#I have so many artist Peeta headcanons

[everlarking-always]

…

[atelierlili]

What's your headcanon for Katniss and Peeta's children?

How old was Katniss when give birth to their daughter?

How many years apart between them in age?

Your headcanon for their name?

Who gets the singing and art skill from their parent?

Bonus question : please give recs of your fav everlark post-Mockingjay fanfic.

Thank you :)

@curiousthg

You’ve made a grave mistake because I have so much to say and some art as well(becuase I’m so sane for them I swear)

So I’ve always headcannon that Katniss had her first baby in her late twenties-early thirties. In my head the 5, 10, 15 years go like this. Year 5: Katniss is open to the idea of children now. The games are done, but is Panem really safe yet? Is she ready yet. No, not really. Year 10: okay, Katniss feels safer and braver now. If it happens it happens. They won’t actively try for it and will let nature take its course. Year 15: Toast boy and girl are born within a 5-ish year time span.

Katniss names the girl Marigold for the golden flowers that Peeta planted next Katniss’ Primroses. Marigolds represent warmth, creativity, joy and good luck, but they were also given away during times of grief as a gesture of kindness and solidarity as the flower’s vibrant colours helped ease the pain of grief. Gold is also the colour that represents the bond between the district 12 team that comprised of Peeta, Katniss, Effie, Haymitch, Portia & Cinna. So it’s also carries some sentimental weight as without them and their bonds, this little girl wouldn’t have been born. Of course, Peeta calls the girl Muffin. Because she’s his little muffin. His little cupcake. It’s not until Effie decides that Mary is too bland a nickname for her favorite niece that we get the girl’s most used nickname- Muffy.

Muffy is a bundle of joy to their lives. And Katniss loves being a mother more than she’d thought. Having Muffy made Katniss yearn for the mini Peeta she dreamt of on a beach in the QQ.

Toastboy pops out about three and a half years later. The age gap is so close to be about the same as Katniss and Prim’s that it makes her heart squeeze again. His name is Cress, after Watercress (wait plz don’t leave), the aquatic plant that can be found in bunches at Katniss’ special lake. They are a highly nutritious plant to eat and is said to believe to have medicinal uses like treating swelling and fevers. The name is also a small nod to Annie Cresta and Finnick because of the water connection. His curly blonde hair gets him the nickname Goldilocks from Johanna.

Both children are highly artistic and connected to nature, Katniss teaches them both to hunt, but the kiddos don’t like it as much because they don’t like to hurt animals. It hurts Katniss a little bit, but she’s glad that bloodshed and violence (even to survive) aren’t a daily part of their lives.

Muffy is a performer. She’s definitely daddy’s little girl because she loves to yap. She could yap all day and still find something to talk about. She grows up loving to dance and then wanting to sing and dance- the dreams of making it big in the Capitol as a actress. (To Katniss’ complete and under horror) She’ll definitely develope some complex when it comes to being the Mockingjay’s daughter. Especially when she starts getting movie offers to play her Mom, even when after she tries going out of her way to distance herself from Katniss by going under a different stage name.

Cress is very much not Muffy. He’s a quiet little guy who follows after his big sister like a little duckling. He’s the only one who doesn’t get tired of her yapping and genuinely listens to her. Peeta and Katniss were a little worried when they started noticing that he wasn’t speaking for a while. They go to doctors and they can never find what’s causing this speech delay, but one day he starts talking at the age of 2, and he has the softest most sweetest voice in the world. He’s a very quiet and observant kid, that gets into more trouble than you’d think. While Peeta’s art is very imagery and emotionally (and politically) focused, Cress’s art is not. He’s super talented with a pencil and really skilled at realistic/technical drawings that he’d probably go an illustrate diagrams for scientific textbooks on nature and stuff. Growing up, he probably feels like his art work is too cold and unfeeling compared to Peeta’s splash of life. But in reality, the difference between they art styles are indicative of how they see and filter the world through their art.

Anyway, this is taking waaay to long so here is some early concept art of the toast babies. I’m still messing around with the tones and hues of their design, so none of this is final. I’m probs gonna switch Cress’s skin tone to a more golden undertone as opposed to Katniss’s reddish one to match his hair color, which might get a tad darker (or lighter tbh. In the books Peeta’s an ashy blonde) Meanwhile maybe I’ll give Muffy the redder undertone? There’s something off bout her that I need to keep experimenting with. She screams Movie Katniss baby, not Book Katniss Baby, but maybe that’s only because Jen has blue eyes.

[fyreflys]

What's your headcanon for Katniss and Peeta's children?

How old was Katniss when give birth to their daughter?

How many years apart between them in age?

Your headcanon for their name?

Who gets the singing and art skill from their parent?

Bonus question : please give recs of your fav everlark post-Mockingjay fanfic.

Thank you :)

@curiousthg

OH BOI BABAY. This has been sitting in my inbox for a while & I’m finally getting to it.

I have a LOT to say about the toast babies. Katniss and Peeta have them when they are 24 or 26 (not 25- don’t ask me why, I don’t know). Their names are Willow and Rowan (or Rye, which I Think Suzanne said somewhere that was the official name for their son. I like both).

Willow is born first. Willow as in a willow tree, (Also from the story of the Willow that Katniss’s dad tells her-unless I’m totally just making that up) which often are seen as a symbol of new life, regrowth, overcoming hardships, and sometimes for peace. I think all of these qualities exhibit important aspects of Katniss and Peeta’s story.

She has long blond curls, her father’s freckles, her mother’s eyes and smile, and she constantly reminds Katniss of Prim. She’ll make facial expressions, or say or do things that remind Katniss so much of Prim, and it will make her miss her sister, but also make her happy that her sister is clearly living on through her daughter. She inherits Peeta’s drawing/artistic abilities, but she’s also really good at gardening and knowing plants/herbs and stuff (she’s definitely a future doctor). She’s just as stubborn and hard headed as her parents, and when she puts her mind to something she GETS THAT SHIT DONE! She’s also a massive sweetheart and VERY charming, just like her daddy. She’s also a decent singer, but she doesn’t like to do it often.

Rowan is born 1.5-2.5 years after Willow. I like this name for a LOT of reasons, and that’s why I chose it as their first son’s name in my Everlark fic. Rowan trees are in the Rosaceae family (aka, the ROSE family- kind of a tribute to Prim), and are in a lot of Celtic/norse/British isles religions. It often stands for protection (usually against supernatural forces in many religions), and were often planted around burial sites to protect the dead. They are also very hardy trees that can grow just about anywhere. Also, Rowan trees have berries…(thinking of their first games, & the berries…) listen I could go ON and ON and ON about the many mythological stories connected to Rowan trees but I will leave it at that. (There’s even some thoughts about them predicting the amount of snow there will be in the winter, or how bountiful the rye harvests will be)

Rowan has dark hair and olive skin like his mother, and his father’s blue eyes and smile and freckles. He loves to bake with his father, but he also has his mother’s ability with the bow and he’s good at hunting. He has a very witty/sarcastic sense of humor (he spends a lot of time with Haymitch), but a very kind heart. He can sing just as good as his mother, and he reminds Katniss a lot of her father. He also reminds Peeta of his brothers, in the way he smiles and his competitive nature.

POST MOCKINGJAY FIC RECS:

Swan Upon Leda [my fic on AO3, 74k words & ongoing, explicit] — the fic where Everlark aren’t together yet, Katniss is pregnant during the Quarter Quell, Peeta isn’t supposed to know but then figures it out, Peeta never gets taken by the Capital and hijacked, and they try to live their “happily ever after”

The Unrecorded Hours [by hollycomb on fanfic.net, 24k words, explicit] — Peeta is certain Katniss doesn't actually want him. And she’s enraged by the fact that she does. They’re both horny as hell but too stubborn and dealing with too much trauma to figure it out properly. Until they finally do. (Seriously such a good fic I literally almost cried at the ending it’s fucking perfect & so well done)

Sun is Gonna Shine [by monroeslittle on fanfic.net, 12k words, explicit] — Despite Katniss’s reluctance, they have a baby. (And it’s gorgeous & Haymitch made me sob)

[triassictriserratops]

What's your headcanon for Katniss and Peeta's children?

How old was Katniss when give birth to their daughter?

How many years apart between them in age?

Your headcanon for their name?

Who gets the singing and art skill from their parent?

Bonus question : please give recs of your fav everlark post-Mockingjay fanfic.

Thank you :)

@curiousthg

@curiousthg (thank you for the ask! I have to say, it's still wild to me that ANYONE gives a shit about my opinion AT ALL.) AS A DISCLAIMER. THESE ARE ONLY MY PERSONAL OPINIONS. I FULLY RESPECT OTHER OPINIONS AND HEADCANONS. THESE ARE JUST MINE, PERSONALLY. Q.) What's your headcanon for Katniss and Peeta's children? A.) Just a few things I kind of like to think about: - There is a third toastbaby born after the epilogue. - Toastbaby girl grows up to become a veterinarian. She's quiet and serene but wildly clever. Dangerously smart. And Haymitch Abernathy is probably her favorite human being in existence. - Toastbaby boy is a wild menace to society and makes Peeta specifically tear his hair out. Constantly pulling him off of cabinet doors, scaling building walls, pulling him out of hiding places where he camps waiting to scare someone (usually Peeta) They judged parents who used child leashes until they had their boy. Likes to follow the Cresta-Odair spawn everywhere whenever he's visiting them.

Q.) How old was Katniss when give birth to their daughter? A.) Just based on the math from the book she would have been 32/33 when her daughter was born.

Q.) How many years apart between them in age? A.) In my mind it's about 3-4 years. Katniss says that her Good Things List is tedious after more than 20 years and mentions that they teach the Hunger Games in school and that Toastbaby girl knows her parents played a part in them, so i'd say she's about 7 in the Epilogue. And she specifically calls out Toastbaby Boy's "chubby toddler legs" struggling to keep up with his sister, and that he'll be learning about the Games too in a few years, so i'm thinking he's anywhere from 3-4 at the time of the Epilogue.

Q.) Your headcanon for their name?

A.) I'm so sorry to say this, i don't actually have any! I personally don't like to give them names. I FULLY AND TOTALLY respect the names other people come up with and I've seen some that are quite popular. But I've actually always REALLY connected with the fact that Katniss specifically chooses NOT to give us their names. She was forced to give so much of herself to Panem, to other people, even (on a meta level) to us as readers. Within the 1st Person POV we are privy to her every personal thought and experience. The capitol denied her autonomy and privacy. The rebels did the same. And, in the end, so did we as the reader. It's a FASCINATING lens to look at the books through! (Especially if you follow the fun idea that this series are her memoirs.) But here, at the end, Katniss is choosing to close the curtain. We're not allowed to have her children's identities. Because those are precious to her. Because they belong to them and them alone. I just find that kind of beautiful and so I've made a conscious effort to never pick names for them. Q.) Who gets the singing and art skill from their parent? A.) Toastbaby boy is the singer (and hunter). The third toastbaby is the artist. Toastbaby girl loves baking with her poppa.

Bonus question : please give recs of your fav Everlark post-Mockingjay fanfic. I'm going to be lazy and direct to this post I just wrote where I include a list of Post Mockingjay Fic Recs!!!

(BUT one VERY specific callout recommendation, just in case people don't click into the link, for Us Among the Living by the WONDERFUL @vasilissadragomir. It's beautiful and I have so much love for that story. The characters are lovingly preserved and the tone so realistic I sometimes feel like i'm reading something Suzanne Collins might have written. HIGHLY recommend!)

[littlemarianah]

What's your headcanon for Katniss and Peeta's children?

How old was Katniss when give birth to their daughter?

How many years apart between them in age?

Your headcanon for their name?

Who gets the singing and art skill from their parent?

Bonus question : please give recs of your fav everlark post-Mockingjay fanfic.

Thank you :)

@curiousthg

✨️Oh god! I love this question, thank you so much! ✨️

My favorite headcannon is that the first daughter is very desired by both of them. And they take a long time because they want it so much. They want it to be perfect and at the right time. Pregnancy and postpartum hits Katniss very hard, it's very difficult for her. But after the baby grows a few months she starts to really enjoy being a mother. Willow is such a sweet and smart baby. Fill their house with her cries, then her laughter, then her heavy footsteps, then her questions, then her singing voice. It fills their home with life and happiness that they haven't seen in many years. Peeta and Katniss are able to enjoy life more after she is born, and they fall in love again. The first daughter makes them want a second baby (something that wasn't in the plans).

By my count, Katniss gave birth at 32 years of age, 15 years after the war. And her second child she has at 35 years old. So Rye and Willow are about 2.5 years apart.

About names... Rye and Willow! It's a name that has been circulating in the fandom for a few years and I really love it.

Rye is Peeta's deceased brother, but not only that. It's the name of a food and besides food, the other thing that keeps K&P alive is everyone they lost in the past. Rye is a tribute to those who couldn't get here. And also because when the boy is born, Peeta finds him very similar to his middle brother. A little boy makes Peeta very emotional about missing his brothers.

Willow is for the tree in the lullaby. It's a safe and happy place. Katniss decides on this name after she discovers is a girl. It's a tribute to the little girls in her life who didn't have the chance to become women. It is also a tribute to Katniss's mothers and father who named their daughters after plants, she wants to maintain the family tradition.

About who gets the talents! They both sing a lot, Katniss sang to them all the time when they were young, so they both have a love for music and they both sing. . But Wiilow has Peeta's charisma and loves being the center of attention, while Rye is very shy and only sings when he is alone. So is Willow who always clears her throat and starts singing loudly whenever she has the opportunity. She has a much more powerful voice than Katniss, sings with vigor, and has a deep voice. She's very good at that. In addition to singing, she also writes music. She starts creating rhymes about Rye, making fun of him and singing all day to make him mad. Then when she gets older, she starts to write about all her romantic disappointments. And I believe, she breaks your heart so often that her parents start to worry.

Now Peeta's artistic talents go to Rye. Rye, being a 14 year old boy, loves to say that he is actually a hunter, not an artist. But all of Rye's arches are carved with designs he made. He loves drawing and carving in wood and when he is a teenager his fingers are all injured from the amount he cuts himself doing so. He doesn't draw much on paper, but he's always creating something. Or making bread in the shape of animals. And Peeta is extremely proud about it. He wasn't able to explore his artistic talents at Rye's age, so he does what's best so the boy can. He gives him expensive art supplies for his birthday and always hangs Rye's sculptures on the wall. He's the slobberiest dad ever.

I could talk about toast babies all day.

Instead of talking about my favorite fanfics, I'm going to talk about the post-MJ fanfic I'm writing.

The fanfic is about Willow studying to be an army nurse like Prim was. The world is different now, there are no more wars, but it still makes Kantiss very nervous about the idea. So there's a lot of mother-daughter drama. Willow is very angry and rebellious and Rye is very shy and attached to his parents. It's about the Mellark family dealing with generational trauma and Peeta and Katniss trying to help their children understand the world. And how difficult it is to explain to those children who were raised with a lot of love that there is a lot of hunger and a lot of evil out there. And also about parents who have to let their children grow and mature. It's about love, it's a famfic about family.

Well, it was a very long text, but I'm very happy with this question!

Thanks, non. 💞

[allovesthings]

What's your headcanon for Katniss and Peeta's children?

How old was Katniss when give birth to their daughter?

How many years apart between them in age?

Your headcanon for their name?

Who gets the singing and art skill from their parent?

Bonus question : please give recs of your fav everlark post-Mockingjay fanfic.

Thank you :)

@curiousthg

Hi !!

What's your headcanon for Katniss and Peeta's children?

I just kinda love the idea that one of them pursue an artistic career and the other one is a doctor.

Being free to paint or sing or just do art without it being crushed by the necessity of taking responsibility for an entire family like Katniss or sorta instrumentalized like Peeta's paintings as a talent for the Capitol would be a good way to contrast theirs life to what theirs parents lived through.

For the doctor: It's mostly because of that line in Mockingjay when Katniss is talking to Prim and she realize that Prim having the opportunity to train to be a doctor is part what they are fighting for because Prim wouldn't have that opportunity in 12. There is something kinda poetic about theirs children actually getting that that in 12 (I think Katniss might have been pretty reticent at first when they announced they wanted to be a doctor).

I could also see one of them taking over the bakery one day but that's just a me thing, no big reason why).

How old was Katniss when give birth to their daughter?

Well...the epilogue mention 15 years and if they took around a year or two to be in a place where they could be romantic and maybe another year or two before Peeta even mentioned children, I think around 34-35 ?

How many years apart between them in age?

I think the boy is around 1 or 2 in the epilogue (considering he can barely walk, i would say he is 1 and half) and the girl probably elementary school age ? I think they have a five years age gap, probably.

Your headcanon for their name?

I don't know actually, I think they have flower names probably and If Peeta has a naming tradition then maybe one of them is probably named after that. Maybe one of them is actually named Dandelion ? (I mean I don't thing Katniss was a name before Katniss so why not ? ) or Daisy (it's a flower name and I kinda like it).

Who gets the singing and art skill from their parent?

I think both of them can sing actually because it's something they both do with Katniss, I think the girl is a really good baker and the boy draw.

Bonus question : please give recs of your fav everlark post-Mockingjay fanfic.

Let me check my ao3, real quick, they are all Post-Mockingjay but Pre-epilogue:

you believe in my heart by cafeinmama: This is so good ! It's everlark season by season. I love it. It is incomplete

Gravity by VanillaCottonCandy I need to reread it but it's so so good !

Bonus :

The Victors of District Twelve by DustyAttic: This one is a bit canon-divergent because it's abut Lucy Gray coming back after the war to meet the rest of the distric 12 victors but I couldn't not rec it. It's so good.

You and i'll be safe and sound by greensgable: This one is because i want to have my cake and eat it too. It's both canon-divergent with happier endings and noy (Four times things ended a bit happier, and the one time they didn't), it's so sad and and also not.

Thank you for the ask !!!

[kald-dal-art]

It is my duty to submit wiress for the ask thing lolll

doing both of these on the same post

Wiress

First impression

That she seemed very sweet.

Impression now

I love her so much, I wish we knew more about her and how she won her games.

Favorite moment

Figuring out the arena gimmick in the 75th game.

Idea for a story

Basically her games I guess and a proper backstory. I'm kind of surprised how little we know about her in cannon.

Unpopular opinion

I don't think i have any tbh. Think most of my opinions about her is in the mainstream.

Favorite relationship

Her and Beetee. Why couldn't she have lived so they could be war criminals together in 13 /lh

Favorite headcanon

I saw one fic having her have cats so I just stole that for myself. Also that some of her strategy in her games were similar to Beetee.

The Morphlings

First impression

I probarbly didn't react too much on them on my first read tbh lol. On my reread though I appreciated their artistic traits. Loved that they were just fascinated by the Everlark costumes in the parade.

Impression now

My favorite minor characters. i don't know why my brain decided these two were the ones it decided to go crazy over. But here we are.

Favorite moment

The F. Morphlings sacrifice. Her painting a flower on Peeta's cheek makes me so emotional, had me sobbing on reread.

Idea for a story

Well...kind of just writing it myself...sooo that story akdjslsadj

Unpopular opinion

I don't know why so many fics insist on making them a romantic couple, but it's not an interpretation I care for. They are platonic besties they personally told me that okay 💔 Also whoever put on their Wiki that they are in their 60s which has led so many people to believe it's cannon...we are fighting behind a dumpster one day (It's not that it can't be cannon...but it's just we don't know how old they are so it's annoying that people act like it is cannon and the movies are "inaccurate" because they "changed" their ages when we literally don't know if they even did)

Favorite relationship

Well each other. Also their little bond with Peeta is sweet. Even if I have chosen to ignore the fact that Peeta calls them the Morphlings...like dude never got their names? You expect me to believe that? Really.

Favorite headcanon

That the F. Morphling is the older one of the pair. Idk why I usually prefer that interpretation of them in fics, I guess it's because it's how the movie potrays them.

[thesunpersists]

What's your headcanon for Katniss and Peeta's children?

How old was Katniss when give birth to their daughter?

How many years apart between them in age?

Your headcanon for their name?

Who gets the singing and art skill from their parent?

Bonus question : please give recs of your fav everlark post-Mockingjay fanfic.

Thank you :)

@curiousthg

Thank you for the ask @curiousthg! 🧚🏻

I have been trying to concretise these things for my growing back together fic, and was worried about committing to something with this. So happy I can finally answer and sorry for the delay.

I like to think Katniss was 33-34 around the time she gave birth to her daughter. It fits in with the waiting 5, 10, 15 years part in the epilogue and I think this is around the age Mrs. Everdeen was when Mr. Everdeen died. It would give Katniss a whole new perspective on motherhood and her own life trajectory. 

I headcanon their children 3 years apart in age. It is a good age difference to fight, play, and wreak havoc in the house. :) 

Chapter 9 of my growing back together fic is Katniss and Peeta trying to decide on a name for their baby girl and they settle on Juniper! I chose this name because I wanted to go for something nature themed and I love the idea of them naming a daughter after a berry. (bet Uncle Haymitch liked that name too, with juniper berries being an ingredient in gin hehe)

For the boy, I am going with Heath because have always liked the name and it goes well with her sister’s. And like heath plants, I think of the boy as a bit of a wild spirit with a colourful personality. Plus, I like a seven letter name for the girl and a five letter name for the boy, just like Katniss and Peeta. 

I think they are both artistic and talented children who get to explore music and art in the house without needing to excel at it, if it makes sense. That being said, it is heartwarming to imagine Juniper as the artist, and Heath as the musician.

Unfortunately, I don't have any recommendations now. I tried to steer clear from post mockingjay, growing back together fics these past months while I was writing The Third Thing, because I was worried about accidentally incorporating another author’s ideas into it. (So if you have a fic out there where the babies are named Juniper and Heath, I swear I didn’t steal your idea— you just happen to be my soulmate!)

If you have any fic recommendations for me, please let me know!

Thank you! ❤️

[shesasurvivor]

What's your headcanon for Katniss and Peeta's children?

How old was Katniss when give birth to their daughter?

How many years apart between them in age?

Your headcanon for their name?

Who gets the singing and art skill from their parent?

Bonus question : please give recs of your fav everlark post-Mockingjay fanfic.

Thank you :)

@curiousthg

So many, @curiousthg! One I'm kind of into, though I'm not really sold on it being my actual, solidified head canon, is the idea that the girl was an unplanned pregnancy that took Katniss (and Peeta) by surprise. Finding out she was pregnant sent Katniss through a whole spiral of emotions that she wrestled with before ultimately deciding she wanted to keep the baby.

I've always placed Katniss as being somewhere around 35 before she had her first child. I give them a couple of years to sort through everything they've been through and figure out their relationship before the subject comes up in earnest for them. That places them around 20 years old when the first conversation comes up, and 15 years later, she's 35.

Well, Katniss tells us that the boy is a toddler, and that the girl is old enough not only to be in school, but to be in a grade that would begin teaching her about The Hunger Games. So I want to say maybe somewhere between 5 and 7 years between them? Sometimes I head canon that the 10 in "5, 10, 15 years" is the girl's birth, and the 15 is the boy's birth. But again, not entirely sold on that idea at all. But yeah, I'd say at least 5 years between them.

I like to follow the naming conventions that Suzanne Collins set in place. For the District 12 girls (at least in the original trilogy), she used a lot of flower names. This is especially the case with the Everdeen family. Yellow blossoms are especially pertinent to Everlark's future family (why I named my short-lived Everlark children series that name). Also, the meadow song is especially important, since it foreshadowed that Katniss and Peeta would one day have children together. As such, I've decided that their daughter's name is Daisy Mellark.

As for the boy, I've never been quite as solid on my choice of name for him, but I usually go with Orion. I like that it ties into mythology (even though it's Greek, not Roman), he was a hunter that is usually associated with Artemis, and I'm drawing a blank on this one, but I seem to remember there being a connection with fire. But the cherry on top? 'Orion' can be shortened to 'Ri,' which, of course, would be pronounced as Rye. ;) All that said and all these years later, I'm still not sold on the name for their son lol.

I always thought that their daughter was probably the more artistic one between the two, and liked to give their son the inclination for hunting. But honestly? They're probably both talented at both their parents' specialties, and it's probably more likely one tends to lean more towards art and one more towards hunting. As for singing, I think it's pretty clear that having a good singing voice seems to run in the Everdeen family, so I think both children would probably have equally good singing voices.

And man, it has been way, WAY too long since I've read any fics about the Mellark kids, and I don't know that I could even remember any at this point! So here's the link to my own mentioned above, lol. (That said, I know there's TONS out there that are amazing! I just haven't had my head in the fandom for a while.)

Yellow Blossoms

[icbiwf]

What's your headcanon for Katniss and Peeta's children?

How old was Katniss when give birth to their daughter?

How many years apart between them in age?

Your headcanon for their name?

Who gets the singing and art skill from their parent?

Bonus question : please give recs of your fav everlark post-Mockingjay fanfic.

Thank you :)

@curiousthg

Okay, so the age thing is just math. Katniss says she held off on having children for fifteen years, she's just short of 18 at the end of MJ, so she was probably 33 when their daughter was born. Maybe older, if it took a while for her to become pregnant, but in my head it's 33. I think the boy was born three years later, the way Katniss panics about her children even when she doesn't plan on having any, I think it would take at least 1.5-2 years for Katniss to adjust to parenthood to the point of wanting to have another baby.

In canon, I think the girl's name is Hope. In less devastating AUs I'll go for some plant-related name, usually Willow or Laurel.

The boy's name is the most ridiculous headcanon I've ever come up with, when I first suggested it it was like 95% a joke, but the more I think about it the more I kind of love it and I now 100% unironically endorse the idea: They're trying to come up with a name for a boy. Katniss and Prim were both named for flowers, but she doesn't know if that tradition was just for girls' names, and it's not like either of her parents are around to ask. Peeta (mostly as a joke) points out that he and his brothers were all named after breads and grains. Katniss (mostly as a joke) comments that there was only one time in her life when a loaf of bread was so important to her that she would be willing to name her child after it.

They call the boy Ray. They don't tell anyone that it's short for raisin-nut loaf.

As for traits... At some point I got tired of the trope where one of the kids is like Katniss and one of them is like Peeta. I like to mix them up more. Like, the girl has Katniss's skeptical, penetrating gaze, coming from Peeta's bright blue eyes. The boy has Peeta's mop of blond curls but Katniss's scowl on his face. The girl is the more artistic one, the boy is the one who takes an interest in baking. I tend to imagine their son as the better hunter and the better singer, just because it contradicts the idea that Katniss's daughter has to be just like Katniss.

I'm afraid I don't have any fic recommendations, it's been so long since I've read anything canon-compliant that they all kind of run together in my memory.

[loungemermaid]

What do you think is entailed in a Victors responsibilities after winning the hunger games?

Do you have any headcanon?

Thank you so much.

@curiousnonny

Ooohh this is such a good question, thank you so much!!! I haven't fully fleshed out what I think happens but I have given it some thought, definitely.

I think for the most part they're like how our reality tv stars are today. I think Haymitch personally is "washed up", or more likely in my brain he washed himself up. I think Haymitch is very much a Bojack type who, other than mentoring, "doesn't get work" anymore.

Contrasting that with Finnick, who obviously works quite a bit. Of course, a great deal of that work is forced prostitution, but I imagine he's also at movie premiers, exclusive parties, fashion shows, all of that.

We don't know much about entertainment in the Capitol because Katniss doesn't watch much tv or participate in pop culture, before or after she wins the Games, but I have a very hard time believing that the only entertainment in the Capitol is the Hunger Games. It's the biggest thing, it's their Met Gala and Olympics and all the talent shows combined. It's the biggest part of their calendar, but it's not the only thing they've got going on. Just the biggest.

I think the Victors are treated a bit how we treat the stars of "trashy" reality tv shows(think Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Jersey Shore, Sixteen and Pregnant, all those wonderful mtv shows.....). I think the Capitol always think of the Victors as being District Trash(like white trash). They're always going to be considered "other" and while they're the biggest stars, from the biggest stage of the Capitol, they're not the same as Capitol-born celebrities. So, like the difference between Kim Kardashian and Anne Hatheway. Anne Hatheway is famous because she's a fantastic actress. Kim Kardashian is famous because of many reasons, most notably because she's Kim Kardashian.

So, let's go back to Finnick, because I think the comparison between him and Kim is a good one, lol. I think along with the prostitution, it's print ads, it's commercials, it's exclusive interviews, it's anything they can get his name on, because he sells. He might have even been in movies or other tv shows. And that's just the things he's explicitly in and needs to be present for. This isn't even mentioning tabloids, paparazzi, blogs, listicles, talk shows, mentions at award shows, everything, every bit of noise, always, all the time.

As far as what I imagine Katniss and Peeta would've had to do had the Quarter Quell gone differently, I think they also would've been trafficked, their marriage be damned. I think it would've been worse, actually, that they would've been a package deal. I think Katniss would've been in fashion shows, made to work in the fashion world for a good part of her life. I think she would've been forced to sing, no matter if she wanted to or not. Peeta would be a famous artist, but they'd find something else for him to do as well. The Victors having talents can't be an accidental thing, I think they are expected to perform, with whatever they've got. For a lot of them, I think that performance is sex. Most people are attractive enough, especially with hi-tech cosmetics and a team of stylists, and Finnick mentions that he's far from the only one, just the most popular. I think for others, like Beetee, who might not be particularly desirable, they think of something else. I think Beetee holds the same cultural role as Steve Jobs or Elon Musk to them(obviously not the political part but the "oh my god he's such a genius" way).

Whatever they end up doing, it's all a method of control. The Capitol uses them for whatever they need, to feed the machine, and to keep them in line. They have to make it look glamorous enough to keep the Capitol citizens watching. They need them to buy into this, that this is an opportunity for poor District people to rise above their station, to be able to work in ways they are truly passionate about, not just their District career. That the Games give them the opportunity to serve their country and be part of the highest honor a poor kid from the Districts could be.

As far as the actual Victors, they need to make sure they're occupied enough to ensure there's no rebellions. Even at the bare minimum, they're shipped up for the Games, unless they are too embarrassing(like Annie. My theory is they treat her like pre-liberated Britney.) If they're all too busy with the press and the Games and celebrity, they can't plan anything. I think that's why they don't send someone in to help Haymitch mentor.

So, all in all, I think their obligations are very similar to what modern celebrities do/are expected to do. I've been thinking of writing a popstar oc but I don't know that a) anyone would read it or b) that it wouldn't be just a rip-off of Sarah Lynn or worse, self-inserty. I need to finish a few stories before I get to her but I will be putting her in as a cameo in some of my things.

[dorkofclanlavellan]

Ship for @perseephoneee

Want one? -- click here

Supernatural

I ship you with Sam Winchester!

Sam's thoughtful and patient nature (plus his own sarcasm) would balance out your sarcasm, creating a beautiful dynamic. Sam's empathy matches your own, creating a strong emotional connection and understanding between you two.

Who is your best friend? - Charlie Bradbury

Headcanons

Along with researching together, I can just picture peaceful evenings where you both dive into your favorite books.

Sam trying to lead a healthy, active life so he's always in shape for hunting would be overridden by his desire to cuddle up with you and take however many naps you want.

The Hunger Games

I ship you with Peeta Mellark!

Peeta's bravery and resilience align with your own traits. Together, you would navigate the challenges of the Capitol and life after the Second Rebellion with quiet strength. Peeta's empathetic nature would provide a supportive foundation for your emotional needs, creating a strong and caring relationship.

Best Friend - Katniss Everdeen

Headcanons

Peeta's artistic side would resonate with your singing/songwriting and drawing hobbies. One way the two of you would spend time together is modelling for each other. Or the two of you collaborating on a project.

You'd often curl up together, maybe after a nap, and have intimate conversations about life and various topics.

The Originals

I ship you with Klaus Mikaelson!

Your intelligent and brave nature would complement Klaus's strong and powerful personality, creating a dynamic and captivating partnership. Both of you share a resilience that allows you to face challenges head-on, making you a formidable team in the supernatural world. Klaus's appreciation for art and culture would resonate with your own hobbies. Imagine exploring the artistic side of New Orleans together.

Best Friend - Either Camille or Rebekah (can't decide)

Headcanons

The two of you would have deep and intense conversations about life, immortality, and the complexities of his relationship with his family.

Speaking of his family, few could navigate the complexities there but you could manage it. You would form unique connections with each member, or at least the important ones. And it would cause Klaus to fall in love with you even more.

Hope you like it! I feel like I've left something out or messed something up. But I feel like that most of the time anyway. If I did mess up let me know and I'll fix it!

[everlarkficexchange]

Maps

Author: @wingletblackbird

Prompt 25: I have a song prompt based on Maroon 5’s Maps. It fits Everlark so much. Peeta was there for Katniss in her dark times while she almost gave up on him when he was at his worst down on his knees. But eventually he followed the map that led to her and they got back together. [Anonymous]

A/N: This one shot references the lyrics to Down in the Valley which is an Appalachian folk song I headcanon as being “The Valley Song.” It’s a pretty good song for Everlark too which works quite nicely. There are several variations to it, as is typical of folk songs, I chose the version I felt suited the best.

Rating/Warnings: Just the confused thoughts and epiphanies of Peeta who is wrestling with his hijacking.  Very minor coarse language. Should be suitable at least for anyone over thirteen.

                                            Maps

                                 I was there for you

                               In your darkest times

                                 I was there for you

                               In your darkest nights

                         But I wonder, where were you?

                               When I was at my worst

                                   Down on my knees

                       And you said you had my back

                      So I wonder, where were you?

              When all the roads you took came back to me

It seemed like he was getting better. Somedays felt good, others bad; sometimes he wasn’t sure. Holistically, they said he was getting better, yet something niggled away at his subconscious. Something he couldn’t reach. In his dreams, he is in the dark reaching for something. He wakes up before he can find it.

Therapy is complex, difficult. There seem to be so many issues, so many fractures. Healing his mind feels like he has two hundred improperly healed bones they need to re-break and reset. The nature of the healing tends to fall in two camps though. First is dealing with the present. Bringing yourself into the present. It took him awhile to do that. It’s easier to live in the could-have-beens. Or just not anywhere children are bombed. But he stamps his feet, touches his face. This is where I am. This is where I live. It’s a harsh cruel world, but it’s still that way even if he lives in his time-loopy brain. Better in the present where he can do something, grasp something, learn to avoid triggers, to handle flashbacks. He’s had enough fake. He’s not there anymore. That’s no longer his reality. Mind over matter. He laughs at the notion when both have been desecrated. So much has been stripped away. He knows he will never get it back. He just needs to know how to move forward. He needs to know what makes him, him. Second camp is dealing with just that. Tracker Jacker venom, even without the torture and hijacking, is designed to target your brain to show your very worst fears. They say it’s driven men mad. Is he mad? Peeta needs to know what his worst fears are–better yet, face them–if he really wants to distinguish reality from shiny. He screams in his sleep and destroys rooms in his rages. He thinks it’s not an inaccurate thing to call him mad. He is in every sense.

It all comes back to Katniss. Everything has to come back to Katniss. Dr. Aurelius stresses that his life cannot revolve around one person, and he knows that’s true. It’s not healthy to exist for a person. You are a person independently, but the hijacking was about Katniss, breaking Katniss, ruining Katniss. He needs to know how the venom would affect that. What would he most fear about Katniss? What did they target?

It’s sadly obvious, especially when they talk about his childhood. The bitter mother who had deigned to have another child in the hopes it might be a girl. It wasn’t. The father who turned a blind eye to the beatings. His brothers who paired up against him, but weren’t particularly close to each other either. The tense politics. Did his mother love him? Did his brothers? His father? He was closest to his father, he recalls.

“Do you think he loved you?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I guess he did, but I often thought it might just be guilt. Like when Mom would take a wooden spoon to me, even a rolling pin, I would get bruised, and Dad would do nothing, but afterwards he would slip me cookies. I wasn’t above taking advantage of it. I knew if Dad saw me bruised up, I’d be more likely to get away with things. If he really loved me though, he ought to have stood up, stopped it. He said he was ‘keeping the peace,’ but there’s no peace in a household like that. He was a coward. Giving me cookies doesn’t make up for it. It was just his way of trying to make himself feel better.”

“People aren’t one-dimensional. It’s quite possible your father felt guilty, especially if it is he who pushed for another child. Likewise, there is no denying he should have stepped in where he saw abuse, but would he have felt guilty if he didn’t care? You said you were closest to him. Did you feel he loved you in spite of the hurt? Can you separate your worth from other people’s actions?”

Ha! They talk it over again and again. He’s only ever partially sold on it. It makes Peeta feel pathetic. That after all he’s been through, all he’s seen and done, all he wants to know is if his Mommy loved him, but it’s important, so important, because it feels like Katniss abandoned him, and used him, and he’s so pathetic he took her scraps while she gave it all to Gale. Used him, abandoned him, tossed him aside like trash, and he the fool who allowed it. Stupid boy. Useless child. They could convince him she wasn’t a mutt, and he could convince himself he didn’t want to be a violent killer, but the hardest thing to shake is feeling worthless. That’s the real fear, and ten times harder to shake when the last thing he remembers after allowing her to bite down on his flesh, saving her life, is her screaming and screaming Gale’s name. And that this happened when he’d deluded himself, again, that maybe she cared, because she didn’t kill him, because she kissed him, because of what Gale said, because she gave him a nightlock pill that was meant for Gale. She’d insisted he take it, closed his hands over it. That feels important, like something just outside his reach. Reaching. Reaching. Reaching. He cannot touch it. Why is it important? It only made sense what she did. It was only fair. She and Gale were together. He was alone. No one to shoot him if need be. But it still feels important. He fixates on it, but nothing. There’s nothing, but the nagging ache. He was a fool. Fooled again by Katniss Everdeen.

He doesn’t hate her anymore. He knows that. He doesn’t believe she was trying to kill him, even in their games. Definitely not in the Quell. He’s seen the footage again and again and again. There was no faking that force field. Gale said that kiss was real. He’s inclined to believe it. There’s no reason Gale would lie about that. Peeta is concerned. Worried. Scared. He knows Katniss is in Twelve, but otherwise nothing. She does not answer calls. There is no response to his letters. He is abandoned. Unloved. Unwanted. Unwanted. Unwanted.

You’re still trying to protect me. Real or not real?

Real. That’s what you and I do. Keep each other alive.

After that I always thought of you as an ally.

Was that all it was? An alliance to keep each other alive? But then why the self-sacrifice? And if she cared enough to die, why wasn’t she here? Why, with the exception of that one time she visited him, has she never come to see him? Why? He protected her; he held her on the train. Those memories the Capitol couldn’t quite touch, just alter his impressions of. He tries to remove the taint of fear, of abandonment, look at it objectively. If she wasn’t just a user, if she cared and trusted him in her bed, and he loved her enough to hold her in the night, why wasn’t she here in his darkest night? Why? Why? Why?

Peeta fills papers with etchings of the word why. Why? Why? In various angry angles. Why? It’s like the last piece of the puzzle. He cannot go home until he knows this, because he does not know to handle the enigma that is Katniss. He will have no peace until he knows, has an answer he can live with. He needs to process it, put it in its place. Was he played for a fool? Or was he–is he still–just a fool in love?

Why?

He watches the footage again about how he told her he heard her sing when they were five years old. His memory of it is… faint. He looks up the lyrics to the Valley Song hoping to jog the memory. Some lines stick out like a sore thumb.

If you don’t love me, love who you please.

Wrap your arms around me, give my heart ease.

Was that it? She loved someone else, and he knew it, but didn’t care? He was content just to be able to hold her? There seems to be a hint of truth in that. There’s no denying Katniss has suffered greatly, and he’d like to think he’s not so heartless as to not try and be there for her. (But shouldn’t she do the same? Couldn’t she just write back? Call? Check up on him? If they were at least friends?) (But she protected him. Didn’t want to be separated from him. Gave him the pill). Distantly he thinks he remembers crying when he listened to the song as a boy, but was that just baseless infatuation with a pretty voice? With the idea of even “Angels in Heaven know I love you”? Or was it merely the words about not being loved back, and being happy with scraps or cookies which resonated with a young, neglected boy? Something else entirely?

  Peeta pulls up the footage of Katniss singing about the hanging tree, because if he fell in love with her because she sang, maybe he can find his way back to understanding if he hears her again.

  Are you, are you

Coming to the tree

Wear a necklace of rope

Side by side with me.

  Peeta listens. It’s undeniable her voice is beautiful, that the birds stop to listen. It sends chills down his spine, but Peeta is an artist and more interested in what lies in her voice, why she chose this song. There’s a desperation in her tone, a resignation, an entreaty, a strange kind of hope, almost a yearning. He cannot say he isn’t affected by it. Was she suicidal even then?

  Wear a necklace of rope

Side by side with me

  How many people had answered the call and died side by side? He’d heard they’d sung it as they attacked the hydroelectric dam. Was this a call to die together for a cause? To be free? He shakes his head. He’s still missing something. He knows he is. He shuts the recording off, and goes to sleep.

  As he dreams he’s haunted by lines of The Valley Song that echo through his head in Katniss’s voice, but sweeter, younger, more innocent…loving.

  Down in the valley,

Walking between,

Telling our story,

Here’s what it sings.

  A two-braided Katniss Everdeen is holding out her hands to him. Her hands are stained red with berry juice that oozes out of a Nightlock capsule.

  “Are you coming to the tree?” She asks and raises her hand to bite down on the pill. He sees his hands rush forward to stop her, but all he sees is older, eighteen year old Katniss Everdeen swinging from a tree. He wakes with a gasp. What the Hell was that?

  As is his wont, Peeta sketches his nightmares out. Are you coming to the tree? But Katniss was carrying a pill that oozed juice like berries. He guessed it made sense. The nightlock pills were so named after the stunt he and Katniss had pulled in their first arena. Death and suicide is death and suicide. It all gets muddled in his subconscious. Honestly, as nightmares go, he’s had significantly worse. There is an emotion he felt at the end, when he was reaching for her, he doesn’t recognise. He has to remind himself not to fixate and let it go. It’ll come when it comes. Instead he watches the double suicide scene again.

  He’s struck with a new thought as the berries cross her lips. One he’s not sure he’s ever considered before. What if it wasn’t a bluff? Would she really have eaten those berries? He’s not sure, and at this point he’s not expecting any kind of answer from Katniss. He’s alone in this. Maybe this needs to be about how he understands it anyway.

  Are you coming to the tree?

Had he? Did he?

  He’s not sure. He never is anymore.

  She hadn’t been dead in the first arena though, nor condemned to it. Why would she bite? What motive could she have? What gain would there be? He was the one bleeding out, and there’d been nothing for him to lose in biting down on them, especially if he wanted to get her home. The same didn’t hold true for her. She was probably just bluffing. He decides he can’t fault her for that though, at least she tried to get him home too. He knew she had family that depended on her. He can’t fault her for her actions. Not really. At least she’d tried the bluff. Or was she truly suicidal then too? Did it go back that far? Doubtful. She’d fought too hard for that. Maybe she wasn’t even suicidal when she sung Hanging Tree. Maybe it was just a creepy song.

  She haunts him every night. After his day is done, his sessions over with, he lies and mulls over the mystery of her. He sees a broken girl. He sees a scared girl. A selfless girl maybe, although with the hijacking that’s hard to accept, but he sees what she did for her sister, for Rue, even for him. He’d think she was just a kind, but human girl who’s been through too much were it not for how she approaches him: There for him, but not really. He cannot help but feel slighted by her. Where was she? The girl who would defend him, and guard him against death, but claims she could shoot him as easily as any other Capitol mutt. There’s some piece to the puzzle missing here, and if he could find it, he’s sure he’d understand this riddle.

  Invariably he just plays The Hanging Tree on repeat like a sick lullaby to bring him to sleep. It’s the only footage he has of Katniss he knows for certain wasn’t meant for a propo. It’s his only slice of real. She chose the song of her own accord, for her own reasons. Peeta watches the footage of him warning her not to trust everyone just prior to her going to Twelve, hoping to find a link to the song. He doesn’t see it, and neither does it seem an entirely appropriate response to the destruction of Twelve, unless it’s resignation at the deaths that will come from the rebellion. It’s the song of someone condemned to death claiming freedom, calling another to die for it too. It’s not a concept he’s entirely unfamiliar with. When he’d coded on the table, and they’d brought him back, it had felt like being trapped all over again. He’d have rather been dead. He’d been grateful when Lavinia and Darius had been put out of their misery.

  Thoughts of death over capture, death over torture, and listening to the Hanging Tree no less, it’s no wonder his dreams are grim and confusing.

  Are you, are you

Coming to the tree?

  The two lines repeat poignantly through a dark night. Peeta can’t see anything. He’s running through the forest trying to find…something, someone, reaching… Lightning flashes, and in the illumination he sees the silhouette of a massive tree.

  He wakes up.

  Peeta devotes most of the rest of the day to painting the lightning tree with strokes of white, yellow, brown, black, and blue. Perhaps it’s fanciful, but he wonders if Katniss was thinking about how they’d been supposed to meet up at midnight when she sang that song. That maybe she’d seen his tortured state in his interview with Caesar and had lamented that he’d been left behind.

  …Just not enough to be here after he was brought back. Or even here now. In any capacity. Letters. Phone calls. Nothing. Even when he saved her damn life, proved he wasn’t trying to wrap his hands around her throat, not to kill her anyway, but to save her. That’s the heart of what is bothering Peeta, and the height of his hope. He’d thought he was slowly understanding Katniss Everdeen. He traces the scars where she bit him over and over and over again, because it is proof: Proof he is not only a Capitol mutt, a liability. He was remade to kill her, but when it counted, he’d saved her, stopped her taking that pill. Maybe he is not a monster. Then she screamed and screeched for Gale…

  He doesn’t understand. What was Gale supposed to do?

  He looks back at his drawings of the first strange dream. The little girl with the berry-pill. She asked him if he was coming to the tree. This girl had wanted to take that pill. She wanted him to take it with her. Katniss had tried to bite down on that pill. She’d also closed his hands over the pill Gale had given him, telling him it was for last resorts, like she’d placed the berries in his hands. Victory or death. Then she’d hugged him, and he’d felt scared, trapped, vulnerable, she was too close to vital organs. She could kill him. But it also felt safe and familiar. Muscle memory had him wrapping his arms around her, fighting through the hijacking. It had felt wisest to separate, but he could feel Katniss’s anxiety. Had they felt that way in the Quell? It’s like something slides into place in his mind, and he remembers her kissing him, saying she’ll see him at midnight. Remembers the anxiety. These aren’t just images on a screen to him anymore. He wonders if this is progress.

  There are many avenues to memory. Muscle memory like what happened with the hug had happened only once before with Katniss. When she had kissed him when they’d been running from the mutts. It had felt so familiar, but of course it had, they’d done it often enough. Had she meant it though? Or was it just her using a kiss to get what she wanted? Him in his right mind. He can’t hold mere survival instinct against her, heck it might have even saved his own life if they’d had to shoot him instead, but it doesn’t mean that she meant it. That’s always the problem. Real. Not real. Real. Not real. It had made him feel good in the moment. She’d kissed him even when he was just the Capitol Mutt: The liability. For awhile, he’d thought she’d cared personally.

  A lot of things should count for something that don’t seem to.

He really is mad.

  After three days of sulking Peeta pulls up the footage of his first interview with Caesar after he was captured trying to find if there was anything more about the Lightning tree moment he’d forgotten, but nothing new comes. “Neither of us knew anything except that we were trying to keep each other alive!“ He’s all but shouting in Caesar’s face. That at least confirms what Katniss was saying about the two of them protecting each other. So he watches the next interview. Again, nothing. Finally, he watches the footage of him warning Thirteen of the attack. He watches it again, and again, and again. It’s futile though. They’d jacked him up so high on venom, his memory of it all is nothing but loopy, if it exists at all. He clearly hadn’t felt abandoned by Katniss in that cell though, not like he does here. (Even though he lost his goddamn leg getting her out of the their first arena, she still doesn’t even have the consideration to answer the questions he sends her.) Is it because he’s ignorant, a fool, or is it something else? Is it because the kiss on the beach was real? Like Gale had implied? Whatever it was, it was strong enough to fight the fear-conditioning enough to talk. He shuts off the projector with a huff. There are no answers here.

  Are you, are you coming to the tree,

Where the dead man called out for his love to flee?

  Well, she might have been his love once, but that had meant for nothing in the end. She’d visited him once, reluctantly, and hadn’t been very nice. Had had the audacity to snark about kissing Gale too. He’d been asking perfectly reasonable questions too. All things considered he’d been decent, and decidedly not a “dead man” at that, but a living one who needed answers.

  Bitch.

  He tries to examine every bitter, angry thought like that against the knowledge of his hijacking, but honestly she is a bitch. He gets she’s grieving, but so is he. He lost his whole damn family, and his leg, and his sanity, but if she asked him questions he’d still have the decency to answer. She responds to none of his letters. It’s like she does the bear minimum of human decency, keep each other alive, no kidding, and that’s it. Allies. Allies are together out of need, nothing else. I need you. Yeah, to keep her alive. When the game’s over, the alliance ends. Goodbye. He doesn’t hate her for it. He’s mad, but he doesn’t hate her. She’s a piece of work is all. He was just a fool, and when he gets out of here maybe he’ll go to Four or Seven or Eleven, but he is not going back to Twelve. When he feels guilty about it, remembering she risked her life for him in the Capitol, he reminds himself it’s not more than they all did for each other. Nothing special. He doesn’t owe her a damn thing. Why should he go see her? When she won’t contact him after all he’s done? Hell, she’d have shot him herself if she’d absolutely had too. That kiss being nothing more than a manipulation. It’d be just like shooting another one of the Capitol’s mutts. He tries to forget about her, but truth is all he does is stew in outrage.

  He dreams about that kiss-on-the-run again and again and again, and hates himself for it. Not just because he dreams of her, but because sometimes he is unbearably rough with her when he responds which he can only attribute to the hijacking. Well, that or he is extremely angry with her in his subconscious too. It’s only when he has the nightmare he wraps his hands around her neck like he’d done right after his rescue, he reminds himself what a risk she really had taken in kissing him. He is breathing and gasping when he wakes up from it, cold with sweat, and he goes to change his shirt, splash water on his face. When he looks in the mirror with dead eyes staring back he wonders how she knew he wouldn’t have done it. He was close then, even now he feels it within him: The rage that lies sleeping, has always lain there even in childhood. He  still fights to reign it in, and used to use wrestling to release the excess pressure of. How had she known he wouldn’t give in to it? How? He falls back into bed a lethargic lump. As he drifts in and out of the realms of consciousness and sleep, he remembers the desperation in her eyes.

  “How did you know I wouldn’t kill you?” He asks in the dream.

  “I didn’t.” She replies.

  Suicidal even then, or just plain insane. Maybe she is as crazy as they whisper about when they decided to send her back to Twelve in exile. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t answer his letters. Maybe she’s a loon. When he falls back to sleep he thinks he hears singing.

  Write me a letter,

Send it by mail.

Send it in care of,

The Birmingham Jail.

  Maybe he will go back, just once, to check up on her.

  He spends the next few days of his free time trying to sketch her lying in bed with him. He remembers that, and there must have been trust on both sides for it to have happened, but he only remembers flashes. Isn’t sure of a lot of it. Was this when he’d told her “Always?” He’s not sure. He’s been given to understand they helped keep each other’s nightmares at bay. She’d asked him to stay. Was this when he’d said it? He must have said it before, because after she’d kissed him that time, she’d begged him, “Stay with me.” The reply had come without forethought. Only afterward did he taste the familiarity on his tongue. He’d said it often. Always. Always. Always. Always. Stay with me. Stay with me. Not us. Me. Her. Maybe he’s reading too much into it. If she’d wanted him, she could have talked to him properly when he’d asked for her in Thirteen. She was trying to get him back to reality, out of his flashbacks, when she kissed him. That’s all. It was about survival.

  And he could’ve believed that if he hadn’t just come to the conclusion that maybe she was as much a headcase as he was now, because survival doesn’t bite through people’s hands trying to get to suicide pills. Nightlock. She hadn’t cared to live. So…

  He has a headache.

  He wants to ask Dr. Aurelius if it’s true Katniss is that mentally unstable, but is scared to reveal so much of himself, and he cannot help but feel that if he is truly getting better, he ought to be able to work this much out for himself. Because if the hijacking destroyed his understanding of Katniss, surely the treatment would mean it would come back? So he runs his conclusions through his head.

  Katniss is not perfect, but is not evil, has even been known to be quite selfless

Refused to shoot him, but risked her own life for him in the Capitol

Has been suicidal for awhile

She seems to care about him on some kind of level, because she told him to take the pill

And she hugged him when she didn’t have to.

He’s not sure how far the caring lies, mainly because she has never been there for him, certainly not like he had been for her in the past.

He’s not sure why she’s not answering his letters now, but thinks maybe she’s trapped in her own head too.

  It’s all random bits of information. He is missing the critical piece that ties it all together, painting a cohesive picture that makes sense. So he draws Prim’s death. Katniss going down in flames. Was this what broke her so badly she’d been exiled? Was this why there are no phone calls and no letters? He misses Prim too, a lot. He can only imagine how Katniss must feel after everything that has happened, and all she did to keep her sister safe. He chokes on sobs, and tears pierce his eyes as he considers how deeply she must be grieved. In this moment, he can forgive her her absence. He’ll never claw the dead children out from behind his eyes. He feels a strange, familiar urge to wrap his arms around her.

  Stay with me.

Always.

  Prim told him once Katniss struggles to see people in pain, especially people she cares about, and she isn’t good with blood. She always runs away when her sister and her mother were taking care of patients. She’d told him  as a comfort when he questioned, if the girl cared so fucking much, why she wasn’t there in Thirteen coming to see him. He wonders if it’s true that it was because she cared and it hurt. He has seen how much Rue’s death devastated her. She hadn’t known Rue nearly as long as her own sister, or as long as she’d known Peeta. It makes her a bit self-centered, maybe, because he’d really needed to talk to her, but maybe it’s also not horrifically bitchy.

  He tries to recall her body language. The way she’d held herself when she’d come to see him, like she was trying to hold in all her internal organs, like she was wounded. She’d looked unhealthy, unkempt. Everyone says that’s why Snow had you tortured. To break me. He’d never considered until just now that maybe it had worked, because she’d been suicidal, if her song choice was any indication, if her kissing him was any indication, long before Prim’s death. She’d also pointed out people were watching, he notices as he pulls up and re-watches the footage. Maybe it made her feel uncomfortable? He hadn’t thought of that before. People were always watching; he’d been past caring; he’d been skeptical and hateful and angry. It was all he could do to stay in control. He listened for explicit answers. Nothing else. He didn’t have the energy to spare for it. Now he’s curious. She had started talking to him more when the cameras were put away. In the Capitol, she’d played Real or Not Real with him. Maybe she’d felt guilty. Maybe she’d felt less hunted.

  He is standing on a thick bough, high in a tree. Jabberjays sing all around him.

  Are you, are you

Coming to the tree

Where they strung up a man

They say who murdered three

  There is a noose wrapped around his throat. He smells blood and roses. He is shoved forward, and wakes before the quick stop.

  That’s why Snow tortured you. To break me.

Shit. It’s his first thought on waking, because he realizes something. Katniss didn’t sing that song as her own call to arms. It’s his. She was answering his call. She’d wanted him to be dead, and she with him, to go to a place where it didn’t hurt. Or at least, that’s how he thinks she must have seen it… Like those nightlock berries! He’d been strung up. He’d been dying, and she held out the berries. Together or not at all, she’d told the Capitol. She’d told him. He pulls up the sketch again of the little girl holding a nightlock pill that oozes juice. Are you coming to the tree? She’d been echoing his words, his story. She really did care. He believes it now, because that’s why she kissed him. Together or not at all. I should never have let them separate us! Peeta had said. He’d understood. Maybe he still did. Loving someone enough to lay your life on the line.

  Where a dead man called out,

For his love to flee.

  And hadn’t he been dead? When he called for her to flee the coming bombs, isn’t that when they’d killed him? Hijacked him beyond recognition? I wouldn’t be shooting Peeta. He’s gone.That’s what she must have believed. She’d tried afterwards, played the game with him, but then her sister died. Her desperate, “Stay with me,” seems ten times more so now, because if Peeta’s worst fear is being used and unwanted, then Katniss’s must be losing people. Her father. Her mother. Her sister. Him? How can he expect her to handle her worst fears any better than he has?

  So when she’d made to bite that capsule, she’d be dying to be free, because it’s not about what you can die for, but what you refuse to live with. He’d known going into the Games, that the price of his soul, his identity, his integrity, wasn’t worth his life. Better to live a short life you can look yourself in the mirror with, than a long, shameful one, where you turn a blind eye to the evils of this world. Better die together, live free, then live alongside cruelty. Alone. Fight the pain and win on your terms, or die and escape it. And he sees this might have always been the plan. She told him to take the capsule, but hadn’t killed Gale when he’d been captured. She hadn’t expected to survive, hadn’t expected Peeta to survive, didn’t really think he was even alive, but she hadn’t killed Gale when he got captured, so when Peeta stopped her from hanging, she hadn’t been calling for Gale to flee… but to help her do so.

  Peeta looks at the painting of the tree with the illumination of the powerful lightening; he adds two nooses hanging from its boughs; he adds two severed limbs, arms, holding pills that bleed juice. He paints the truth of two people who brave death together to find freedom. This is their gamble, but not their bluff. He finds resolve, peace.

  He’s going home when released. He’s going straight back to Twelve, because the war is over. And they weren’t the ones who had to hang.

  Bird in a cage, love

Bird in a cage,

Dying for freedom

Ever a slave.

  Not anymore, because he’s going home.

  It’s time to live again.

[igsy-blog]

reTHG: The Hunger Games - Chapters Five and Six: Cinna

I have a lot of in-depth headcanon about Cinna.  Probably even more than Haymitch, a character I like more, but don’t spend a lot of time thinking about.  Haymitch’s personality is so external, and his history is fleshed out enough (by MJ) to understand his motivations.  Cinna’s are so wide open.  I have a story about Cinna and Portia I really want to write, so I won’t divulge ALL my Cinna theories here, just a few relatively pertinent ones.

When I first read this book, I was vaguely troubled by Katniss’ description of the Capitol citizens, because she’s very judgmental of them, in a superficial way.  To me, the described Capitolite modes of self-expression are not intrinsically offensive – certainly not intolerable – and judging people by the way they look strikes me as fussy and conservative.  I understand Katniss’ revulsion to them – she associates this audience, their lack of misery, their lack of compassion, their numbness to the tributes, with how differently they act and look from the district citizens.  I was more worried about Collins’ judgment, really.

But, going back to Katniss, since she does kind of think of people in terms of simple characteristics (red hair, a limp, gold eyeliner), she maybe trusts them more the simpler they are to her eye, because she can anchor them to a short list of easily-recognized attributes.  As if self-expression via a multitude of enhancements, or a wardrobe that always changes, hides too many things about the actual self.  By Mockingjay, however, you see that this was just one of the journeys that she needed to take.  Her field of allies keeps widening out until it includes these people who seem to her almost alien.  In THG, her allies are Peeta -  and Rue, who is from a similar district and reminds her strongly of her sister.  In CF, her allies include Finnick and Johanna – whom she must learn not to dislike and distrust – the morphlings – even Plutarch.  And in MJ, they include the tattooed Cressida and pierced Messalla, and, at last, the three members of her prep team, introduced in this chapter, who represent – more than Cinna, more than Effie – understanding and compassion for the Other, and reconciliation.  

Cinna is different; he is an exception to all her internal rules about the Capitol. Here we find out just a few basic facts about Cinna: he is a new stylist to the Games; he volunteered to be the stylist for District 12; he and his partner, Portia, have decided to transform them into memorable contestants – to play into the audience’s expectations for pageantry, and to give them even more: to elevate the idea of what it means to be a citizen from the coal district.

So, Cinna is young; possibly fairly recently finished with whatever training one might have to go through to be a stylist.  The first question is, why did he volunteer for 12 (and the bigger question might be when did he)?  Apparently, he was allowed to make the choice.  Despite being a new stylist, he tells Katniss he wasn’t stuck with District 12, but actually asked for it.  By this I gather that he was certainly well-connected to the Games.  Also – he seems to be pretty comfortable with Haymitch, as if they’ve known each other for a while.  I like to think that he had a close relative – maybe his mother or father – involved in the games previously, a mentor or an escort, and he hung around the back-stage part of the games for some time (a little more on this in a bit).  

I do like to think that he volunteered for Katniss, choosing District 12 on the day of the reaping.  Even if Haymitch wasn’t shouting out a coded message that they had found their spark for the revolution, Cinna could well have been impressed – as was the rest of the Capitol, we are told – by this unlikely volunteer.

Cinna seems technically far advanced over his fellow stylists, so I also think of him as well educated.  And he is a true artist.  This is so awesome.  I love, love, love the importance of design and art in this story.  I’d love to have the expertise to write more about the importance of semiotics in these books.  You can’t run an underground revolution with speeches, so of course you need artists to help you deliver your messages, in symbols and signs.  And then Peeta idevelops as an artist, too, in Catching Fire!)

And Cinna is a fashion designer – a perfect support character for a feminist story.  Clothes are such a perfect physical representation of the powerful/powerless role in which Katniss is forced to function.  She is made – unwittingly, sometimes – into a billboard, time and time again; each outfit sending a message, sometimes multiple messages to different audiences at once.  Except when she wears the simple outfit of home, she is constantly forced to wear clothes of other people’s choosing.  But at the same time, she feels – that paradoxic feeling we’ve maybe all felt at times – the power of an amazing outfit, the heady internal power and confidence that accompanies feeling beautiful on the outside.  Or the outfit that you finally dare to wear with confidence because it shouts out who you really are on the inside.

In this moment, because of Cinna’s work, something happens to Katniss during the tribute parade.  For a moment, isolated from the harsh reality of the arena, the audience falls in love with Katniss.  And she accepts their love.  In her conscious mind, this is framed in terms of strategy, and yet it’s also a bit heady:

“The pounding music, the cheers, the admiration work their way into my blood, and I can’t suppress my excitement.” (THG Chapter 6)

The reason I like to think of Cinna as having grown up around the games is that, as well as access, it would have given him all kinds of perspective different from that of typical Capitolites – such as having exposure to tributes and Victors early on.  But that’s just a theory.  Anyway, I feel certain he was involved in the Rebellion; and that his designs - and maybe he had a range of potential designs for different districts - were intended to empower his tributes on behalf of both sets of audiences - the Capitol one who would just see the flash and dazzle, and the District ones who would maybe see something a little more.

And then the final piece - linking the two tributes together.  Much as I would wish differently, there isn’t a whole lot we can say about Portia.  She’s never described, we have no indication of her age or how equal a partner she is with Cinna.  I wrote a lot about Portia in one of my fics and would really have liked to have had more to go on; but, due to the nature of the story, she had to stand in for Cinna, anyway, so she took on a lot of (what was in my head as) his backstory.  But I do like to think that she was very much aware and supportive of Cinna’s work for the Rebellion.  I think partnering up Cinna with someone outside of the Rebellion could have been very dangerous - that it was best for him to work with someone he trusted.  I just think this also gets to neatly reflect that - although his part in this aspect of it all is not really highlighted much - Peeta, by always either matching or complementary to Katniss, is also being used as a messenger.   

At the tribute parade, they are dressed exactly the same and although history mainly remembers the Girl on Fire, Katniss notes that Peeta’s name is also being called by the crowd.  Cinna has decided that the matching outfits and the spectacle of the flames is not enough.  He has Katniss and Peeta join hands on the chariot (“Just the perfect touch of rebellion,” Haymitch will note.)  Again, I don’t know how far back the Rebels’ plans go .… or who knew what, when about Peeta’s feelings for Katniss  … .  Cinna and Haymitch are right; to be in an alliance with your opponent is a touch rebellious.  To be in love with her, though, is revolutionary, and man would I love to know how much Cinna and Haymitch perceived this from the beginning ….