#VICTOR MELLARK

[barragerofarrows]

All the craze. I'm marrying Peeta Mellark...in Panem! THIS IS. REAL. There's even a Wedding Cake MILKSHAKE.

[magpieanalysis]

I love that every victor from District 12 won by breaking the rules.

Katniss was proficient with a bow and in a forest because she went past the fence and hunted game illegally; Peeta survived because Katniss threatened for the games to not have a victor after the promised rule (presumably influenced by Haymitch?) if he wasn’t saved; Haymitch won because he used the capitol forcefield against his opponent, bringing their weapon into his game; Lucy won because of rat poison brought into the arena and Snow feeding her scent to the snakes.

There was not a victor from twelve that didn’t backhand the Capitol with their survival. lmao.

[johnwickistheworstmovie]

the way victors always tried to protect each other because they are the only ones who know what they went through. the way haymitch fought to make sure they didn’t alter katniss’s body. how haymitch fought against finnick sharing his stories to protect him from the memories. how katniss was ready to mercy kill beetee when she thought they were taken by the capitol. how katniss made it a stipulation for the victors taken captive be given pardon no matter what. even enobaria. how peeta comforted the victor from 6 as she was dying. they all protected each other whatever way they could. because they were the only ones there for each other really

[thefloatingwriter]

the victors as complex characters will always be more interesting than making them amazing people.

like these are people who did absolutely everything in their power to survive something as traumatic as the games. most of them probably sleep with weapons in their hands. the thought on the forefront of most of their minds is survival. everything else—anyone else—can wait.

they sacrificed everything to crawl out of a killing game. their mental stability. their innocence. their childhood.

and after all of that, they realized that the games never really end. that they would sacrifice ever having a good night sleep without being plagued by nightmares. they would sacrifice their brains to help the capitol. they would sacrifice their bodies, something that should have always been their own, now snatched away from them. all for surviving a killing match that twenty-three children didn’t.

no victor is immune to this either. do you think cashmere doesn’t regret being so excited to go into the games after her brother after staying the night in a strange man’s bed that she doesn’t know? do you think gloss doesn’t regret not warning his sister about the horrors that await her after she wins? do you think brutus doesn’t sometimes wake up in a cold sweat after having yet another nightmare about being on the receiving end of his weapon, just as all of his victims were before everything faded to black? do you think enobaria doesn’t run her tongue over her sharpened teeth and wonder if it was worth it?

do you think beetee doesn’t flinch every time he sees lightning? do you think wiress doesn’t think of how if she hadn’t learned acrobatics that the 48th hunger games would have gone very differently? do you think finnick doesn’t see nets in the same way ever again, after he saw the girl from nine begging for her life tangled in a net he set up before he stabbed her with a trident? do you think annie doesn’t think about if she hadn’t spent all of that time on the beach growing up, playing in the water, that she wouldn’t have survived the dam breaking in her arena? do you think mags doesn’t think about how she left her district partner to die in the first ever traditional career pack? how if maybe, if she had been there to take the blow for him, there would be a different victor of the 11th hunger games?

do you think that blight doesn’t wonder what would have happened if the boy from two had looked up a little bit sooner, looked a little bit closer at the treetops above him, before the knife previously in blight’s hand found it’s way to the boy’s back? do you think that every time johanna picks up an axe, she doesn’t think about what if felt like to stab someone with it, what blood felt like when it splattered you? do you think she doesn’t wake up in a sweat, thinking the moisture on her skin is blood, that she’s back in the third quarter quell? do you think she doesn’t ever walk into her house in the victor’s village and think she sees a glimpse, a shadow, of her lost loved ones?

do you think that woof doesn’t use real knives anymore because every time he sees one, he remembers how it felt to stab blindly at the boy from seven? that even when he was seventy-five and the male tribute from eight for the third quarter quell, he couldn’t even look at the utensil and had to get cecelia to take it away from him? do you think cecelia can’t look at seashells anymore, that she could barely stand district four on her victory tour, because the girl from four was her last kill? that her necklace, a pretty one her sister made for her with a seashell strung through the string, was what cecelia used to choke the life out of her?

do you think that chaff doesn’t ever feel the phantom feeling of his hand? doesn’t ever touch the stump where it used to be and feel the phantom pain of it being sawed off like it was yesterday, even thirty years later? do you think that seeder doesn’t ever feel the hot sun of her arena on her body, doesn’t ever think she’s back, waiting for her death to come?

do you think that haymitch doesn’t start shaking every time a blowgun is provided at the cornucopia? do you think that he didn’t see the gold pin on katniss’ arena wear and have to sit down, remembering a very different girl with blonde hair and a quick witted humor with the same pin? do you think that peeta doesn’t hear foxface’s voice during her interview, over and over and over, until it’s so distorted he can’t even remember what she had actually said? that he doesn’t ever think of the girl from eight, a girl he might not have even known the name of?

do you think that, years down the line, katniss doesn’t realize the fate that waited for glimmer if she had won? do you think that she doesn’t wonder what would have happened if cato was a little quicker to get to the cornucopia to save clove? do you think she doesn’t wonder what the girl from four was like, what her name was, what her parents were like, what she was like? do you think that she doesn’t think about what would have happened if marvel was just a little bit quicker with his spear than her with her arrows, what would have happened if she was just a little bit slower to get to rue?

the what-ifs plague them. their games will never leave them. they will never escape their experiences. their lives will never be their own, if they ever were, ever again.

[buggiebite]

Chapter 1 - The Life of a Victor

could’ve swore I posted this. it’s been sitting in procreate for a while…

my favorite moments from chapter 1!

Read: The Life of a Victor

[elainiisms]

personally, idc how hot young snow was or how "sad" his backstory was, none of that can EVER make me sympathise with a man who killed hundreds of children for amusement and sold the children he didn't kill into s*x trafficking.

[whenthewallfell]

~The Many Legs of Peeta Mellark, or A Weirdly In-Depth Look at Panem Prosthetics~

Concept art for Peeta’s leg because I can (details below the cut)

Catching Fire: though the leg itself is removable, the cover is non-optional and the access panels can only be used by Capitol technicians. Due to how ornate it is it can get a bit heavy after long periods of wear, and there’s limited movement in the ankle which impedes walking. It’s designed to mimic the shape of the original leg so it fills out clothes nicely, but flashy enough to be worthy of a Victor should anyone see it. A very pretty prosthetic, but only slightly better than a peg leg. Mockingjay: this is what the prosthetic looks like without the fancy cover. It’s very no-nonsense with an advanced ankle component that has better range of motion without the casing, and features a rubber tread on the bottom of the foot blade to allow for better traction when chasing down and murdering his one true love. Although a vast improvement mobility-wise, it’s been permanently bolted to his leg and the control panels are all welded shut. Everything about this is short-term - they don’t care what happens to him once he’s killed Katniss.

Post War: when he’s caught in the explosion/fire from the bombs that got Prim his leg melts and fuses to his stump, so the doctors end up having to amputate even more. He’s given the choice to try out an experimental implant, which he accepts. This is vastly different from the other ones because he’s got so much autonomy - he can change the settings himself, remove the foot shell, opt in for a leg casing if he wants (he doesn’t). All in all it’s a very low maintenance leg, which suits him just fine, and because it’s an implant it finally feels like a part of him again.

[phefics]

i love these hunger games boys reactions they’re so cute 😭😭

how do you think they would react to you having a nightmare about the games?

peeta is a very light sleeper and would notice you stirring in your sleep almost instantly. he’d wrap his arms around you and whisper in your ear: “it’s okay. you’re just dreaming. i’m right here.” when you wake up, sweaty and panicked, he soothes you with soft words and strokes your hair until your breathing is steady and your tears have stopped. then, he asks if you want to talk about it. either answer is fine, he’ll respect it.

gale isn’t able to understand fully, but he’ll be woken by your whimpers and ask if he can hold you. if you say yes, he’ll envelop you in his strong arms and rub your back until you’re calmer. if you need space, he’ll get out of the bed and kneel on the floor beside it, watching you with worried eyes, remind you that you’re safe, that he’ll protect you, that everything you did was to survive and that no one can hurt you now.

finnick has been having nightmares for so long, he fully understands your pain and will pull you to his chest. “what was it this time?” he’ll ask, voice rough from sleep. he’ll encourage you to talk about it, if you’re able. it helps him, and he’ll exchange stories with you until you both feel lighter, having the horrible things off your chest. he kisses your face, assures you that you’re safe, and tells you that you aren’t weak for the nightmares — he has them, all the victors have them.

coriolanus couldn’t possibly understand, but he tries to comfort you. “you survived,” he’ll say. “you’re alive and you’re safe and you did what needed to be done.” he kisses your forehead and offers to make you tea, and eventually will soothe you back to sleep with gentle touch.

sejanus also struggles to understand what you’ve been through, but he ends up ranting about how horrible the games are and how your trauma is valid. “you didn’t deserve that,” he says. “it’s an evil thing, what the capitol did to you. i wish i could take all that pain away for you.” and he’ll hug you tight, assuring you that you are not evil for what happened in that arena, that the blame is on the people who put you there.

[thetrashqueeeen]

the hunger games is having a resurgence and i’m back on my bullshit so i thought i would post what i always imagined the rest of effie’s life looked like

she stays in the capitol to begin with. katniss was shocked when she saw them kiss, but was hastily shut up by haymitch when she teased him and they never really spoke about effie much after that. effie called haymitch once a week, filling him in on the rebuilding efforts, her rapidly blooming social life, new fashion trends, inter-district moving and the latest in geese rearing tips(i’m a goose apologist here he keeps geese ok). he can tell something is off but he doesn’t realise how much of it is outright lies

effie wakes in the mornings screaming, the pain of whatever torture she was reliving rapidly dissolving as her bedroom sharpened into focus. She rarely leaves her apartment. she watches them rebuild from her window, her heart racing when unexpected bangs and crashes come from construction sites. she gets up later and later each day, sometimes not bothering to get out of bed at all. when she can’t face the nightmares, she goes to the roof of her building and screams off the edge until her voice is hoarse. she tells haymitch that she’s been out partying when she calls. her neighbourhood gets a reputation for being haunted, people say you can still hear the rebels screaming at night. her old friends are mostly dead and the ones that aren’t can’t face the memory of her as much as she can’t face the memory of them. they do try for a while, pretending that everything is fine for as long as they can ignore the frenzied fear right under the surface. the cocoon her life has become feels suffocating but ultimately comforting. she tells herself she’s fine, that this is fine. she doesn’t know why she lies to him when she calls.

she lasts a year. one afternoon, she’s on the phone with haymitch and he’s telling her about katniss and peeta. they’ve just gotten engaged for real and he’s chattering on about them in the way he does when he lets his guard down. his voice is so comforting and so nice and so homely that her heart clenches and her hand grips the phone so tightly the plastic nearly buckles in her grip. she closes her eyes so the only thing entering her brain is his voice. when they get off the phone she throws her favourite things into a suitcase, showers and gets dressed in actual clothes for the first time all week and walks to the train station before she can think about it too hard. the days she spends on the train pass quickly and she steps onto the platform at 12 in the middle of a deluge. she trudges over to victors village, her suitcase clattering over muddy paving stones. she steps into the square of victors village in the pouring rain, looking sullen, tired and thinner than when anyone last saw her. she’s filled with sudden unease, and stands still, not sure she has the nerve to go and bash on his door. she feels much too old for this, much to old to run away from her life without telling anyone, for a man who didn’t even invite her. she’s freezing. peeta notices her and goes to invite her in, but katniss stops him, seeing haymitch has set out to meet her in the square. as he gets closer he notices she looks like shit. she’s not dressed for the rain and her clothes cling to her depressingly, her hair is plastered to her face and she looks about as tired as he feels. she’s stood with her arms crossed tightly, looking like she might cry. he wraps his arms around her cold, sodden frame and it takes her a second, but she wriggles her arms out from between them and wraps her arms around his neck, stepping closer. they might be too old for this, but she can’t deny this is better than whatever she was doing before. he doesn’t kiss her there; it still feels too alien to not hide.

the next morning, effie pulls one of haymitch’s porch chairs to the edge of the veranda and basks in the rising sun, allowing it to warm her all the way through. he comes out with coffee an hour or so later, remembering she missed it in 13. peeta comes over to say hello and effie finally feels her heart slow down.

she gets used to the rhythms of 12. she did worry that too much time had passed for them, but they fall back together as they’re meant to. they bicker and debate through barely suppressed smiles and finally offer the overt support the other has always needed. when haymitch gets up to feed the geese at first light, he leaves her in bed alone and she rolls into the warm spot he leaves. he makes her coffee when he’s done and says it’s because he’d never hear the end of it if he didn’t. in reality he just can’t imagine not getting to see her lift her bleary head off the pillow, her blonde hair mused and her eyes flickering open. her hair is one of the things he loves the most. he teases her about her ‘lotions and potions’ but he spends hours running his hands through her hay-coloured waves. she lets it grow down to her shoulders for the first time since her baby hair was chopped off for wigs. she starts growing produce in the back garden. the first time katniss sees her, hair tied back with a patterned scarf, wearing dungarees and chunky boots, she laughs out loud so hard that effie’s in a huff with her for a whole week. she offers an apology only because her wedding simply will not happen without effie planning it.

one day, she gets up as soon as she hears haymitch go out the back door in the morning. she dresses in a baggy t-shirt and bright dungarees (she tries her best not to link the bright dungarees that being her so much joy to grey jumpsuits) and makes coffee for them both. he startles when he finds her at the kitchen table, but she just asks him if he knew she had a degree from capitol university. he didn’t. she tells him she wants to teach children in the school house and expects him to laugh. he does a little bit, but then tells he she’ll be fantastic and admired her as she marched out the door to go and talk to the head teacher. they start her out easy, but the children adore her funny accent, soft hair and bright clothes. she adores them all right back. effie has a gaggle of small children running around her for all of the wedding and katniss looks over her the entire day, smiling at her and haymitch playing with them all. peeta had been slowly beginning to raise the idea of a family, but katniss had been shutting it down forcibly every time. she walks over to peeta at the reception and draws his attention to the large game of tag effie was participating in. as haymitch starts hefting kids over his shoulder shouting ‘the monster’s coming’ katniss tells him she wants their first daughter to be called primrose, not prim- never prim, but primrose. they’ll be great surrogate grandparents, she tells him.

effie adores little Finnick from the moment he’s born. haymitch also adores the baby, but is much less willing to show it. katniss pretends to not notice he still shakes sometimes and he pretends he doesn’t only hold him when he’s sat down. a few years later, finnick is joined by primrose who is just as beautiful as her namesake. as soon as finnick is old enough to go to school, effie insists on teaching his class every year. once primrose is old enough she trades off each year, trying (and failing) to pretend they’re not her favourite. finnick trains as a carpenter and every time effie so much as mentions something that needs fixing in the house finnick is there with a toolbox and his father’s smile. primrose grows up in awe of her big brother, the boy who calls her pipsqueak, shared every glass of orange juice he’s ever drunk with her and copies her maths homework every days she can remember. when he starts his own business, she starts to keep his accounts. it’s the summer she turns 15. she carries on absorbing knowledge like a sponge, retaining every fact, theorem and topic effie gifts her with. effie is the first person she tells when she applies for a scholarship at capitol university. her mother is the first person she tells when she gets it. katniss cries soft, bittersweet tears when primrose tells her she’s going to study medicine at the big university in the capitol. effie hugs her so hard on the platform as she gets the train that she thinks she might snap. katniss is so happy that her children are no longer the children of the last victors. they are the carpenter and the doctor. they have never once chopped their dreams off at the knees just in case they get reaped. katniss and peeta cry at her loss, sure she will only return to visit. finnick and effie do not cry, they know she’s coming back. she comes back with a woman in tow, but she comes back none the less. effie plans her marriage to the woman they come to know as Evie. finnick gets married just a year after they do, and he and his wife have so many children, haymitch jokes they should start a football team.

effie and haymitch don’t get anywhere near as long as they deserve, but they do get 25 good years. haymitch is older than she is, and his body has been through a lot. when she pleads with him to go to the capitol for treatment, he begs her to understand why he can never go back there, and she finds she does. he passes in his own bed, with his wife laying next to him, stroking his hair with quiet reverence. the last thing he hears is her whispering quietly that she loves him more than anything. that she would go through all of it again for just one more day.

when haymitch is gone, effie retires from the school house and spends as much time as she can with katniss, peeta, finnick, primrose and their various broods. she fully expects to die of a broken heart, she considers it only right. she thinks often of the tired, scared woman who stood in the rain waiting for him. she does not die of a broken heart, much to her annoyance. she doesn’t even grow much weaker with age. she keeps the geese until the last one dies and never stops growing food in her garden. one hot day in summer, the whole family go down to the meadow to bask in the heat and watch the children play. ‘this is the life a victor deserves’ she tells katniss as they watch finnick and primrose play with the children. she lays down in the sun to have a nap, resting her head on katniss’s lap. she hears the children screech with laughter, she feels the warm sun on her skin and she passes quickly, her last breathe quiet and unnoticed. haymitch is waiting for her when she gets there.

[districtscare]

i honestly think that katniss and peeta didn't count as real victors. not the definition we know of them, anyway. they were set up for success and came out of the arena less scarred than any other, while other people bared those wounds. and then, their own kind were forced to die for them and their cause. just for a chance of freedom and a new world.

no, i don't think all the victors liked them. i don't believe they all got on. i do believe it took a lot of convincing on haymitch's side to trust and understand them in the empathetic way that he does. i do think that their victor experience is stunted because of the sacrifices others made in order to give them a near-smooth victory. they came out with wounds — that's guaranteed, but they didn't suffer in that proper way until the rebellion. there were times were K&P were both ignorant to the ways of a victor, and played off certain character's behavior and chalked it down to anything but their experiences.

president snow gave katniss a chance to quell the districts. they were allowed to play up the starcrossed lovers angle for as long as they needed to until the rebel plan panned out in full. they would've been eaten alive if not for the war.

[brookesophelias]

Victor Tributes from Districts 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 11 knew about a plan to break out of the arena after Snow announced the Quell.

that means others from 1, 2, 5, 9, 10 & people K&P love from 12 all thought this Quarter Quell was another proper Hunger Games. how awful because they weren’t aware; how awful because they’re probably too traumatised & hostile.

hostile because they won the first gd damn time & were horrifically coping & someone broke their promise to leave Victors alone.

living your whole life attempting to avoid to becoming Reaped, then you do; so you do what you must to survive & win; only to arrive home utterly trapped in the trauma & the only thing saving your life is knowing you never have to “play” again.

but: a girl & boy from District 12 catch fire like never before & now 2 GameMakers have changed the rules. one was m*rder*d for it & the second has a rebel plan

the thing is you’re too far gone in a haze of ptsd to participate.

[ceceliawilsonsanchez]

Any victor drama we didn't know about?

Ummm…. Peeta and Katniss are having an argument with Clove about her knife. Marin and Finnick are arguing about him eating crayons, and… I think that it.

[plenaurum]

The funniest thing about THG is that most of the happenings could've been prevented if the Gamemakers didn't try to renege on the rule change. If they just allowed Katniss and Peeta to win at the same time without trying to milk as much melodrama as possible out of their star-crossed-lover story, Katniss wouldn't have done that shit with the berries. And the uprisings would've arguably been kept at a minimum.

So really, it's their fault for trying to push their luck.

[asanaquarian]

Lucy Gray Baird is a name lost to time, yet she is kept alive in many ways.

Despite the efforts of President Coriolanus Snow to scrub the victor of the tenth Hunger Games from the face of the earth, her legacy remains.

Once, only a master copy of the tenth Hunger Games existed, but in the sixty-five years since then, the tapes have been released to the public. The editing is odd, and sometimes it’s hard to make out anything, but it’s impossible to miss how Lucy Gray sings to the serpents that swim across the asphalt and coil around her skirt like vines.

Even before the games, guitar in hand at the interviews, she trills to the crowd; serenading them into a trance just like snake charmers of old.

Yearly, her name is the first read out at the District 12 reaping. The short list of past winners is read to the hundreds of citizens made to stand in the square. No one gives it a second thought, not when they’re standing there silently pleading for someone else’s name to come out of the bowl.

Haymitch Abernathy has always been curious about his predecessor. He has a copy of the tenth games under his floorboards, and when he’s in the depths of drink, he pulls it out and watches the tape. Again and again. Not many people alive in Twelve remember the girl in the rainbow dress, but if you know the right people and have expensive booze, you can find what you need. The goat man seems to know a lot.

Lucy Gray Baird is kept alive by the spectacle that the Hunger Game have become. She’s kept alive by the mayor of Twelve when he reads her name once a year. She’s kept alive by Haymitch, who’s grown fond of the woman who disappeared before he was even born, who could’ve been his mentor. She’s kept alive by the girl on fire, whose voice is as clear as day and sweet as a songbird. Whose grandmother could memorise a song from a single listen.

[mollywog]

Boggs, who came to 2 when I did, told me that even with all the plotting, it was a little too easy to rescue Peeta. He believes if 13 hadn’t made the effort, Peeta would’ve been delivered to me anyway. Dropped off in an actively warring district or perhaps 13 itself. Tied up with ribbons and tagged with my name. Programmed to murder me.

Something about gifts within The Hunger Games series being double edged swords…

[buggiebite]