from the garrote and the fateful impaling, which she now tries to hide but are nonetheless subjects of sensation in the media.

Hunger Games AU and OC: What is your reasoning for the Capitol to include your canon doppelganger if they app in? It’s possible they would do it so the Capitol could get another taste of the Queen of Swords without actually putting a victor back into the games, or they could do it as an intimidation tactic if they believe that Peggy is doing something subversive but they don’t have proof.

What district is your character from? How do they feel about home?
Peggy is from District 10, and she actually has a lot of affection for her home. Not for the overwhelming poverty, but for the people there and being able to work with the animals. She misses the open spaces, but she doesn’t go back because there are too many memories there and her work is better conducted within the Capitol.