Momoko Ryugasaki


 * "...it does make some sense, I guess. They used to use people from the Districts, I know, and they can't have liked that very much. Now they get all the benefits of the Games and don't have to worry about being picked to fight in them. It is smart of the Capitol, in it's way."


 * ---On the topic of the new Quell.

Momoko is a tribute for District 7 reaped for the second Arena of the new Quell. She was the Victor of Arena 05.

Before the Games
Momoko’s father was a cowardly gang member who met and hooked up with her mother in a spur-of-the-moment passionate night that resulted in pregnancy and a shotgun wedding. Momoko’s mother began an affair literally as she was giving birth to Momoko, with the doctor in the delivery room, and her parents were divorced by the time she was six.

Momoko was already a cynical and far-thinking child and she easily convinced her mother to leave with her new husband, as she was in her thirties and this was her last chance at happiness, allowing Momoko to stay with her father. Momoko calls herself an ‘indifferent child’, the kind of child who watches animals killing each other on nature specials and is unaffected.

Once Momoko’s father was kicked out the gang for skimming off the top, he turned to selling Versache knock-offs, eventually having to move out to the country with Momoko to avoid the resulting lawsuits. Momoko is obsessed with the Rococco period, entranced by their hedonistic lifestyle of lust, embroidery, beauty for the sake of beauty; and Lolita fashion, particularly the Baby brand. She originally cons the money for her expensive tastes out of her father, but when that dries up she starts selling the unsold knockoffs herself.

This leads to her meeting with Ichigo ‘Ichiko’ Shirayuri, a biker girl who shoves herself into Momoko’s life, deciding that they’re friends and ignoring Momoko’s protests to the contrary. Momoko finds herself changed by Ichiko, growing to care for her and to realize that she herself is ‘a coward in the face of happiness’ and that her cynical world views may not be the key to success she once thought they were, particularly when Ichiko encourages Momoko to take an embroidery job and when she helps Ichiko move past a broken heart.

When Momoko finds out that Ichiko is about to be beaten by several biker gangs for trying to leave the gang, she grabs her grandmother’s old bike and races to save her, managing with a baseball bat and a fierce attitude to trick all of the girls into believing that she is the daughter of the famous biker girl they idolized, scaring them into letting Momoko and Ichiko ride off into the sunset.

And then Momoko found herself in the Capitol.

The Games
Momoko's go-to strategy in the Arena is to hide. Theoretically her strategy also includes finding strong allies to protect her, but in fact she generally stumbles on these allies by accident. She finds this strange and, in fact, rather stupid of them but she's very willing to take advantage.

Her first two Arenas were traumatizing, including watching Lottie, her first friend after arriving die, and then mercy killing her the next time. In fact, both of her only two kills were mercy kills on allies, and this possibly contributed to her listless showing in the fourth Arena, along with the radiation sickness. Not knowing that Ariadne was helping her, she became convinced that the Sponsor gifts that came despite her lack of entertainment value meant there was nothing she could do to really affect things and took herself out of the Arena by jumping off a cliff (with a mutated monster Donatello's help).

The fifth Arena finds her with new energy, though she's had little to do with it, and now she's determined to at least try to win. Knowing that there are people actively working to help the weaker Tributes like herself to win helps, even if she won't admit to understanding it.

The Capitol
While in the Capitol Momoko's main strategy consists of playing up her various narratives to gather Sponsors and investigating her fellow Tributes for who to ally and who to avoid. Thanks to her misanthropic nature, she accomplishes much more with the former than the latter, though she has had a good time at tea with Draco Malfoy, a drink with Tony Stark , a conversation about pink with Lottie, a very polite exchange with Effie , and a few meaningful chats with Ariadne.

She also occasionally, when motivated or unable to avoid her Mentors, can be found in the Training Center, tending to concentrate on her survival skills more than her fighting skills, feeling they're rather hopeless. Otherwise she's enjoying the perks of Capitol life. She hates being so utterly dependent on these people, but can't help but like the free clothes and food.

When not doing any of the above, she's either at parties or hiding from Escorts who want to force her to attend a party.