Holly Sheer

In-Game Information
Holly was recruited as a mentor for Arena 01 and was seen frequently around the Capitol near the beginning of the run of the arena. However, once all the tributes of District 3 had been elimated from the game, Holly's presence deminished greatly.

She and a handful of other mentors seemed to 'disappear' from the public eye with nothing but a rumor to chase after, that they had been taken by government officials for "special training". Holly was one of the first to have been taken for this training, along with Peeta Mellark of District 12. However, it turned out that the bulk of the "training" was in fact implied to be long-term solitary confinement and interrogation for months on end. Holly's "training" ultimately failed for unknown reasons; she and Jane Shepard were turned into Caesar Flickerman's personal Avoxes, making their first post-conversion appearance during Kevin Prentiss' Victor interview after Arena 04.

Personal History
Holly never had to live in hardship. Even though born into District 3's tenements and slums and factories, she was the daughter of the mayor of District 3, one of the elite, one of those who never had to worry about the next meal or dread their potential 80-hour work week. She was born into luxury.

It's not her fault her life didn't work out that way.

You see, District 3 had a run of bad Hunger Games. Really, really bad. They hadn't had a winner in nearly a decade, and the people in the district were starting to get restless. They were starting to starve.

The mayor of District 3, Maxwill Sheer, decided to take things into his own hands. He was going to create a victor if it killed him. And he decided, in the spirit of personal sacrifice, that this victor would be his own daughter.

And so he trained her. He kept her at physical peak condition and had her learn hunting, killing, scrounging. He kept her half-starved until she found food on her own. He pushed her mercilessly for what he saw as the greater good.

She was eligible for the games by the 62nd Hunger Games, but her father lost his nerve. He delayed, and dithered, and perfected his scheme of rigging the drawing until the 66th, when he couldn't wait any longer. At the age of fourteen, Holly's name was drawn and she went into the games.

She won. (Summarized below.)

Since then, Holly has been working on her image both public and private, and perfecting a scheme of her own: to kill her father, and to get away with it. When the time comes, she would rather be a precious, loved commodity of the Capitol, so that she never has to get punished.

Presentation
She has a sweet face and a sweet smile, and she's incredibly photogenic. Her dramatic reversal in the first few moments of her Hunger Games made her famous, as did her win; because of this, to the public, she presents herself as elusive and sly. She hides from the cameras, rarely consents to interviews, and makes reporters really work to get any useable camera shots of her.

As a result, she has a few reporters who stalk her to hell and gone, absolutely certain that there must be an amazing story there. Unfortunately, most of the rest tend to move on to the story of the moment.

To her stylists and her publicists, she is disdainful and borderline abusive. Style-wise, she always portrays herself like a queen. She wears elegant clothes, and doesn't let her stylist have a say in much of what she chooses. After eight years, she considers herself an expert in the Capitol's ways (whether that's true or false), and she will not tolerate attempts to run her life for her.

To those close to her, she is quiet and calm and wry, rarely speaking but always having something worth saying when she does. She is sweet and charming, and the parties she throws are famous, if only because she only invites a rare few to them.

To her tributes, she is cool and straightforward. She counsels them bluntly and trains them mercilessly, unknowingly echoing her father's methods. She has, in the past, completely cut a tribute off for not listening to her. That tribute starved to death, because Holly refused to buy any gifts for him from Capitol donations.

In summary: beautiful, kind, and sweet, but everyone always wonders what she's hiding, given the way she played her Games.

Motivations
As it turns out, what she's hiding is anger. Incredible, deep, simmering fury. She cultivated that fury carefully through the Games, letting it guide her hand, using it to keep moving even when she thought she was going to lie down and die. Specifically: she hates her father. She considers the Hunger Games to be just the way things are -- it's her father's fault, what happened to her. He tossed her in the way of the Games. He grew her up to die.

In public, after the Games, she conducted a tearful reunion with her father. In private, she told him that they were done, that they would never speak in any meaningful way ever again.

Holly's only true goal, right now, is to kill her father and get away with it.

To that end, she is endeavoring to recover the fame she got just after her Hunger Games (which she lost through careless public management for the first few years after the Games and has only just now really regained, through careful strategizing). If she is a darling child of the Capitol, she theorizes, then even if she's caught for the murder, she'll be excused somehow. She won't be punished. Meanwhile, she quietly works on her methods of murder, refining them in private as she keeps up her public image.

It's in her interests to keep her tributes alive, and so she will go to any lengths necessary to make that happen. She needs some big public relations victories.

The 66th Anual Hunger Games
"In a shocking twist, the Tribute from District 3 is none other than the mayor's daughter himself. Mayor Sheer looks distraught as his calm, brave daughter is taken away… what a tragedy, what a tragedy…" 

Holly took her selection in silence. She greeted the crowds in her home district with silence. When her trainers managed to coax a few words out of her, all she would say was that she wasn't surprised.

In reality, she was terrified. Her world had undergone a tectonic shift: now, the Hunger Games were real, and she had to face the reality that her father had never had her improvement in mind. He'd raised her to be killed.

So there was only one thing to do:

Win.

And then get home to kill the man who'd sent her there.

"Next we have District 3, where the girl Tribute -- Holly Sheer -- looks more like she's attending a tea party than the opening ceremony of the Hunger Games. Does she even blink? I don't think I've ever seen her blink."

Shy, calm, and dumb: that was her public image. She fumbled spears in training. She ate a poisonous bug on purpose, got her stomach pumped, and spent a day of training in bed rest. She made every mistake she could, and then smiled at her trainers with heartbreaking, tear-stained eyes.

Not like her mentors were going to help.

"The most boring interview of the night goes to Holly, from District 3, who barely said a word during her entire interview. Is she hiding something, or is she really just that stupid?"

"And a disappointing rating of 3 for the girl from District 3. What's her name again?"

The talk of the town: the mayor's disappointing and soon-to-be dead daughter. District 3, reluctantly, stops being hopeful and starts going about their business. Unmemorable, unthreatening, and already half-forgotten, she enters the games.

And then everything changes.

"And the Tribute from District 4 is down! He's down! Did anyone see what happened? Do we have video footage on what happened? All right, we're spooling it up now. It looks as though Griff, the male tribute from District 4, was going for the fishing gear by the Cornucopia -- no surprise there -- when he fell. He just fell.

"Here's the video, we have the video up, we're playing it now.

"What happened? I didn't see -- we're repeating it in slow motion.

"That's -- who is that? -- That's the girl Tribute from District 3. The girl tribute. Look, here -- she runs past him, and so fast, almost too fast to see -- I didn't see it! -- she plants a knife in his back. Amazing. Incredible. In a stunning reversal, it seems that she -- that Holly Sheer -- has been hiding her talents all along."

Holly scored one death at the Cornucopia, quick as a flash, and made off with a good pack of survival gear. Her year, the arena was a treacherous network of jagged rocks and waterfalls, with barely any scrub and only a few animals. Holly treated the rocks like an obstacle course: she explored them, memorized them, and led tribute after tribute to their deaths.

"The talk of the Capitol is Holly Sheer, the unexpected and unexpectedly famous tribute from the electronics district. She has racked up an incredible seven kills, narrowing the field down to her and six others."

Holly's quick murders were the talk of the town, and the Hunger Games were incredible that year: the gamemakers made a huge deal out of the dramatic suspense of the other tributes underestimating Holly, and not realizing her danger until it was too late.

Sponsors favored Holly, allowing her to survive through the worst of the cold, wet nights.

The Games ended with a brutal fight down a slippery and ever-faster white-water river. Holly landed at the bottom torn and wounded, but alive. Her opponent wasn't so lucky.

**Special Notes
Holly Sheer was played by Mara during Arena 01. However, the character was dropped for the mun's personal reasons. However, before leaving, Mara granted us permission to keep Holly as part of The Games cast, and use her for plot purposes, should we need to use her.

At this time, Holly is unavailable to be apped as a playable character and remains on the cast as an NPC.

The only exception to this would be if Mara herself chose to re-apply, since she is solely Mara's creation.