Right, so yeah. I'm baaaaack.

Ow, ouch, hey! That hurt! Stop it! I get it, you can't stand my non-updating. No need to throw tomatoes at me!

Okay, seriously? I'm exhausted. I know, I know, its been MONTHS. But, I've been really busy with school, I pretty much FAILED all my tests in the last 2 weeks, and I've been kinda distracted with this new forum on that I joined, where they had monthly challenges.

On a side note, here's some shameless publicity plug: GO READ MY NEW STORY! It's a one-shot, written for the DWAC Feb Fic Challenge (that's the forum I was talking about earlier). It's a GalexMadge, which I have been dying to write, and even though I had a plot-line drawn out and everything, I don't think I'd have time to really write it, as I've really got to start focusing on this story. I WILL FINISH THIS, NO MATTER WHAT!

So anyway, this, ladies and gentlemen, is the CHARIOT RIDES! Can I hear a 'YAY'? No? Really? Not at all? Sheesh, you guys are a bunch of wet blankets!

Okay, just kidding! About the yay thing. Not the Chariot Rides thing. Because this IS the Chariot Rides. Right. Yeah. So enough with my ramblings. ENJOY!

(Capitol viewer's POV)

Eeep, I'm so excited! The day has finally come… The tributes have arrived in the Capitol! THEY'RE HERE! NOW!

I'm on the verge of hyperventilating, that's how excited I am. Or it could just be from the stink of the hordes of people around me actually, as we sit, waiting for the chariot rides to begin. Let me tell you, five thousand different scents of perfumes mixed together? Not good. But hey, no pain no gain right? Or was it no gain, no pain? I can't seem to remember….

Anyway, I am absolutely psyched to be sitting her, in this very privileged front row seat. I've always come to the chariot rides every year – how could anyone not? – but I've never had a front row seat before! This is all thanks to my wonderful boyfriend, who's a high-ranking official in the government, and got me and Collaice these wonderful tickets. We've been together for the whole of… let's see now… I believe it was three days? No, maybe two. Yes, definitely two. We've been together for the whole of two days! Isn't that just darling? Truth to be told, he's not that cute, but these tickets definitely make up for it! And I'm planning on dumping him right after the interviews at the end of the week, of course.

I yawn, geez, why does it take so long for the damn rides to begin? Its almost sunset, so they've got to begin soon! I get the sudden urge to shake my leg the slightest bit, but I push it down again. It is simply not right for a woman of my standing to shake her leg in public!

High above the stadium, the sky glows a magnificent orange, which slowly seeps into a more pinkish, purplish color, as the sun slowly disappears under the horizon. What a delightful color! I imagine what it might look like, having the colors of the sunset depicted on a dress. Ah, it would be absolutely stunning! I must really get my stylist onto it as soon as I reach home!

Now that the bright sunshine has disappeared, the neon lights of the stadium and the surrounding buildings flash on. This is more like it! The perfect setting for the chariot rides. Looking around, I notice that the crowd is pulsing with energy. Literally. Heartbeat shirts are really becoming a trend in the Capitol! These shirts record the rhythm of your heart through sensors hidden within the fabric, and pulse with light accordingly. Ingenious, really! I myself, am wearing a heartbeat dress, that flashes a rainbow of eye blinding colors with every beat of my heart, reflecting off my ivory skin in a multitude of colors.

A smatter of applause rings out, as the lights dim, and the snow white horses of the District 1 carriage emerge from the entrance. I must say, I wasn't disappointed by the extravagance of the costumes. Truly amazing, their stylists are! Of course, you do have to show a certain aptitude before they allow your designs to be featured in the Hunger Games… I do remember once, dating a stylist. Extremely fussy man, he was. Everything had to be absolutely perfect. Great sense of style, of course, but I couldn't stand that he was vainer than me. I soon tired of him after a week, although he definitely was bored much faster than me. I caught him cheating on me, with some skanky purple haired… something that rhymes with hitch. I dumped him, ruined his career. He was demoted to District 9 after that! Ahh, how good it feels to have such power…

I admire the District 1 stylist though, I really do! The tributes look exquisite, although you must admit, the stylist team had so much more to work with than in the other Districts. I shudder when I remember the horribly ugly, ordinary-looking past tributes. This year's tributes aren't that bad of course, but the previous years, well, that was a different matter. In my opinion, anybody that ugly should be killed on the spot, if only to save my poor, surgically-enhanced lime-green eyes from the traumatizing experience of seeing them!

The girl – Victory something, I think her name was – she was the one with the too big lips! I definitely remember her… And her new trend has already taken root in the Capitol. I've already seen 13 people with bigger lips than normal. Even good ol' President Snow's gigantic, fat, pouty lips look just that teensy-weensy bit bigger. I hope his allergies aren't getting worse… They are the cause of his swollen lips, I'm told. Of course, many people say otherwise – there's talk on the streets about poison, under-table measures, political assassinations. I don't believe one word! President Snow would never lie about something like that, right? Saying that the President's hiding stuff from us is like saying that all the victors have become prostitutes – absolutely absurd!

Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, Victory… Evans, if I'm not wrong. Yes, Victory Evans. She's wearing an asymmetrical diamond dress, that ties on her right shoulder, leaving her left bare. Tight around the bust, but loose and flowy around her hips and below, it sparkles like a diamond, since District 1's main industry is providing luxurious goods for the Capitol. How glamorous must it be, living in the District, having the honor of servicing the Capitol. If I wasn't living in the Capitol, I'd love to live in District 1! Victory's smiling and waving to the crowd, everyone's going crazy! Her body is glittering under what's left of the sunlight, and her lips look to be coated in a silvery, glossy lipstick. Seems like silver's the color of the year for Victory! Coupled with her wavy blond hair, which seems to have been lightened a few shades to a platinum blonde, she looks just like an ice queen, if not for those brown streaks and chocolate brown eyes.

Her district partner's not that bad either, with his square jaw, five o'clock shadow and dark heavy eyebrows, he looks like the mysterious, poetic kinda guy. Except for that wide smile he has. Really though, it just spoils everything. I'd rather he not smile at all! He looks smart though… And goodness gracious me, that man has a body build like a Greek God! He was shirtless, only wearing a shimmery pair of black pants that looks like its been through a bejeweling process a dozen times. Instead of a shirt, he dons a mass of silvery tattoos, temporary I assume, that seem to be moving before my very eyes. Very nice, a sure hit trend, if I do say so myself! And I do. Say so I mean. After all, I am a respectable authority of what's in and what's out of trend. I value myself very highly based on my gut feel about these things.

Then comes District 2, their chariot gliding in smoothly behind District 1. The girl, Mimi, was dressed in a somewhat unconventional take to the Peacekeeper uniform. Sure, she had the distinctively white outfit, with the pointy cap that was perched lightly on her little blonde head. But then, there was nothing conventional about the way her pants were cut off to show an uncomfortable amount of thigh, and how her shirt is unbuttoned so low, I think there are more buttons buttoned than there are unbuttoned. And, of course, her make-up. Her skin is powdered white, which allows her blood-red lipstick to stand out against the paleness of everything else. She looks like a vixen, like the kind of woman that makes mothers drag their kids across the street to avoid. You can tell she thinks so too – just look at the angry thin line that her mouth has formed, and the cold glint in her eye.

Her district partner, the one whose Reapings I missed, is standing next to her, as immobile as she is. What the pair they make, just staring stonily out into the audience. It drives everyone wild of course, wilder than if they were waving and blowing kisses like all the other tributes. The boy, Jaylon Asa, looks as delicious as Mimi was. He was dressed around a similar theme, I can tell, but his pants were tailored in, and his shirt was completely missing, showing off his sculpted abdomen. A golden pendent hangs loosely around his neck, the only thing that is left on his chest. His dark hair flops in his unblinking eyes, his mouth curled into a sneer. Swoon! He's such a hottie, half the female population is just falling in love with this little bad boy right now.

As the crowd focuses on the two from District 2, I vaguely register out of the corner of my eye, the District 3 chariot moving in behind 2. A quick glance over tells me everything I needed to know – just the girl with the chiseled face, dressed up in some ridiculous outfit that I couldn't decide was supposed to be electrical wires or lightning sparks. Her district partner is equally boring, to the point that I don't even remember his face, name, or any other mundane thing about him. Really! You'd think that they'd have more interesting characters in the Games. Looking at some of these tributes, I could just fall asleep. Thank goodness for the bloodbath – it exorcises all these imperfections out of the system, before the Games can even begin.

Bored, my eyes zoom past District 3 to land on the next District, the land of abundant seafood. Sometimes, I dream about going to District 4, if not only for the joy of eating such rich and yummy and delicious seafood everyday, but also because all the cute guys are from there. Case in point? Finnick Odair. The finest male specimen you could ever find. This year's tributes aren't that bad either. That spunky little pixie Vivie Marine, looking like a sea goddess in her sparkling blue dress, that swirls under the artificial lights like I imagine the sea would under the sunlight, and her partner in crime, some dumb-looking kid, who is nevertheless handsome in a beach-boy kinda way. But really, the tanned-surfer-boy look was in trend ages ago, around the time when… I don't know, before the times of dinosaurs, I imagine. Back when I heard Haymitch, the lousy drunk, still had all his hair, and when everyone thought that black was still slimming. All absolutely absurd, of course! Everyone knows that silver is the most slimming of colours! And I could never, beyond my wildest dreams, imagine even a tiny strand of hair on old Haymitch's bald, shiny head.

More unremarkable tributes from 5 are carted across in their chariots, both cowering and sobbing in fear so much, that I was just tempted to scream at them just to make them jump. The tributes from 6 are usually the same, but somehow, this year, they've seemed to draw a good lot. Well, kinda… True, they do have an annoying, ugly-as-average girl, and a crazy, hyperactive boy who's smile is so plastered on his face all the time, I had half a mind to reach out and grab his cheeks to see if his pearly white grin was for real. But then, that's still loads better than the timidly cowards they usually get, right?

7 seems to have lucked out too. Their female, Kalkora, looks strong and sturdy, defiant and brave in the face of the crowds. Man, that girl just exudes girl power! Her male friend over there, next to her, I can't say much of, though…

"Pathetic, isn't he?" Collaice remarks, having just slid into the seat beside me after disappearing to do god-knows-what for the past god-knows-how-long. That girl, really, is just absolutely out of control! Knowing her, she might have just went off on a crazy rampage and streaked through the better half of town, for all I care. The darling is just so out of her mind, its astonishing! I just nod my head in reply, and turn my attention back on the chariot rides. I shan't even bother asking her where she went. No doubt I'd just get some insane tale of her deluded adventures with about a quarter of the male population in the Capitol! (The others have either had their chance with her and gotten dumped, or are too old/ugly/disgusting to even consider.)

So, I look back to the chariot rides, and I see District 8 almost passing me. That's fast! Both tributes are clad in some… weird, random patches of cloth? I have no idea what the stylist was aiming for, but those poor darlings just look homeless. The boy, Alex Malcolm, seems to be sucking it up, and still looks half-decent, what with his continuous flirting with the women in the audience anyway. A wink here, a little air smooch there, constant waving and a smile plastered on his face. Piece of cake! His district partner though, is just disappointing. I look at her, and its like there's a flashing neon sign above her screaming "BLOODBATH!" Which would, actually, be much cooler. Neon is so coming back in style this season!

And then District 9 comes out, and without a doubt, they are the most fantabulous district tonight. Seriously! Everyone's going to remember them forever and ever and ever! I mean, this is big! Big, like, people will be talking about it 3 months from now!

Its not even that their costumes are exquisite. Eh, they're average. Brown-ish, green-ish clothes, mainly. I never get it – what's wrong with wearing lime green and baby pink while hunting? Is there some kind of rule that says you have to wear such ugly colors when you go kill animals? Who made this stupid rule anyway? Its completely ridiculous – its more ridiculous than, well, Collaice's fish-scales outfit to that party last week! But, like I was saying, their costumes were only average. Although I remember Alura had these really cool lace-up fur boots that were more kick-ass than that District 1 guy's boots! I quickly make a mental note to hit the malls to find a couple of pairs of fur boots tomorrow.

So, what was I saying? Oh yeah, so about how Alura and Zack were just the cutest couple ever. Well, it seems that they've done a Katniss and Peeta, because all that sexual tension that we saw back at the Reapings? Well, imagine it doubled. Yes, that much! Its absolutely insane! And it seems that their mentors decided to present them together, as a team, judging by their clasped hands, and the way Alura is leaning slightly against Zack's oh-so-hawt body. Man, why are all the tributes always so cute? They need to make Capitol guys like that too. Maybe I should really think about going on vacation to some District once the Hunger Games are over. Maybe book some nice hotel, shop around, enjoy life, touring whatever those districts do for their livelihoods. I can just imagine, myself in some zebra-patterned worksuit, hunting zebras! Ooooh, how quaint!

After that, District 10 attempts a comeback, in the form of the lovely Cordelia Harlow. I swear, her name is so pretty, it makes me think of fragrant flowers and large, sunny meadows. Maybe that's what her home is like? How nice! The people in the Districts must really be so lucky, to have so much space and such a nice… rustic charm. Not like the boring old Capitol, with our multi-colored, always changing buildings, and our maze of roads and streets that could lead you halfway across town just because of a wrong turn before you can even say "Ooopsie-daisy!". But then, dear little Cordelia, no matter how delicate her name sounds, is simply no match for the combined charms of Zack and Alura.

I'm about to give up on the rest of the tributes – I mean, how interesting can those gross-looking double-digit districts be? But I'm pleasantly surprised by Thomas Bale – the District 12 boy. I can't help it, he's so cute and shy, its endearing! Shaggy wheat blond hair, enormous baby blues, and a couple of freckles. Absolutely adorable! If I didn't know any better, I'd say shy boys were coming back in trend. I've always found them so much more attractive than those cocky Casanovas that seem to be the only kind of male species we even have in the Capitol. Already, I can see all the girls just swooning. Collaice included. Hmmm, do you think Thomas could be her next conquest? Perhaps… Perhaps not. Personally, I'd think that Alex Malcolm (the District 8 guy) would be more her type, but he's 12! Can you say pedophile!

And just like that, with a blink of a surgically-enhanced-sparkling-amber-doe-eye, the chariot rides are over. We're one night closer to the premier of the Hunger Games. I can't wait!

Okay, so how was that? Didja like it? Huh? HUH?

I hope it was worth the wait! Again, my deepest apologies. Really. I will really try to discipline myself, and update sooner and everything. HOPEFULLY, I can update more during the school year. Its weird, but now that its holidays here in Singapore, I'm BUSIER than I was during the school term. I know, I'm just abnormal, aren't I? Sigh.

I'm just really really tired now, and I just feel so… TIRED! I need someone to cheer me up. AND A HUG! :( SO, please, be kind and make me feel better by REVIEWING! Yepps, its that easy. Just click on that 'lil button down there, and let me know what you think! Just… don't kill me in my sleep, kay?

Oh right, and the sponsor question thing. Okay, so the question for this chapter is: What was the District 12 chariot outfit for the 74th Hunger Games, and why was it such a hit with the Capitol audience?

Easy right? In case you didn't realize, I've been trying to make the questions sorta related to the chapter. Except for that last chapter (Reapings part 2) because it just slipped my mind. Does that help? Let me know as well, by REVIEWING! :)

Oh, and one last thing. Chariot rides are hard! Really, since almost NOBODY left a chariot outfit entry. So, I had to try and make them up, and naturally, not all of them could be nice, or noticeable, or sparkly, or whatever you wanted. I'm really sorry for making your really awesome tributes… not-so-awesome? :( I'm just trying to be realistic. So don't hate me for it! Oh, and all costumes are solely blame-able on your tribute's fictional stylist. So, if I said they were slutty, or ugly, or boring, or whatever, just know I'm not referring to your tribute directly. Yeah. So that's all good? YAY! :)

I also need your input on something: According to the actual HG book, after the Chariot Rides would be the Training. I'm in two minds about this chapter - its either I continue to write it in the Captiol Viewer's POV (as I have so far), and combine the Training results with the Interviews, or I can change over to a Gamemaker's POV and write about the Private Training Session itself. Either way, I don't think I'll be touching on the 2 days of prior training that is neither shown to the Capitol audience nor the Gamemakers (as far as we know anyway).

REVIEW and LET ME KNOW!