#are we any better than the people Katniss viewed with such disgust?

[readingforaneternity]

Sometimes I get annoyed that we don’t get to read more about Everlark’s “happily ever after.”

But I was thinking about it, (and I hate this but it’s so true). We don’t deserve to experience their happy ending.

And before some of yall try to come and get me, think about it.

As much as we like to think we would be like those within the Districts. Tired of being mistreated and ready to fight for freedom we’re more like those in the Capitol.

I mean, I’ve seen so many ppl (book readers, movie watchers, and everyone in between) say they would like to see Finnick, Haymitch, Annie, Maggs, and Johanna’s Games. I’ve thought about it too.

But that’s the thing. This is why we don’t deserve their happy ending. We crave the violence of their past that we would get bored with their future.

[gffa]

THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES SPOILERS JESUS CHRIST, THIS BOOK IS REALLY NOT PULLING ANY PUNCHES. I spent some time last night (when I was on chapter eight or so, I think, it’s hard to tell with the audiobook version) thinking and talking about Coriolanus and how he treats the tribute that he’s assigned to, how he both pities them and uses them as things rather than people.  That there is an undercurrent of absolute terror to every word of his point of view. He’s terrified of being found out that the Snow family has fallen into poverty, he’s terrified of not being able to live in the Capitol, he’s terrified of being shunted down to the districts, he’s terrified of being mocked, he’s terrified of starving to death, he’s terrified of being cannibalized because he’s seen his neighbors do that, he’s terrified to even just miss his mother, who died in the war. This comes out when he’s sort of kind to Lucy Gray, his tribute, when he brings her bread pudding or a sandwich, when he confesses even just a sliver of his own vulnerabilities to her, wondering even to himself if he’s doing it because she’ll be dead in a few days and his vulnerabilities will disappear.  He wants so badly to believe her kindness towards him is real, but who knows if it actually is, if she truly is kind or if she’s just playing the game because she desperately needs food or some impossible to know combination of both. As I kept listening, there was another scene at the monkey house where the Capitol was “housing” the tributes, that they were in cages and behind bars for everyone to come look at, but they weren’t being fed, so they had to depend on doing tricks and the pity of the citizens who came to visit them, they have to depend on the pity of their “mentors” (Coriolanus and his classmates, who are given the homework assignment of how to make the Hunger Games more interesting to watch) to bring food. One of Coriolanus’ classmates brings sandwiches again for her tribute, but teases her repeatedly, keeps pulling the sandwich back out of reach just as she’s about to grab it.  The mounting fury on the girl’s face is ignored, only briefly noticed by Coriolanus until everything explodes--the girl grabs the food knife and slits the mentor’s throat, barely able to take a bite of the sandwich before the peacekeepers gun her down in front of everyone.  As the bullets and blood are flying, as his classmate is bleeding out and the tribute is just a pool of red on the ground, Coriolanus has flashbacks of so many things--his mother's death, the bombs falling on his home during the war, the endless days of starvation, the dangers of standing in the food line.  Just so much terror even from someone who lived in the Capitol. That’s the terrifying thing about Coriolanus Snow, that he’s been traumatized and terrorized his entire life, he literally has PTSD flashbacks when gunfire starts because he’s seen so much shit in his life already, he lives with that every single day, he’s never known anything else, and it’s awful.  Life has been brutal to Coriolanus Snow.  And yet he turns that same brutality on others to save himself, we know he’ll get worse and worse, he’ll get crueler and more and more entrenched in this horrible system. It’s hard not to feel for the character in this book because he hasn’t become President Snow yet, but we know he’ll get there. Further, there was a scene with the classmates discussing how to make the Hunger Games more interesting (since they weren’t that interesting to most people, they were too gruesome, so people didn’t want to watch) and they were suggesting all these horrible things and being so callous towards the children’s lives, that they were treated as literally disposable things for a homework assignment, that they were written off as the children of rebels, so they deserved what they got. It was hard not to have a moment of thinking about how fitting it would have been for these teenagers to instead be thrown into the Hunger Games.  These callously cruel children discussing these horrible things like they were fun to talk about, that they thought those kids deserved it. And I realized all over again just how incredible Katniss Everdeen was to break out of the cycle of violence and trauma and abuse.  That, even as someone who’s just reading this, I had a moment of, “Throw them into the Hunger Games and see how they like it!”  Imagine it from someone who’d lived it their entire lives, who’d had their children and their siblings and their friends and neighbors all stolen from them by the Capitol and its horrible people. And she said no.  She rose above and said no more. Seeing Coriolanus Snow suffering real trauma and horror in his own life, but that we know he’ll fall further into the system, he’ll prop it up further to save himself, and you sort of understand why, given the absolute terror he’s lived with, how few options he sees for himself otherwise, all of that highlights the importance of what Katniss does.  She stops the cycle of abuse, she says no more, we have to be better.  We have to heal from this and make the world better for everyone, we can’t become them. I didn’t think I could love her character more, but every bit of sympathy I have for Coriolanus Snow’s circumstances and every bit of disgust I have for him, all of it furthers just how much I really love Katniss Everdeen.

[everlarkbirthdaygifts]

Happy Birthday, amazinglovers747!

Happy Birthday, @amazinglovers747​! We hope you’ve had a wonderful day so far, and you got exactly the presents you were hoping for! To keep your party going a little while longer, the lovely @endlessnightlock​ has written a story just for you!

Happy Birthday! This fic is rated E for explicit sexual content and swearing. There are also mentions of Covid home-quarantine if anyone is trying to avoid that subject right now; it's not a big plot point, just a means to the end.

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Johanna slid onto the stool next to Katniss at the breakfast bar She casually grabbed her wrist, temporarily holding her prisoner.

“Hey!” Katniss cried as Johanna raised her trapped hand and took a bite of the toast dangling between her fingers. Once she was free, in disgust, she flung it away. Johanna, of course, deftly snatched the toast mid-air before it had a chance to land on the kitchen floor. 

“You do remember we’re in the middle of a pandemic, don’t you? We shouldn’t be eating after each other! Are you trying to get sick?”

Johanna rolled her eyes as she stood, her crunchy, perfectly browned spoils in hand as she moved to the sink. “And we live together, brainless. We’re around each other all the time, so it’s not like we’re not swimming around in each other’s germs already.” She took another bite of the toast, letting it dangle from her mouth as she poured herself some coffee. ”If one of us gets sick, we're all going to.”

“Speak for yourself,” Finnick said, rounding the corner next to the refrigerator. He had a towel slung low over his hips, barely in place, casually rubbing another one across his hair. “I keep myself in peak physical condition, just for such a reason. My body is a perfect, well-oiled machine. I don’t have time to get sick- I can’t deprive the world just because of something like COVID; after all, I’m already covering my face when I go out. That’s enough of a loss.”

Katniss ignored him- this was just typical Finnick Odair nonsense, same as the display of skin. Neither was anything new. When she first moved into this place a year ago, it’d been an adjustment, to say the least, getting used to all the nudity that went on within its walls. 

It wasn’t like Katniss was ashamed of her body or anything; she looked okay, she guessed. She’d just never met two less-shy people in her life than Finnick and Johanna. Neither had a problem walking around the apartment half-dressed or worse at any hour of the day. 

Katniss had lost count of the number of times she’d seen Finnick’s bare ass or watched Johanna casually stroll around naked in the girls’ shared bathroom while one of the other of them was getting ready in the morning.

At least it’s not Peeta walking around naked; Katniss thought as that squirmy, ticklish feeling reared its head the way it did every time she thought of her third roommate. That would be sensory overload. 

Not that she wouldn’t want to see Peeta in the buff (lord knew she did), she'd just prefer that happen in private.

It might seem strange while living with easily the most handsome man she’d ever met (Finnick was vain, but honestly, she didn’t blame him; if she were that attractive, Katniss would probably be the same), she couldn’t keep thoughts of her other roommate from sneaking in. 

She had the worst crush on Peeta. Shamefully, he was who she thought of when she, ahh, took care of her own needs. It was so disrespectful of their friendship, but Katniss couldn’t stop herself from fantasizing about him.

Speaking of which-

There was Peeta too, yawning against the back of his hand as he slumped down onto the stool beside her. 

“Morning,” Katniss told him softly, touching his elbow in greeting. 

He smiled at her, shifting on the stool to get comfortable before pushing an errant strand of wavy hair out of his face. 

Katniss wished she could do that herself- she had such an urge to touch Peeta’s hair. His blond waves were so fluffy-looking and soft, and he hadn’t had a haircut in ages; his barber shop was shut down for the pandemic. 

She could tell the length was starting to get on Peeta’s nerves, although he didn't say it. He typically kept his hair just long enough to be manageable, not those long, wavy bangs that were currently hanging in his eyes. Katniss would ask him if he wanted one of her ponytail holders to pull it back, but the idea of him with a douchey man-bun was revolting.

Finnick turned around, squinting disapprovingly around the protein drink he held up to his lips as he studied Peeta carefully. “You need a haircut,” he finally said, ”that mop looks terrible.”

”Thanks a lot, Captain Obvious,” Katniss grumbled, scowling at the side of Finnick’s ridiculously handsome face. He was so annoying with his fastidiousness sometimes: not everyone was that worried about their appearance.

Peeta took his teasing in stride, though. “Yeah, but what am I supposed to do? We're quarantining. Besides- I’m working from home. Who’s going to see me? Just the rest of my department at our Zoom meetings, and they look as shitty as I do. Seneca Crane has two inches of white hair coming in at his roots.”

“I bet that’s a look,” Johanna quipped. 

Peeta’s supervisor was an asshat of epic proportions. 

She picked up her travel mug. “I gotta go; I have to be in early today.”

“You don’t look shitty,” Katniss reassured Peeta once Johanna left. 

“No, he’s right,” he sighed, crossing his arms on the counter and burying his face there. 

Katniss shot a scowl at Finnick as he breezed by; he winked at her and she rolled her eyes. The back of Finnick’s towel was slipping off, giving her a view of spray-tanned ass cheek as he headed back to his room to get ready for work himself. 

“Covid certainly isn’t stopping Finnick from keeping up with his salon-services, is it?” she muttered once he was gone. “That’s ridiculous, even from him.”

“I think he’s got a thing going on with the tech,” Peeta told her, looking up again. “Annie, I think he said her name is? If they’re fucking the way he insinuates like they are-”

Katniss felt her whole body flame as that word slipped from his mouth. Peeta didn’t swear very often, so that made it a thousand times hotter when it happened. She could feel her body tensing from one pass of the word fuck from his lips. It didn’t hurt that they were alone, and Peeta was grinning conspiratorially at her. 

When he leaned closer, she could feel the warmth from his body and smell his soap-and-Peeta-scent. It was too distracting-

“Katniss?” He was staring at her questioningly. His lips turned up in a little smile, and his eyes crinkled in the corners the way they did when he was genuinely amused by something and not just being polite- something he thankfully never did to her. “Are you alright? Lost you there for a minute, I think.”

“Sorry. ” Katniss had been so distracted by his nearness she’d zoned out on the tail end of what he was saying. ”Finnick and Annie are fucking-” Her brain was absolutely not keeping up with her mouth. 

She had to get out of here before something stupid came out. 

“Yeah, just um; I’ve got to go use the bathroom,” Katniss said, sliding off the barstool like her seat was burning, making her escape.

“Are you going to be around today?” Peeta asked as she inched away from him. 

He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and started scrolling, as she held her breath. Finally, after what felt like tense silence to her but didn’t seem to phase him a bit, Peeta glanced up, waiting for her answer. 

“I’m not working today.”

“I might need your help with something later,” he said, glancing down at his phone screen again. “If you don’t mind.”

She let out the breath she’d been holding. “No, that’s okay. Just come find me when you need me.”

“Thanks.”

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A few hours later, a little rat-a-tat-tat sounded on her bedroom door. 

“Katniss?” Peeta called from the hallway, “are you busy now? I was wondering if I could get your help.”

Katniss sat up on her bed, tossing aside the book she’d spent the last hour or so trying to read after running to her room to hide. She stood up, straightening her clothes as she walked towards the door. Peeta was on the other side when she opened it, grinning at her, wearing boxer briefs and an undershirt. 

“Hey,” Katniss said, crossing her arms over her chest. She tried to sound casual and not at all like she had to force herself to keep her eyes on his face. 

But then, she couldn’t take her eyes off his face because something was different-

“I’m giving myself a haircut,” Peeta explained, running a hand through the blond waves on top of his head. The hair around his face was shorter and somewhat even, but the back still long- it didn’t look like he’d done anything to it at all. “Would you help me do the rest? I’m afraid I’ll screw it up if I try and finish it on my own.”

“I’ve never cut anyone’s hair-” that and the fact that she probably wouldn't be able to breathe standing that close to him.

“You’ll do a better job than I would, at least,” Peeta reassured her. “Besides, if it’s awful, I’ll just shave my head and start over.”

Katniss frowned at him. “Like that’s not putting any pressure on me!” The last thing she wanted him to do was shave his head- that would be a disgrace to such a nice head of hair.

“Maybe I’ll just shave it anyway. If you don’t help me, I will. I can’t walk around with a mullet.”

His hair was a baby mullet right now- she had to agree. At the least, it looked like that dark-haired guy from Hall & Oates. 

”It’s just hair. Besides, what harm can it do? It’ll grow back,” he went on.

Katniss frowned at him for a minute, to no avail. When he refused to give her an easy out, she sighed resignedly. “Fine. I’ll try it.”

“Atta-girl,” Peeta cheered her on as she followed him down the hall to the bathroom. “What harm can it do?”

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What harm can it do? Oh, a hell of a lot, to her nerves, at least.

When they reached the bathroom, Peeta sat down on the closed toilet lid and promptly reached behind his back, pulling his shirt off in that one-armed way guys have that made his biceps and shoulders and abs bunch before tugging the material over his head. 

Dear god, give her strength-

And then he just sat there smiling up at her like it was perfectly normal to be hanging out in his underwear, waiting for her to put her hands on him.

Not that she was putting her hands on Peeta per se, only his hair. 

Katniss let out a shaky breath. How was she going to do this? To cut his hair, she was going to have to stand just inches away from him like that. At least if she were doing the back, his eyes wouldn’t be on her, she told herself. That was some consolation.

“I don’t want to get any hair on my clothes,” Peeta explained with a shrug. “Maybe I should’ve got a trash bag or something to cover up with.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Katniss said, berating for getting so flustered. She reminded herself to breathe and, under no circumstances, let him see the way he was affecting her. They were friends- this wasn’t so outrageous. She was the one with hangups about semi-nudity. “Where are the scissors?” she asked, looking away from him.

“On the counter,” he said, indicating the sink with a tilt of his head.

She walked over to grab them.

“Do you have a bra on?” Peeta asked casually, just as her hands closed around the scissors. 

It was the worst timing; Katniss nearly stabbed herself, trying to correct her grip on them when she dropped them in surprise. “What?” 

“I can’t always tell- you’re not very big-”

Katniss frowned down at her hand. She briefly considered stabbing a particular roommate, who was currently lounging around in his underwear, in the side of his neck with the scissors. 

That was a shitty thing to say about her chest- it fucking hurt, actually, sending her confidence in an immediate nosedive down the staircase of self-respect. Okay, yeah, her breasts weren’t massive by any means, but she was petite; what kind of a jerk thought he had the right to say something like that? She was just fine, proportion-wise- 

Peeta laughed nervously. “I’m an idiot, Katniss. What I meant to say was you’re perky. I can’t always tell whether you’re wearing a bra or not.”

“Why exactly are we talking about my breasts?” She managed to get out, between frustration and, yes, uncertainty, because she could never un-know that Peeta had spent enough time thinking about her breasts to describe them as “perky,” and that meant he’d been thinking about her, right? 

Did that mean he was looking at her the same way she looked at him? Katniss doubted that- she’d think she’d notice, but still.

Either way, she told herself, this had to be a personal all-time-low for her. 

But then again, it was Peeta, and he was her friend. And friends could joke around with each other about breasts, right? It didn’t have to be a huge deal.

Right?

“If you are wearing a bra, you could take your shirt off. I figured you might not want to get hair all over your clothes either,” Peeta ran a hand through his hair again. He seemed nervous, which wasn’t like him. “I’m not trying to get you naked or anything-“

Katniss was sure her heart was going to explode out of her chest at any minute, a ticking time bomb waiting for one more word or action from Peeta. She was so confused.

But then she relaxed- she had on a sports bra; it was no less than what she would wear when they went running together, so she peeled her shirt over her head without thought. Why not- it was still more than Johanna or Finnick would wear on any given day, and it’d never bothered those two.

Katniss picked the scissors up off the counter again before stepping towards Peeta. “Any requests?” she asked, clicking them a little, trying to lighten the mood.

He turned around, presenting her with his back, and she didn’t think she’d imagined the way his eyes lingered on her chest before he moved. She watched the rise and fall of Peeta’s shoulders as he shrugged. “No, just try to get it a little shorter. It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

A loaded sort of silence descended on them as she assessed the back of Peeta’s head. The only sounds in the room were slightly strangled breathing coming from him; she kind of reveled in the sound- it meant he had to be at least a little affected by her proximity, too.

Finally, Katniss began. She grasped a handful of his hair to get a feel for it. His blond strands were soft, curling around her fingers, and when she grazed her nails across his scalp accidentally, Peeta shuddered.

“That tickled a little,” his voice sounded strained. Katniss could make out the rough bobbing-up-and-down of Peeta’s Adam’s apple when he swallowed.

She continued cutting his hair in silence, little snips here and there. She trimmed it slowly, savoring the moment, trying to get it short around the edges, being extra careful around the back of his ears and the base of his neck. 

The air in the room grew more charged between them as the clock on the wall ticked the seconds by, still the only sound to be heard.

Katniss found that the ever-present awareness of him made it difficult to speak. There was a trace of yesterday’s cologne on his skin, and standing so close to him, looking at the arms and shoulders and back that she wanted nothing more than to run her hands over was driving her crazy. The temptation was so strong- what would he do if she buried her face in his hair or kissed that space between his shoulder blades that called to her?

“I think I’m all done,” she told Peeta after fighting off the temptation. She hardly recognized the sound of her voice, shaky and low as she forced her hands back, curling them tightly into fists to keep from touching him. 

Katniss stepped back, giving him some room to turn around. She crossed her arms over her stomach anxiously while Peeta got up and walked to the mirror. He brushed past her quickly, but it wasn’t fast enough to ignore the tingle at the place of contact. 

Katniss placed one hand over her throat. She was freaking out- her pulse was beating so rapidly she was sure it was visible beneath the thin skin at her neck.

When Peeta reached the mirror, he glanced at himself while she watched him in the mirror’s reflection. The color in his face was high, but he was so fair-skinned he couldn’t hide a blush to save his life. After the agonizing silence went on longer than she could stand, Katniss looked away and reached for her shirt. She needed to get away from him before she did something stupid like kiss him or cry.

“I think it might be a little uneven in the front.” Peeta stopped her, his eyes meeting hers in the mirror when she looked up. “Would you take a little more off the front for me?”

She nodded. She still didn’t trust herself to speak.

Peeta sat down on the toilet seat again- but this time, he faced her head-on without moving. She inched closer and closer, and when she got close enough that her legs were just grazing his knees, it sent a shiver through her body. 

He took her hand, and widening his legs, urged her to stand between them. 

Katniss moved closer, refusing to look below his shoulders; she was unsure what she would do if the outline of an erection were visible against the material of his grey boxer briefs. She had an almost-sickening (because the possibilities excited and scared her in equal measure) feeling that was precisely what she’d find. 

“You’re so little, I didn’t know if you could reach me standing over there,” he explained. His voice was husky. The sound was as sexy as hell.

Katniss wondered how Peeta was taking her silence as she moved closer to him. She was on edge and hot all over. With the first puff of his breath on her skin, though, she shivered. Staring down at the top of his head and trying to control her breathing, she debated where exactly she should start cutting this time. Eventually, she just started taking tiny snips out of the crown and sides of his hair.

Katniss had no idea where any of this tension was going to take them and no close what his hair would look like, either. 

It was almost impossible to focus on what she was doing with the way his warm breath fluttered against her body. 

It felt like his eyes were boring into her skin.

Torture: that’s what this would get labeled under, she decided. Shirtless time with Peeta spent giving him a haircut would be a prominent feature in her future spank bank. And unlike her other moments, at least this part of it was real. Her brain could fill in the fantasy portion long after it was over. 

Peeta sighed, and the sound was different, almost resigned. Before she had a chance to say something to him, though, his hands were at her waist, just above the band of her sleep shorts. She froze mid-snip, scissors dangling awkwardly between her fingers.

“Katniss?” 

“Hmm,” she said, because this felt so good it couldn’t be real, and if she said something, it might be over. Also, her brain pretty much felt like mashed potatoes: fluffy and warm, but not possessing any higher-reasoning ability.

“Is this okay?” he asked, fingers just pressing into her skin. 

She couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but look down at his familiar blue eyes. 

Peeta stared at her, and there was something there distinctly begging her not to reject him. He finally dropped his hands when the silence dragged on for too long- it was only then Katniss found her voice again.

“No, don’t stop. Please.”

It must’ve been just enough encouragement because he was pressing his lips against the space between her breasts before she could blink. “Oh god,” she whispered into the top of his head. His lips on her body had to be the best thing she’d ever felt, soft and warm.

Peeta pulled her closer, and she let him take the scissors out of her hand when he reached for them. It was probably a good thing- she’d forgotten she was still holding them. 

He dropped the scissors on the bathroom floor, and they made a clinking sound hitting the tile, barely audible over their heavy breathing. 

Peeta trailed his lips up her neck and across her jaw while his hands were at her hips and thighs, caressing her smooth skin, pushing up beneath the flimsy material of her sleep shorts.

Finally, their lips met, and Katniss wrapped her arms around Peeta’s neck, melting against him- at least as much as she could while he was sitting on a toilet, anyway. But who cared where they were? He was kissing her, she was kissing him, and it was all glorious. 

It wasn’t long before things grew heated between them; the flood of repressed longing came out in a rush of touches and words:

“I’ve wanted to do this for so long-”

“You have no idea-”

More kissing, more hands moving everywhere.

“Do you want to go somewhere else?” he asked, finally.

Katniss nodded, breathing against his mouth. Things were moving fast, and she didn’t want to stop, but they probably shouldn’t be doing this here. Maybe somewhere else that wasn’t too far away, though. “Shower?” she asked.

“Fuck, please. Yes,” he muttered, standing up quickly. He caught her off guard but was then walking her backward, taking her with him, stumbling towards the shower. When they made it there, still upright, Peeta reached around the curtain and turned the water on. Katniss pulled her bra off, and her shorts and underwear quickly followed behind as he shoved his underwear down his legs. 

And then they were both bare. How had this happened so fast? 

But she didn’t have much of a chance to dwell on things because Peeta’s naked body was pressed against hers, sending sensation through her every limb, every inch. Not to mention, his hands were everywhere. 

She loved his hands.

“Let’s get in,” Katniss mumbled against his mouth, just keeping herself from kissing him long enough that they wouldn’t end up horizontal on the bathroom floor.

After checking the temperature, Peeta yanked the curtain back and pulled Katniss inside the shower, beneath the warm spray with him. She expected something fast and hard to happen because they were both so worked up, but instead, the act of getting into the shower slowed them down. They were still kissing, wet and slow and deep, until Peeta backed away from kissing her long enough to lean his forehead against hers and stare down at her. 

“I can’t believe this is happening,” he finally said, his hand trailing up her thigh, his touch so inexplicably gentle, worshipful. Peeta slid up her belly, stopping to cup her breasts. He kissed her deeply before running his thumb across her nipple. “You’re sexy everywhere, but these are spectacular.”

Katniss gasped against his mouth when he pinched her lightly. “Not too small?” she asked, half-laughing at her question. With the way Peeta seemed enthralled with her, she wasn’t concerned. It was quite the opposite. She’d never felt so comfortable or confident with a guy before. 

“That was so stupid-” 

“It’s fine.” She let her hand skate down his hip, and he pressed his lower half against her thigh in response. 

“I’m just teasing you,” Katniss said, as she ran her lips down at his neck, sighing against his wet skin. His body was gorgeous- not hours spent working out at the gym perfect like Finnick’s, but because he was real and muscular, and it was Peeta, and she’d wanted him forever. 

She couldn’t believe he wanted her too. “You wouldn’t just do this with just any girl who cut your hair, would you- spectacular breasts or no?”

“Why do you think I asked you to take your shirt off?”

“So, you were trying to get me naked!”

They did laugh then, lips and teeth bumping together as he kissed her. It only lasted until his hand moved down between her thighs, cupping her sex. Katniss stood on her toes and kissed him deeply, and he took the cue to delve further when she widened her stance. He slid his fingers between her lips, touching her where she was swollen and achy for him. 

“You feel so good,” Peeta said, stroking lightly, “you’re so wet.” His fingers brushed against her clit, giving her a teasing little swipe around it that made Katniss bite her lip. “Feel good?” he asked.

“Yes,” she mumbled, closing her eyes and letting her head fall back against the shower wall. 

Peeta kissed the side of her neck as he touched her, sliding his fingers through her folds and around her opening, dipping inside of her before pulling out to rub a little more firmly with each forward pass, until her hips were chasing after his fingers each time he moved them away. Finally, tired of his teasing, Katniss scrabbled at his hand, squeezing his wrist to let him know he needed to stay there until further notice.

Soon, with Peeta’s wrist still in a death grip between her thighs, his fingers rubbing quickly at her nerve bundle in an on-again, off-again motion, Katniss cried softly, dropping his wrist when she began to climax. She slumped against his body as he thrust two thick fingers deep inside of her, burying her nose against his chest as she pulsed around them. Peeta kept pumping his fingers in and out of her, fucking her with them.

Katniss was still catching her breath, mouth hanging open against his shoulder where beads of moisture left his skin slick to the touch when he pulled his fingers out of her. She looked up at him when she could focus again, her lids heavy, her body heavy and muscles relaxed from release. 

Peeta was staring down at her, his gaze intense.

“What do you like?” Katniss asked shyly. She straightened up the best she could, a little wobbly on her feet and wondering exactly how it was that people had shower sex.

Peeta cut her words off with a quick kiss, and while she was kissing him back, he took her hand and wrapped it around his cock. “Let’s just go with this, okay?” he said, his eyes searching hers. “I’m not in any big hurry, are you?”

This part felt like Peeta too (and she didn’t mean his very hard, very thick cock in her hand); the not pushing her, not being in any kind of a rush to move things fast. Katniss knew he was a methodical guy, and the thought of what that could mean sex-wise with him was kind of thrilling.

Absolutely nothing seemed wrong with just fooling around for now. It made Katniss’s core ache all over again, just running her hand up and down his shaft rubbing her thumb across the broad head of his cock. 

Her jaw went slack as she pumped Peeta to completion- it was better than any fantasy she’d ever had about him. His eyes were closed, one hand on her breast and one at her hip, when his face contorted in ecstasy. She watched his abdomen flutter and felt his cock tense. He throbbed in her hand as his cum came spurting out over the top of her fist like a fountain. Peeta moaned her name as he came apart, his hips rocking in time with the pulsing of his cock. It was easily the sexiest thing she’d ever seen.

And the best part was Katniss knew they had the apartment to themselves all day. 

She had every intention of taking advantage of it. “Come on,” she said to Peeta, turning off the water and flinging the curtain back once he recovered, “my bedroom, now.”

[awhiskeyriver]

Hi friend!! Hope you are safe, and hope you get some insp to write again❤️ Maybe the scene right after their first kiss? Love you❤️

An anon also requested the scene post-finding out about the bet and losing the football game and so these two sort of coincide together. Hopefully this fits your request friend! Love you too!<3

+++

The locker room lacked the natural cheer and comradery it usually held on game day. Win or lose, we were a pretty solid team and typically good sports, but it felt different this time.

   Our winning streak of the season was officially over. To make it worse, we’d lost on our own turf.

   “We’re still doing better than last season.” Finnick tried to keep spirits up, but among us there was the overall stench of defeat.

   I stripped off my jersey and threw it into the hamper, eager to shower and change so I could go back to the apartment. The weight of the loss was resting on my shoulders. I knew I was at the heart of the problem that translated onto the field today.

   All anyone could talk about this morning was the party last night. Specifically, the video that was being shared all over Instagram from it, starring Katniss Everdeen and I.

   After her friend walked in on Katniss and I...and everything happened...I left the party with the excuse to the guys that I wasn’t feeling well. It wasn’t a lie, I felt like I was moments away from puking. They let me go without protest, not wanting to be responsible for me being sick at the game, and I’d driven home, turned my phone off and gone straight to bed.

   It wasn’t uncommon for me to leave my phone off on game days. It was easier to keep focused, tune out the needless distraction of text messages and social media, so I hadn’t found out about the video until some of my teammates showed me in the locker room.

   Thirty minutes before kick off.

   The horrible timing had a rippled effect, causing me to play my worst game of the season and give people even more reasons to talk.

   “Mellark.”

   Coach’s dominating voice vibrated off the walls, making his presence known before he was visible. I cringed inwardly, muscles tight. Hearing your name called fresh after a lose was never good.

   I ran a hand over my sweaty scalp as he came into view.

   “Yes, Coach?”

   “My office in ten.”

    My stomach knotted. Really not good. 

    If coach saw skepticism in my eyes, he ignored it. Everyone waited until he’d left the locker room to resume talking. I tossed my helmet into its shelf, right above the slot where my last name was scripted in gold-plated font.

    Finnick, who’s bench was beside mine wrapped a towel around his waist before turning towards me.

    “What’s that about?”

    “No idea.”

    “You don’t think it’s…” he trailed off, but the unspoken words clung to the air. I met his concerned frown with one of my own, hoping, praying Coach wasn’t calling me up to his office to discuss that.

    “It’s probably just about the sack I didn’t block,” I muttered, just in time for Cato to chime in.

    “Which one?”

    I ignored him, debating if it was worth it to just go up and talk to coach now and shower back at the apartment alone. Quickly, I ruled the idea out. Couldn’t go up to his office smelling.

    “Maybe he’s calling you up to discuss the fact that this is a men’s football team and you, apparently, have a pussy.”

     He went to smack my crotch but I grabbed his hand, shoving him away before he had the opportunity.

    “That would explain why you can’t seem to keep your hands off of him,” Finnick retorted cooly, earning a disgusted grunt from Cato.

    “Dude, not cool.”

    Finnick shrugged.

    “I’m just saying maybe if he had a set of balls, hot girls would actually want to fuck him instead of just pretending to for money.”

    I could feel Finnick gearing up for a retort, but held a hand out to stop him. Last thing I needed was someone else fighting my battles for me. What would that prove other than the fact that Cato was right? But, there was no point in getting into it with someone like him. He was trying to get a rise out of me so he could laugh and make more jokes when I reacted. Like, tell me to get my estrogen levels checked or ask if I was PMSing. Idiot.

    I showered quickly and changed into street clothes before heading up to coach’s office. Nerves twisted my stomach as I approached his ajar door and gave it a quick knock.

    “Come in.”

    His face was buried into his computer, typing furiously with half-squinted eyes that focused hard on his task. His desk was littered with football knick-knacks and sticky notes. Behind him were plaques in numerical order for awards the team had won over the years and he had a cabinet off to the side of the office that hosted an array of trophies.

    I pulled a chair out from the other side of his desk and sat down, waiting. After hours of being on the field, it felt nice to sit for a moment.

    He finished whatever he was typing and took a deep breath before pulling his glasses off his face.

    “You know why you’re here, kid?”

    I wracked my brain, mulling over all the possible reasons. I decided to test the waters by trying out the easiest.

    “Because I missed the tackle in the third quarter? I think I figured out my mistake. If I just--”

    “I didn’t call you up here to talk football, Mellark.”

     My frown deepened.

    “Oh?”

    Coach sighed, folding his hands together. “Were you at a party last night?”

    Shit. Shit. Immediately I knew where this was going and it was no place I wanted to be. Already, I could feel my skin flushing with embarrassment...made worse by the fact that the guys had basically guessed this conversation down in the locker room.

    If it were possible to dissolve into the floor, now would be a great time to do it.

    I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, and ran my sweaty hands down the length of my pants.

    Coach seemed just as awkward as I felt. He scrubbed a hand over his bristled jaw line as we regarded each other silently.

    “The party,” he finally continued. “Anything happen? Any sort of...altercations?”

    I suppressed a groan, wishing he would just come out and say it so I didn’t have to.

    “Not really.”

    “Not really?” he parroted, looking skeptical. I shifted in my seat, uncomfortable. “You’re sticking with that answer? Because I’ve heard otherwise. In fact, lots of people around campus have.”

    I swallowed. There was no way to deny it.

     “You...wanna talk about it?”

    It being the video, undoubtedly.

    It was far from the first time I’d been made fun of. Middle school had basically been hell; I stood several inches above everyone else and was twice as wide, which made for a host of comments and jokes at my expense. High school had been a little better, by then I was playing football and was able to deflect most of the jokes being made at me to those being made with me. 

    But College had been the best change of pace. Away from all the people I’d grown up with and knew too well in Virginia. I supposed it had been too much to wish the fluidity of my past two years could last.

    “Not especially,” I sighed, in answer to Coach’s question.

    “Okay.” He cleared his throat. “Just so you know, that kind of behavior isn’t permitted on campus, and technically that party was on campus. If you were wanting to press charges--”

    Charges? This was getting out of control.

    “What? No,” I said quickly with a wave of my hand. “I don’t want to do anything. I just...want this to not be happening.”

    It was like a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from.

    Coach nodded in agreement.

    “Well...if you change your mind or need to talk about it all--”

     “I don’t.”

    “Right. But if you do...”

    I nodded, staring down at my lap, waiting with growing impatience for him to dismiss me.

    “That’s all, then.”

    I stood up in an instant and gathered my bag, heading for the door.

    “Mellark,” he called, bringing me up short. I paused, but didn’t turn to look. “Don’t get stupid and start eating salads and shit. Can’t have you dropping weight in the middle of the season.”

[ellanainthetardis]

Alright, this will be my review for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes so obviously spoilers under the cut.

Also obviously, this is my opinion, I force no one to share it and I’m happy to discuss the book with anyone who wants to. 

First off, I won’t go into all the deep themes in the books. It seems obvious to me there’s a very clever allegory for a contrat social at work here but since I am not very much interested in that, I will leave it aside. It’s well done, I think, but I am more a character driven sort of reader than theme driven and the debate over “are we the product of our environment or is man a beast at heart” is a bit null here. Surely enough, as one of the quotes at the beginning implies, the whole book more or less struggles to show Dr Gaul somehow turns Coryo into a monster to her Frankenstein… Sure, he seems to hesitate between right and wrong, the nature of the two etc etc. But, really, I have troubles relating to a character questioning the nature of man when that character is so plainly a psychopath himself.

I’m sorry. I said it.

Did I love Snow in this book? Sure. Even when he was being bad, I loved him. What’s not to love? He’s completely over-dramatic. All the time. He’s a complex character with Draco Malfoy vibes and who tries to do well by his family. But he is also sick in the head and that predates Dr Gaul’s little mind games. Can we argue it’s because of his traumatic childhood? Maybe. It doesn’t change the fact he equals love with possession, does not seem to experience remorse nor guilt – or at least not very long and he’s  very quick to rationalize it – and has a natural ability to mimic or force himself to act as is expected in any given situation. He doesn’t react  to things, you will notice, he behaves the way he thinks people expects him to.

So, he is sick. And since he is sick, the whole debate through his head about the nature of violence, men being beasts without laws, freedom versus enforcement, right and wrong, etc seems void.

Let’s leave that aside for now.

The question you will probably ask me is: did you like the book? And the answer I will give is yes I did. I did enjoy the book. At least the first two third of it.

It’s fast paced, it’s engaging, it’s easy to read…

What I like most is the worldbuilding. What a difference a 3rd pov makes… I mean we finally got all the world building we deserved. And the names. Actually, there were so many names in there I’m pretty sure she threw them as a joke. But, yeah. Everything I reproach Thg was fixed here: we have a more consistent idea of how the Games work out of the arena, we know the currency used is dollars (which we didn’t up until now), we have a  better idea of how the Capitol works as a society, about the working of Peacekeepers and Districts… I quite enjoyed learning more about the 1st war and the post war world too.

I also enjoyed the Capitol families Cameos – and I was very wary about them if you read some of my posts pre-released. They were nice nods, it wasn’t too on the nose…  I am relieved beyond measure not to have seen a mention of an Abernathy or a Trinket – or an Everdeen or a Mellark, I guess – mostly because that means we are still free to stick to our own hcs. (it’s not that important but still).

The cast of characters were all great – with two notable exceptions but I will come back to that.

I loved Snow’s family. What a surprise to find out Tigris is a Snow? But what joy she is. I really enjoyed her character but I have to say I’m a bit disappointed we didn’t get to see (or at least were told in the epilogue) how they grow apart or how she comes to have whiskers. The Grandma’am was an awesome addition too. Lucy Gray, the Coveys, the Peacekeepers, Sejanus, the other mentors…  They were great.

I will argue that maybe Lucy Gray, as a main character (second main character? She’s the yin to his yang in this book) could have been more fleshed out because when it comes down to it, she seems to float around in the story only in relation to Snow. This being said and the pov being mostly Snow’s, it’s coherent with his egocentric view of the world. And I’m sure a lot of people will argue the case that her only purpose being to die so he can get over love is a bit problematic better than I could.

The two characters that I think were disappointing were the “villains” of the tale: Dr Gaul and Highbottom. They were actually so disappointing that I spent a good portion of the book convinced that here was some kind of secret plot, that there would be a conspiracy or something. But no, they were just that… flat.

Highbottom first: the creator of the Hunger Games who, obviously, didn’t mean to and ends up doctoring himself with morphling to forget. And seems to hate Coryo (yes that’s Snow’s nickname) for no obvious reason. I was sure there must be some twist but no, it just turned out he hates Snow because his father stole his Hunger Games idea to pitch it to Gaul for a grade and now he’s responsible for the death of kids. Which, I mean, is valid. But since it’s only here to bring into contrast the “is Snow really bad or have the circumstances make him bad” when, really, he’s a psycho, it ends up being very disappointing on discovery – never mind as the final reveal of the epilogue.  

As for Gaul. Is she terrifying? I mean, for a young adult book, sure, I guess. She’s too obviously mean and crazy scientist for me though. I like my villains a little more subtle. She spent her times torturing her pet rabbit and various animals ffs. All she needed was a mustache to twirl. She’s cliché and, again, I’m sure it was like that for rhetoric purposes but… She’s Frankenstein and Snow is her creature, we get it. Why though? She takes a shine to him and proceeds to groom him so he can deliver the world she wants? So he’s her legacy? Because she’s a psycho too and she needs an apprentice? I thought that part was a little fishy because, at the end of the day… I don’t know, it seems a bit random.

But, I suppose, yet again, everything has to revolve around Snow in the book and in Panem.

And we’re touching to the part that annoyed me to death, that really really angered me and that, right now as we speak, I am a little disgusted by.

A short word first about the fan service. And there was plenty of that to go around. All the little wink wink, nudge nudge made me smile at first (like the grandma saying it only takes a spark for fire to catch, that sort of things), it was subtle so it worked. But as the book goes on, all the references built to the point I was sort of terrified Katniss would end up being related to Snow. And while she is not, I am fairly convinced she’s descended from the Coveys, it makes a lot of sense.

Ok… Where to start with that part and be coherent…

The less offensive (yes, I am using that word because it was offending to me) thing was Snow’s recurring reflection about the mockingjays. On hindsight, of course, it has so much more meaning than what is going on on paper, so it made sense and while it was a bit sold too thick, it was also interesting. That’s something I’m willing to grant was good.

I also liked the “it’s not over until the Mockingjay sings” saying. To be honest, I was 100% confident the epilogue would be a flashforward to the end of MJ and that quote would somehow come back into play but apparently not, that’s for us to fanfic instead.  

Now, as for the rest… I am going to speak as someone who loves Haymitch Abernathy an unhealthy amount, and while I speak as someone who loves Haymitch, I also feel it is only minorly about Haymitch and a lot about Katniss, Peeta and the rest of the victors. But Haymitch is my favorite character in the series, Haymitch is a big part of why I have dedicated so much time writing fanfics and contributing to the fandom, I am very protective of Haymitch. And, on his behalf, I am so deeply, deeply offended.

In this book, Suzanne Collins makes Snow a victor.

We can argue the semantics. Naturally, he didn’t actually win the Hunger Games.

Or does he?

Because there are no winners, only survivors and by that very definition Coriolanus Snow is a victor.

Coriolanus Snow walked into an arena, was forced into the arena.

Coriolanus Snow fought in the arena.

Coriolanus Snow killed someone in the arena.

Coriolanus Snow walked back out of the arena.

He survived.

It makes him a de facto victor. He is actually literally called that a couple of times throughout the book. It’s reinforced by the idea that mentor and tribute are a team, even.

And this very idea that Snow is a victor, has been a victor all along, is so deeply, deeply upsetting to me. The bond between victors, it’s something very special, I feel. Victors share something nobody else can understand – my very favorite part of the whole series is in Catching Fire when they hold hands, it is such a strong emotional moment, it always moves me, always. And Snow being a part of that defiles it. Worse, that means a victor was actually the one imposing such horrors on other victors all along.

And that’s… I mean, probably in terms of themes and the story as an independent object, it’s all very ironic and dark and full of great meaning about man and it’s condition. But for someone who loves Haymitch, it is very deeply offending to learn the man who has taken everything from him went through the same experience he did, that they share that bond, that they have so many similarities.

Too many similarities actually. And here we are going to branch out on TBOSAS in relation to Katniss more specifically.

That’s another thing I am not sure I liked: how similar Snow’s conditions were to our beloved characters. The starvation, the very similar experience they had growing up.

At first, I didn’t mind it. I thought, even, that it was quite fitting. But the problem came when so much of Katniss’ story was being… stolen, turned around. It started feeling like this book was subverting the powerful story in THG, not just the main plot, but everlark, and the character building. So, of course, here again, it’s probably a matter of questioning if, stemming from the same conditions, you become a hero or a villain. Nature or nurture. That sort of things. And, again, it depends if you look at the big picture and analyze it calmly or if you react with your guts as a fan, I guess. Yeah, no surprise, I’m going the fan route.

So there were a lot of parallels to Katniss.

The starvation. The strong sense of family. Lucy and the singing…

And it wasn’t limited to Katniss, it touched to everlark too.

The star-crossed lovers thing comes to mind obviously (and I want to talk about the ship too but after). Then, there was the bread thing that was both Snow’s and Lucy’s favorite and the fact that Snow brings her food all the time.  The poison in the arena we can land at snow’s door since it’s his weapon of choice, but still poison in the arena, my mind goes straight to the berries… (I will tackle the hanging tree song after)

At this point (before she goes in the arena), I was still mostly okay with it because I thought it would somehow have a reason later. Like either Katniss would turn out to be related to Lucy or it would remain light enough to turn out to be foreshadowing for THG.

Then came part 3. And that’s where the book mostly lost me.

There are eleven other Districts in Panem. So why Twelve? And if it had to be Twelve why pollute everything Katniss loves? How are we supposed to see those things the same way again when we know what we now know?

The meadow? The meadow where the toastbabies are dancing and running? Where so many people are laid to rest? Snow has been there, kissed his girl there. And let me tell you, as a Haymitch fan, knowing that Haymitch never gets to reunite with his girl in the meadow because of Snow, it’s a special kind of pain to read Coryo frolicking there in the grass “with his girl”.

And then, of course, I don’t know what is worse… The lake or the song?

Let’s start with the lake. Where do I begin? The lake that is so special to Katniss? The little shack where she stocks everything? The lake that features into so many fanfictions and that, if some people feel the same way I do, can never be used again the same way? So, that lake was where Snow murdered (possibly) his “love”. The lake, thus, becomes a part of Snow’s narrative.

It’s stolen away from Katniss.

And to better stress that point? The scene with the Mockingjays taking up the hanging tree when Lucy is about to get murdered. (let’s make a digression to say oh boy how fun it must have been for Snow during mj, I’m very tempted to fanfic THAT). It’s all very full of symbolism, of course, but with the hindsight? It’s another great important moment stolen away from Katniss. Highjacked. Not unlike a mutt, actually. This book is a mutt XD

Which brings me to what really, really made me angry: the hanging tree song.

That song is so symbolic of MJ and everlark. I mean, there’s one thing I will give MJ the movie and that’s this scene with the song. The people attacking the dam and getting butchered while humming that song? Iconic. But more prosaically, book based, that song is such such a powerful moment. It’s special. And not only because of all the thing with everlark and the tree and midnight.

And suuuuure there might be a lot of symbolism in that song being not strictly about but still intimately related to Snow. Sure. But you know? It’s also another thing that now is about Snow. So even as Katniss was singing that song, getting the Districts to rebel, showing Peeta that District 12 was gone, letting the Mockingjays by the lake take up the chorus… It isn’t just about hope or freedom anymore. Now, it’s about Snow and about how terribly ironic it is this particular song comes to be his demise, how it’s fate or karma or whatever you want to call it. Because now, we can’t unread this book, we can’t unknown what we know.

And I hate that.

Because Katniss’ journey in THG? It’s now so deeply linked to Snow’s story that if you take a step back and think, it’s more all about Snow than it is about her, or her sister or the Districts. Snow lands on top, right?

And you know what really irks me?

The book is actually good as a character study book (not really so much as dystopia because in terms of actual plot, I feel there was really little) but it didn’t have to taint so many elements of THG the way it does.

Let’s say for a moment Snow isn’t Snow. Let’s say he is a wealthy Capitol fallen from grace and that character who is not going to be the President of Panem has the same journey Coryo does. Let’s say at the end of the story, he moves on to become a famous Head Gamemaker or a close advisor to the President?

Well, the themes explored then remained the same, the conclusions remained the same. We lose the visceral signification of his connection to the mockingjays but is that really important? The Hanging Tree now has a resonance for another character in that world, the meadow has probably seen countless lovers reunions and someone killed someone else at the lake, those things happen. The problem is they happen to Coriolanus Snow.

And baring that, let’s say we keep Snow as a main, why did it have to be Twelve? Again, there are eleven other Districts in Panem. He could have come to the very same conclusions in any other place.

Twelve is only relevant in relation to what happens in THG, to Katniss, to Peeta, to Haymitch.

Lucy and the Covey could have ended up stuck in any other Districts. It didn’t have to be Twelve. It didn’t have to spoil the Meadow, or the lake or even the Hanging Tree song.

Is that why Snow hates Twelve so much? Is that why he kills Haymitch’s family even if it’s completely stupid and leaves him without a leash around a Quell’s victor’s neck? Is that why he bombs the Districts into complete oblivion ? Not to punish its victors but because he so intimately hates the place? Because he walked in their very shoes? Because, for a brief time, from his Frankenstein’s experiment, he played in the mud?

For that matter, is that why he has this weird relationship with Katniss? Because she reminds him of Lucy? The similarities are there if you look…  Is Katniss a sort of ghost to him? Come back to haunt him after all those decades? Is that why it feels so personal between them?

I will say a quick word about the ship: I was into it at first. Then there was this scene at the zoo after the snake attack on Clemmie and I felt everything started going downhill from there. The ship is rushed. They go from attraction to love in ten seconds FLAT. I know it’s YA and concessions have to be made (although I will argue I read plenty of YA and some ships don’t seem this juvenile), I made them on account of the fact they’re both young and prone to being drama queens.

(I’m making a brief parenthesis because, rereading this, I realized I did say when the book announcement came out and we all very obviously predicted the romance, that as a hayffie fan I hated the thought Snow would have a Capitol/District romance, but on that account, I have to say after reading I don’t even care because it felt so immature and so not actual love, that I don’t feel it really counts? But at the same time, it’s definitely something I have to think upon in terms of hayffie and Snow because would his own experience play in the way he sees them/manipulates/threatens them?)

All in all, though, that ship didn’t convince me. I couldn’t believe it was real. On either part. On Snow’s part because I’m  not certain he’s capable of love. He equals love with possession,  “his” girl, she “belongs” to him, he liked her better locked in the zoo because he knew where to find her, he constantly questions Lucy’s loyalties… Every  time she sings something, he’s like “is it about me? Is it about me? It’s not about me? Who is it about? I hate her. She’s dead to me. Oh but now she’s singing she’s over him. So I love her again”. Being in his head is a journey, let me tell you.

As for Lucy, it’s frustrating. But with Collins, I learned long ago to be frustrated (hey, hayffie fan here XD. You know the two characters you need to build your own hc about if you want to use them with some depths). You can feel there’s this whole backstory about her but we never get to really touch that and so we’re treated to this very strange scene with the ex-lover but we don’t really care because there is  no passion, nowhere… In fact, as a character, outside of her singing, her being a show girl, and her little discourse about how man should be free, live and let live yada yada yada, Lucy’s character is very flat in the third part of the book. She’s here only to allow Coryo’s character development.

I would argue that Sejanus actually makes more of an impact on Snow and the general plot than she does in part 3 – or, if you think about it, in the book in general. Lucy is the trigger that gets Coryo’s reflection starting about the hunger games but it’s really Sejanus that challenges it and keeps it going. Sejanus is, in fact, the District character since Snow keeps telling himself the Covey aren’t really Twelve.

I  also want to say, on a completely unrelated note, that the constant mansplaying of songs by Snow was unbearable. And that’s not his fault. So, Mrs Collins, I know how to interpret a text thank you. And I’m sure everyone else does to. It broke the pace and the emotion so much for me when he started randomly explaining. The Lucy Gray ballad was the worst. “she’s dead.” NO KIDDING SHERLOCK.

And while we’re in that Lucy Gray thing: very subtle foreshadowing here, btw. Didn’t see it coming at all.

Ah and also something that made me cringe and that I felt was very out of place: the livestock cars and the cages at the zoo. Not to go all social justice warrior but when I read, it immediately hit home and not in the right way. It felt like a prop to stress how inhumane and racist the Capitol was being, they were easy references to loaded terrible horrifying history events and I truly, truly thought it was borderline because, like I said, it was used as a prop.

To conclude.

Is this book great? Yes and No.

I think if you take it independently of THG, it’s a very good book. It’s interesting, the characters are compelling, there is a moral for you to reflect on… It’s not the best dystopian book I’ve read in recent years, it’s not the best young adult book I’ve read in this lockdown (Hi, do yourself a facor, check out the Shadow of the Fox trilogy and then come shout at me in my ask box) but it was still a good read. And I forgot to say but the first half of the novel is actual crack. It was hillarious. Might not have been the intent but come on. It was funny. (and I’m satly they sent him in the arena but they sent him with a can of pepper spray and that will make me laugh forever) I had  a good time and, at the end of the day, that’s what you ask of novels.

However, in the general context of the series, loving thg as much as I do, it tainted some of the iconic things, twisted them, insulted some of my most favorites characters, and that really dampened my joy and made me angry. So as a fan… I’m not sure I can say it was great, no.

It certainly didn’t let me indifferent though and that’s already something.

And, I mean, it is so much better than the cursed child I feel I cannot complain too much.

 It also does leave the door rather open to a sequel, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s another announcement soon.  

[madeofpurestarlight]

If This Was A Movie, VII

// While Effie Trinket is Hollywood’s darling and all her dreams seem to be finally coming true, Haymitch Abernathy is drinking himself into an early grave and shuts the world out completely. However, Plutarch Heavensbee decides it’s time for his comeback. The two main stars can’t stand each other and tension builds up soon, but as they dive in deep into this project, somewhere between shooting love scenes, fighting on-set, fighting off-set, opening up hesitantly and helping their younger colleagues deal with everything this world brings, they grow closer and closer, until one day they realize they’re not pretending anymore. | Hayffie Actors AU //

“PUSH AND PULL”

 i.

May, Venice

 Having Chaff around usually had surprising perks, but lately, his presence was only making Haymitch even more grumpy, tired and generally annoyed than he usually was.

Firstly of all, Chaff was used to getting up early. Haymitch totally wasn’t.

Secondly, Chaff has decided that he was going to whip Haymitch into shape if Effie alone failed. And Haymitch totally wasn’t down for that.

But because the first nine days of filming were rather uneventful in general, at least there was finally someone to talk to. Haymitch was slowly realizing that he was kind of starved for an understanding company again.

He was ignoring Effie since the chair incident (when he showed the bruise to Chaff, his friend ordered a bottle of champagne for her room, which she returned to him with an eyeroll the next morning), Peeta and Katniss were busy, Finnick and Johanna were drinking all the time which he felt no need to witness in his permanent semi-drunk, semi-sober, desperately thirsty state, and Plutarch and the rest of the crew were nice, but Haymitch didn’t feel any need to spend time with them. The only exception was Cinna, one of the costume designers, who often joined him during dinners and who had at least proven not to be as annoying as the rest.

One morning, Chaff dragged Haymitch for a nine am walk around the town. It was one of the colder days, without much sunshine, and it actually looked like it was going to rain – again, weather usually had zero effects on Haymitch’s mood, which was shitty whether it was falling wheelbarrows or whether he was being slowly fried in his own sweat, but walking around windy, sleepy Venice in a winter jacket with Chaff who was purposefully stopping on every stone bridge and was non-stop reading out loud from a handy tourist guide just to annoy his friend was definitely going to take place on the top of Haymitch’s list of things he never wanted to experience in life.

They visited the Doge’s Palace, the San Marco Campanile, countless museums and galleries and when they finally found a spot to have a lunch at, Coin was already ringing Chaff to come back to the set, which left Haymitch with room service and the unwanted bottle of champagne, which has turned out to be actually pretty disgusting, so Haymitch didn’t know if Chaff meant it to be a thank you or a fuck you for Effie for bruising his ass.

Eventually, a warm day, fully spring day came, with various smells in the salty air, most notably chlorine from the pool and the scents of continental breakfast ahead of Haymitch and Chaff who were sitting by an opened French window in the cafeteria and were silently struggling with their pancakes and cold, overly creamy coffee. Haymitch’s attention was caught by the opening of the glass door leading to the pool area and he quickly looked at his watch. Exactly eight fifteen as always. That woman was insane.

It was Effie, in a white beach dress, with hair up in an elegant ponytail and heels unreasonably high for merely hanging by the pool, she walked up to her usual spot by the flower bushes, carefully placed her designer handbag on the sunbed and reached for the hem of the dress, then pulled it over her head and no less carefully folded it next to the handbag. Next thing, she kicked off her shoes and headed to the pool where she first dipped her toes into the water and then slowly lowered herself there.

She was doing everything with grace, but it was also irritating him for some reason. As if she felt the need to prove everyone how much better than them she was, twenty-four seven, even if she thought that no one was watching – which she couldn’t have thought, because except for Haymitch and Chaff, there were also Finnick, Johanna, Cinna, Portia, Castor and Cressida in the cafeteria, and they all had to stare, if unwillingly.

“It’s not a bad life,” Chaff remarked when he looked in the direction of Haymitch’s steady gaze. “I wouldn’t complain if I had this view every day.”

“She’s awful,” Haymitch grunted, but didn’t take his eyes off her.

“Why are you stripping her with your eyes then?”

“I’m not.”

“Tell that to someone who doesn’t know you,” Chaff dismissed it with clear amusement. “You like her.”

Haymitch snorted. Like her. Sure. In what universe? Since the moment he came here, she was his nightmare. He has discovered a phobia of his – getting stuck with her in an elevator. Sharing the same hotel floor was bad enough. Yeah, she was hot, he’d give her that, who wouldn’t, but hot was no longer a deciding factor when it came to liking someone.

“I see our little drama queen is giving you horny guys a show.” Johanna slumped down to their table without a warning and Finnick closely followed. He at least didn’t stare so openly, but it was obvious that he wanted to have a look, too.

“Can you all just stop staring at her?” Haymitch suddenly lashed out. It was beyond him why it was annoying him so much. He was doing the exact same thing. It wasn’t even about protecting her dignity, or whatever. She wanted that kind of attention, even if she was a horrible prude on the outside. He just didn’t like how everyone seemed to not have a better thing to do than to ogle at her as if they have never seen a woman before in their life.

Chaff raised his brows and turned to the newcomers. “We were just talking about how Haymitch has developed a crush on Trinket.”

“No shit,” Johanna laughed, apparently in her element. “I mean, I’d go with her too, if she wasn’t so annoying.”

“Also, I’ve never heard of a man who could withstand Effie Trinket’s personal charm,” Finnick chipped in. “I myself have gone into acting just for the hope that I might get to play her lover someday. Well, I’m playing her son, but it’s still a progress. Maybe someday. You lucky bastard.”

“Shut up,” Haymitch took a sip of his coffee, but the three people around him were apparently having way too much fun.

“That’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Finnick continued, “it’s perfectly normal, actually.”

"You’re staring, too!” Johanna pointed out bluntly and took a piece of his bread without asking, then dipped it into his creamy coffee and bit into it.

“It’s too cold for that,” Haymitch explained, jerked his head towards the pool and then brushed off the crumbs from the bread into Johanna’s lap.

She brushed them on the ground like a child. “No, it’s not. I’d have a swim, too.”

“You like her,” Chaff insisted.

Haymitch rolled his eyes and stood up, pushing the chair away in the process. "You’re like little kids.”

“No wait, sorry,” Finnick laughed and waved it off. “Hey, have you two got any plans for today?”

“I don’t know,” Haymitch shrugged.

"Nevermind,” Johanna waved it off with the soaked bread, “we’re finishing here tomorrow and me and Finnick and Cres thought that we could have a little wrap party. I mean, we’ve been here for some time and we haven’t gone anywhere together, so now’s an opportunity.”

“You’re going out with us,” Finnick translated it to the two men.

“No, thank you.”

Johanna rolled her eyes and lent back against the chair violently. She was prone to violent moves in general, as if there was always too much energy for her body to contain. “C'mon, you’re no fun.”

“I can live with that,” Haymitch replied dryly.

Chaff caught up pretty fast, though. “It could be fun,” he elbowed his friend with an important look.

“Everyone’s going,” Finnick insisted.

"What do you mean by everyone?” Haymitch asked cautiously.

“Well, everyone. Us, Effie, Katniss, Peeta, I think, if he’s not already in France, the crew…”

"No, thank you.”

“Come on,” Johanna wined, stretching the ooooon as annoyingly as possible, “it’s end of one part. Plus, Plutarch insists on us doing something as a group for bonding purposes or some shit. I promised to him I’d get you to join us once a while. If you come now, you’re done.“

Haymitch couldn’t believe his ears. He didn’t know what has gotten into everyone. Normally, when people saw that he wasn’t interested and didn’t even bother to hide it, their own interest dropped quickly, but everybody here was so persistent. Had he wanted to socialize, he would have. "So you promised Plutarch, huh? I don’t have to listen to him once the camera’s off, so-”

Johanna heavily swallowed the rest of the bread and interrupted him again. “I’ll make sure you get a drink or two, and if Trinket opens her mouth, I’ll gladly kick her boney ass out the door, but don’t make me listen to all that you need better relationships if you want good results bullshit. It’s like kindergarten all over again.”

“When exactly?” Chaff asked and ignored Haymitch’s dirty look.

“Tomorrow at five. We’ll tell you the place once we find something proper.”

"Fine, we’ll be there,” Chaff said and blocked Haymitch’s vicious under-the-table kick.

Johanna snapped her fingers and nudged Finnick to get up. She pushed the chair a solid meter away at the intensity of her movement. "Cool. See you.”

“And you like her,” Finnick lent to Haymitch and ran away before he could earn himself a punch.

Chaff waited until the two were out of earshot and took a nonchalant sip from his coffee. "So?”

“What?” Haymitch snapped, royally aggravated this early in the morning.

“Do you?”

Chaff’s laughter followed him out of the cafeteria when his nerves finally cracked and got up just as vigorously as Johanna, then marched out with knuckles white on his fists when his eyes wandered back to Effie who was climbing up the pool’s steps with her now loose, soaked hair combed back and wet white bikini clinging to her in all the right places.

Like her.

 Sure.

 ii.

 Katniss didn’t notice that there was someone else with her in the internet café until that someone had put something down on the desk and she felt their presence immediately behind her. “Happy birthday.”

She hastily closed the tab and looker over her shoulder in startle. Her eyes met a pastel blue pair. “Peeta.”

“Sorry,” he laughed, pulled out a chair for himself and sat down next to her. The air was immediately full of the scent of cinnamon. He always smelled like Christmas – either cinnamon, or apples, or oranges, or vanilla. It was his hands that smelled that way and she could never figure out why. “It is your birthday, isn’t it? The 8th of May?”

“Yeah,” she said awkwardly. “I just kinda hoped no one would know.”

“Really?” Peeta’s face fell. “Oh well… hope you’re okay with this.”

“It’s fine.” Katniss looked down on what Peeta had gotten her. “What is it?”

“Have a look.”

She only hesitated for a second, then picked it up. It was a folder with something light in it. In the folder, there was a sketch between two pieces of blank paper. It took her a while to understand what it really was when she looked at it. Then her heart dropped. It was her.

It was a portrait of her, a portrait of her she had never posed for and one that certainly wasn’t based on a picture she had ever posed for, either. It wasn’t colored, but it was amazingly well-shaded, and almost photorealistic. n the picture, she was sitting on a bench in what looked like a rose garden, wearing a flower crown, her lose braid falling down her shoulder like an ebony waterfall. Her eyes were sparkly, she was laughing, and the real-life Katniss was amazed at how well he could grasp her features. He must have studied her pictures for a long time. It made the blood rush into her pale cheeks.

Katniss wasn’t used to be much of a center of attention. Back home, in the small town of Seam with its deep, fresh-smelling forests, huge meadows and permanently polluted air thanks to the nearby mines, she had never been considered interesting, just different, not necessarily in the positive sense of the word.

The media made it seem like she sat alone at the lunch table because other kids were afraid of her unique charm. Because she intimidated them with being so courageous, self-reliant, interesting. In reality, she was sitting there alone because instead of going home after school to do her homework and then hanging out at some café with her classmates, she went to the Hub to help Hazelle and wash dishes, hand out sandwiches and scrub the toilets, and the next day, she’d be sleeping on her desk during breaks at school instead of socializing. During the weekend, she’d do the cleaning and cooking for the next week. By the age of fourteen, she was basically taking on a parent’s role – picking up Prim from school, bringing home some humble money, managing the household and still taking on her own responsibilities.

Her basically only friends were Gale and Madge. Gale was Hazelle Hawthorne’s oldest son whom she met at the Hub when she was eleven, just a few weeks after her father died during a mining accident, but she had seen him before – at her father’s funeral. She saw Haymitch Abernathy there as well, drunk as always, only staying there for so long as necessary, then immediately sneaking out before her mother even had the chance to talk to him.

Nobody welcomed him there with open arms; he had been gone for too long and things have changed too much. Or at least as much as possible in a small southern town in the heart of the Appalachians. She didn’t even know that he was his father’s friend until Hazelle told her. He had never come to visit, at least since she could remember, he had never done anything. He just left and never looked back. Traded the gold leaf of Hollywood for his roots while people there were daily struggling to get by. Like Katniss’s father, or Hazelle, or anyone else.

Gale was a good friend to her, a safe haven. They were close like siblings and cared for each other’s families as if they were their own. Madge Undersee was a good friend to her as well. She was the daughter of the local Mayor and lived in the nicer part of the down, closer to the center, in a huge house with a separate dining room with an old piano, many original paintings hanging in the halls and a pool in the garden. They used to sit together during lunch and sometimes went out together, but Katniss wasn’t really into Madge’s hobbies such as shopping or yoga or new music.

No, she definitely wasn’t spending so much time on her own because she was intimidating someone with being so awesome in every way. She was sitting there alone because she liked sitting there alone, and did everything to maintain it that way. Nobody had to knew how bad her situation was. She didn’t want the compassion. She didn’t want the sympathetic stares. She didn’t want the awkward offers of help. She just wanted to be left alone.

But in the world of the silver screen – a world that she was thrown into thanks to one test screening where her drama teacher sent her to along with a few other girls out of pure pity – never asked her whether she preferred to be alone, because she was never alone. When she wasn’t with her publicist, she was with her manager, or with the cast, or with a make-up artist, or with a journalist, or with random fans, or-

No, there was no alone.

 In Venice, she was forced to spend time with people that she felt like she had nothing much to say to. The adults treated her as if she was a little kid, especially Effie, who, for whatever reason, felt the urge to always ask her not to speak with her mouth full or to adjust the collar of her shirt.

Haymitch was the opposite pole – he didn’t want to spend much time with anyone. He was with Chaff a lot and Johanna has proved to be a solid match to him when it came to being an asshole. At first, Katniss didn’t even want to talk to him. But once, during a lunch break, they found themselves sitting next to each other. Katniss still sort of despised him, especially since his drunken episode which has left her and Peeta for Effie to take her neuroticism out on, but the two shared, except for the same eyes and the same roots, the unique gift of love for silence. Their silence somehow wasn’t awkward – it was strangely comfortable. Her father cared for him a lot and that was enough for her to try to at least tolerate him, even if the personal feeling of betrayal lingered on and probably still would for some time ahead.

Peeta was nice and he was trying, but he didn’t know the extent to which it was really nice and the point when it became annoying. Whenever he could, he’d pull out her chair, take her things, help her into her jacket. He took her out for a walk around the town, bought her ice cream and now drew a portrait of her.

She had little to no experience in this, but she wasn’t an idiot. She knew what was going on, ever since they first met six months ago in New York when Plutarch was introducing the cast and he had spent so much unhealthy time looking at her when he thought that she wasn’t paying attention. And, due to her zero experience, the only way she knew how to let him know that she wasn’t really feeling the same way was withdrawing and shutting him out completely.

“This is…” she cleared her throat when she realized that she was just quietly staring at it for too long and he was watching her with palpable anxiety, “this is amazing. Beautiful. God. You’re talented. Really.”

Peeta laughed lightly. It was the delicate laugh of relief of someone who didn’t want to ruin a fragile peace or trample a rare nice moment. It stung to be a person someone else thought was rare to have nice moments with. “You’re welcome.”

She looked up. Their eyes met again and though she didn’t see him move, he was suddenly closer than before. Or maybe she just imagined it because there was an unspoked question in the air. There was something else. She followed his eyes back down to the folder. There was another piece of paper. Smaller and thinner, luxurious-looking, with the huge letters 2017 CANNES FILM FESTIVAL on it. It wasn’t the formal invitation one usually got from the organizers, it was a VIP ticket to a movie screening. Peeta’s movie. She understood it before he asked.

“Would you come?”

And there it was.

She couldn’t decline him. She wanted to, really. She had no desire to go to Cannes with him, or to go anywhere with him for that matter, because he was bound to consider it more than it was, an invitation to step forward. But when she watched him, his ears red, the way his fingers shook, eyes insecure and kind, she just said yes. His face lit up and he thanked her, said that it was awesome, and kept smiling through the entire day. Later, during the shooting of a scene in a gallery, he kissed her on her cheek, all out of a sudden, and Plutarch was thrilled about this sweet little improvisation. Well, at least someone was.

With the feeling of someone sentenced to guillotine, she mailed the news to her manager and publicist, who both considered it a great move, and then decided to call home.

“Hi,” she heard Prim’s soft voice on the other side.

“Hi, little duck,” Katniss smiled in relief. Finally, at least something familiar - finally something that made her feel normal. “Why are you picking up? Where’s mum?”

“Mum is at work,” her sister said hastily. Katniss immediately knew that it wasn’t the case.

“Is everything okay back there?” she asked anxiously, playing with the scratched plaster on her balcony. Her eyes wandered around the complex; it was the usual view - Effie Trinket was sitting by the pool, also speaking on the phone, gesturing toward Finnick and Johanna, who were rather loudly playing Marco Polo in the pool, to shut up. Fulvia Cardew was sitting in the pool bar, tapping something into her laptop.

“Of course,” Prim humored jauntily. “I got an A in Natural History today. Gale came over and brought us something from the Hub. He’s starting in the mines next week.”

Katniss let out an annoyed grunt. “I totally forgot about it. I should call him.”

“Are you okay?” Katniss could see Prim furrowing her brows in concern, big blue eyes hard to deceive. She was thirteen but she wasn’t an idiot and Katniss was never one to treat her as such. “Has something happened?”

Katniss considered brushing it off, but in that moment, she saw Peeta walk over to Effie, sit down and start sketching something, so she told Prim everything. When she finished, the younger girl remained silent for a while, and then she just said: “Why did you say yes if you wanted to say no?”

Thirteen-year-olds were prone to letting a lot of dumb things out of their mouths - but they were also prone to see everything simply. Prim was in that transition phase when she wasn’t a child anymore, but she wasn’t a teenager yet, either. However, she had always been the one who saw things clearly and realistically while remaining so optimistic about it. And she was, unlike other thirteen-year-olds, prone to always asking the right questions at the right time.

“I don’t know,” Katniss admitted. “Say hi to mum.”

That was three days ago and now, her eyes were rested at the suitcase provocatively lying on her bed, half-empty, with only the few basics there. She didn’t even have a dress. Cinna promised to get her one, and Peeta’s stylist would do her hair and make-up, but still, it was all so out-of-the blue, she didn’t feel ready. She had nothing prepared and she didn’t feel like going out there, posing for cameras next to Peeta who was too excited for her to tell him she had changed her mind.

People do a lot of things they don’t want to do and they need to cope with the consequences. That was apparently how adult life was and she had no chance but to accept the fact that she was an adult now without ever actually having the chance to be a proper teenager. It didn’t have to be that bad, after all. At least she’d see the sea. Prim had always wanted to go there. At least she could get her some pictures.

 iii.

“Stop!”

“What’s your problem again?” Haymitch lashed out, not towards Plutarch, who was sitting in his chair by Cressida’s camera, but Effie, who was lying beneath him in a tight red cocktail dress with smudged lipstick and furrowed brows.

“Nothing, just…” she pushed him away while she was sitting up, “you’re doing it wrong.”

“Wrong?” His brows shot up. “That’s about a first when it comes to someone telling me that I’m doing it wrong here,” he patted the mattress tellingly and she rolled her eyes, pulling up her shoulder strap.

Plutarch sighed and waved at them with the screenplay. “Did you even read this? It says passionately. Not I’m not in the mood to do my job today, so I’ll just give an average performance and hope Alma Coin still pays me.”

“I’m not getting paid, anyway,” Haymitch shrugged and reached for his tuxedo jacket that had been carelessly left somewhere on the floor previously. Previous four times, actually.

“We’re not getting anywhere like this,” Cressida told Plutarch and didn’t even bother to make it discreet. Not that she’d manage that, anyway, because the room that they were shooting in was quite small and except for the two desperate main stars, Plutarch and Cressida, there was also Pollux, who was doing the close-ups, Chaff, who was leaning against the desk and watching the whole scene with undisguised amusement, and three assistants.

Not that Haymitch used to have a problem with it, but he had many, many years to wean it, and the thought of seven people including his best friend watching him pretend to fuck Effie Trinket wasn’t exactly… appealing. He was horrified when he first read it in the script, he was horrified when they talked about it during the rehearsals and he was horrified now that he realized that she wasn’t going to make it any easier for him.

“Is there going to be a day when there’s not a problem with you two?” Plutarch shook his head and got off his chair, then waved with both hands towards the door. “Alright, everyone get out, I want just Haymitch and Effie to stay here.”

“And what are we supposed to do here?” Effie crossed her arms and then released them again to adjust her wig.

“Talk about this. I’m a director, not your babysitter,” Plutarch told her sternly and opened the door to the hall of the hotel where they had rented an entire floor to film the last take of the Venice shooting, which was supposed to be a romantic, passionate love scene but so far was only a mess that was eating up their time and money without satisfying results. “If you two have a problem, then it’s you two who has to do something about it. I didn’t care but it’s ruining this filming and I’m tired of it. When you’re done, come for us. We’re next door.”

With that, the room slowly began to empty. Neither Haymitch or Effie missed the disagreeing scowl that Chaff shot them before leaving.

“This is your fault,” she hissed at Haymitch when the door closed behind her assistant and they were left there alone, face to face. “You’re just not doing it right.”

“How exactly am I not doing it right?” he retorted. “Never thought about the possibility that maybe you’re the problem here? Like, when was your last lay?”

“Certainly more recently than yours,” she fired back, and her expression made it clear that she herself had no idea why she was even responding to him and letting him irk her like this.

“So tell me what you’d like,” he was near shouting now. She stood up and he followed, so now they were standing in front of each other with faces reddening with anger that they had this unique superpower of arousing in each other without much effort.

Effie curled her hands into fists and propped them against her hips, a gesture that, he noticed, she was often using when mad or during a fit of self-righteousness. “Do you know what I’d like? Some respect, maybe. You can’t just grab someone and throw them on the bed like that.”

“I’m sure that’s exactly what you’d use from time to time,” Haymitch spat.

“Well, if you start it like that, then finish it like that,” she continued, her voice soaked with mockery, “or are you always running out of battery in the middle of the act?”

“I’m not the only one here. Maybe you’re frigid.”

“You’d be surprised.”

He wasn’t really thinking when he did it, but suddenly, her back was against the wall and their faces mere inches from each other’s. They weren’t touching, but they could feel each other’s breath on their faces; they could feel the tension of the other one’s body. He was breathing in her flowery scent and the warmth of her skin and he promptly snapped back to reality in which this was a stupid idea. He really hadn’t been with anyone like this in a long time.

He’d lie if he said that he hadn’t thought about kissing her right there.

“That’s what you’d like?” she asked sharply with a pout on her mouth. Her feisty eyes fell on his lips for a split of a second before going up again and locking with his. That was when Chaff’s words popped up in his mind. It was like a kick in the stomach.

“You wish,” he grunted and moved away. It didn’t escape him that she let out a shaky breath as if she had been holding it the entire time.

They stood in front of each other, in a respectable distance now, with hardly much to say. There were things they couldn’t sort out in this very moment, like the fact that they were never going to get along and that he had weird and dirty things running through his mind when he saw the red spots appearing on her neck and half-exposed chest in embarrassment. They could do their job, though.

“So…” Effie ran her fingers through her wig, “what are we gonna tell them?”

Haymitch didn’t answer her, he just headed straight to the door and violently opened it. He didn’t want to admit to himself that what just happened made him a little bothered. “We’re ready.” The crew standing awkwardly in the hall looked up with careful hope in their faces. Haymitch looked at Plutarch who skeptically raised his eyes from the technical notes he was going through with Cressida. “We decided we don’t want anyone here. Just you, Cressida and Pollux.”

Plutarch nodded slowly. “As you wish.”

Once they all found themselves in the closed room again, they got in their places – Plutarch into his director chair that he had brought here for ostentatious purposes, even if any chair they had in this room would serve just as well, Cressida got behind her steady cam and Pollux lifted his heavy camera and carefully placed it on his shoulder, ready to circle the main couple in well-trained motion in order to get the best shots.

“Are you ready?” Plutarch asked, specifically talking to Haymitch and Effie, who were standing in front of the door, already locked up in a tight embrace, the hair of her wig tickling Haymitch’s nose. It wasn’t until now that he realized how petite she was in his arms.

“Yeah.”

“So… ligh- oh yeah, to hell with you two.” He got off the chair to turn on the artificial lights himself, then hurried back, “cameras, action!”

It was a good thing that there was no dialogue in this scene, because they wouldn’t get very far with talking. The second Plutarch said action, Haymitch pulled her towards him, just like he did those four times before, and didn’t bother to make it any gentler despite their previous talk. Effie didn’t seem to have a problem with it this time, though, because it was her who kissed him first.

He pushed her towards the bed and when her knees made contact with the edge of it, she pulled him down with her while helping him out of his jacket. The second it was, once more, forgotten on the floor, his hands wandered under her dress, up the tender skin of her thighs where they stopped. Meanwhile, she was unbuttoning his shirt vigorously and biting on his earlobe. Her hot breath and the undying flood of soft sighs sent chills down his spine.

His fingers reached for the hem of her dress and pulled it up. He had totally forgotten that there was someone else with them when he took her dress off and they moved further on the bed, throwing away his shirt. She giggled lightly when she struggled with his belt and pulled him down for a deep kiss.

She was, without a doubt, a good kisser.

Her fingers were running through his hair freely while his were tugging at the wig and the natural hair beneath it. He didn’t see her breasts, however, he felt them rubbing against his own bare chest and once more wanted to repeatedly bang his head at something at the ridicule of this all. Filmmaking was a fucked up concept in general, but situations like these always took it to a whole new level.

Then she pulled him for a kiss again, and he didn’t know whether it was her moans, her soft touch, her sweet warmth or a few years without an affair or at least a one night stand, but he suddenly felt himself… reacting.

He looked her in the eye and he knew she noticed it too. At first, he expected her to push him off her again and to have to start all over, but she didn’t do anything to let anyone know what was going on. She just ran her nails across his back and his lips moved to her neck. Her skin was soft there, and tasted bitter after her perfume and lotion. Then she pulled his face back closer to her face and they started kissing again – in a way that definitely could pass for passionate this time.

The more they were rubbing together, the worse it got. Not that having her under him like this was a horrible experience, but he found himself desperately waiting for Plutarch to yell stop nevertheless. He was becoming a little impatient, because when his and Effie’s eyes met before she closed them and let him lead, he could tell for sure that she was teasing him even more on purpose.

“Stop!”

The second he heard that magical word, Haymitch rolled off her as if she had burned him and Effie quickly covered herself with the sheet. Plutarch and Cressida whispered something to each other and the director walked up to the bed with a smile on his face. He handed the dress to Effie and the shirt to Haymitch.

“Good job, you two,” he said indulgently, “how are you feeling?”

Haymitch didn’t want to get up in fear that someone might notice his little problem, so he just sat on the edge of the bed and shot Effie a look. She seemed to feel just as uncomfortable. “Fine,” she said, nevertheless.

“Okay,” Plutarch quickly caressed her arm and headed for the door. “We’ll give you some space and send you your assistants. Take a little break, then we’ll shoot the next sequence and we’re done here!”

With that he nearly waltzed out of the room. Plutarch was notorious for being hard to please but once he was pleased, he could be grateful.

That didn’t matter to Haymitch. His face was ablaze, his insides tight with humiliation and anger. He was shaking. “You’re a bitch.”

“We are actually quite compatible between the sheets,” she replied indifferently with a shrug just as her assistant walked in with a water bottle and a robe. “Thank you, dear!”

She got up to go to the next room that was reserved for her when she heard his coarse voice shouting after her. “Do you feel better?”

She stopped in the door frame, gifting him with a flutter of her long, velvety fake lashes. There was something in her newly smug face that was making a clear statement. I won this time, sweetheart. However, her response came in a voice so innocent, it couldn’t be further from the throaty moans that were still echoing in his brain and torturing him even further. “But why should I?”

Heeeeeey everyone! So, a new chapter is here, finally! I keep getting nice messages/reviews despite taking so long to update, which is nice. Thank you everyone for motivating me to sit the hell down and finally finish the drafts that have been in my ‘writing’ folder for way too long. Considering the long wait, and also that the next chapter is on the shorter side (for my norm), I’m going to post both 7 and 8 this weekend, and you can (hopefully) count on an update next week. Also, there have been slight cosmetical adjustments to the previous chapters, but it’s all just about the style of posting. Thanks for reading and have a nice day x

[allonsysilvertongue]

Silver Pen: Career Goals

During a particularly long stretch of writer’s block, Haymitch Abernathy discovered a world of his own making. (AU)

Chapter 5: Career Goals

“Haymitch, be nice,” Peeta warned. “This is Miss Trinket.”

“Effie,” she said, extending her hand to him with a smile so charming it must be hurting her cheeks to hold it in place. “Everybody address me as such.”

‘Effie’ was not something he had decided for her but Haymitch took it in stride. Characters were supposed to develop and seeing it before his eyes was an experience in itself.

“Sure, sweetheart,” he grasped her hand with a smirk of his own. “How’d you know these two notorious kids?”

“Oh, nonsense, they are lovely,” Effie exclaimed. “They are easily one of my easiest clients to date.”

“Huh,” he frowned, scratching the side of his cheek lightly as he mulled that information over.

It made little sense to him. The timeline did not add up since her character was only written about two weeks ago whereas Peeta and Katniss had moved in for about three months or so, which meant before that, she had not even existed in his work – in his subconscious mind perhaps, because her family did exist during the Dark Days –

The entire situation was becoming a tangled mess especially give the whole “my characters are alive” was impossible in the first place. Not for the first time, he considered talking to a therapist but he was not crazy. He was not. He was absolutely certain that he was not.

He knew his name, his age, where he lived. He could tell the date and the day. All in all, he was of the opinion that he was in perfect control of his mental faculties. Just because an insane, unexplainable situation was happening to him, it did not make him crazy.

“Do you happen to know Finnick and Annie?” Haymitch asked out of the blue, if only because he needed some sort of confirmation that all his characters were connected to each other.

“Certainly,” Effie nodded with enthusiasm. “Who did you think close the deal for – “

"Their seafood place,” he finished her sentence. “That was you.”

“Yes,” Effie smiled and turned to look at Peeta. “I am doing the same for Peeta. Soon, he will have a space for his own bakery. Isn’t that marvellous? It is making me rather fond of this town.”

“Lots of houses here... If you like this town so much then get yourself a property and stay,” Haymitch said in a matter of fact tone and at the surprised look both Katniss and Peeta tossed his way, he shrugged. “Seems logical.”

Effie laughed lightly at that. “You make it sound so very easy. I do like the view,” she let her gaze wandered over to him. “I would love it dearly to see this town grow and flourish, and know that I am a part of it. How tempting…”

“Right,” he said curtly and rubbed the back of his neck.

He could not quite explain the way he suddenly felt self-conscious standing in front of her unshaven with his shirt crumpled with stained from his spilled whiskey. Hell, he probably event smell from having not changed his clothes since yesterday. He almost felt sorry for Effie Trinket. Meeting your maker shouldn’t be such a disappointment but since she didn’t know it, then it didn’t make a difference.

His gaze shifted to Katniss, fidgeting restlessly. The conversation held little interest to her but he took great pleasure in watching the girl shuffle from one foot to another impatiently, even if she kept throwing him pleading looks. He was not going to help her get out of the situation, not when she spent her time telling him how much he had disfigured her squirrel two days earlier.

"Haymitch is right," Peeta piped in with much enthusiasm. "You told us on your way over that these ten houses here are now under Capitol Homes."

"What's Capitol Homes?" Haymitch frowned.

“The real estate company I work for,” Effie answered. "Recently, they purchased the land here which means all these houses, including yours, belong to them. Did you not get the letter informing you of the same?"

Her question went unanswered.

The Capitol was a place he remembered creating; a magnificent city by any standard. This current twist to the narrative however, was making him feel slightly ill. Since when was the Capitol a real estate company?

There had to be a sound explanation for this but currently, the one he had made little sense to him.

"I have been assigned to ensure that the other ten unoccupied houses in this Village will have tenants or buyers by the end of the year. So.... Since this area is under my care, I supposed you will be seeing plenty of me," she flashed a smile and tossed her hair over her shoulder, exposing the side of her neck to him.

“What’s that – your career goals?” he queries, forcing himself back to the conversation at hand.

The best course of action right now was to find out as much information from his characters as possible before he jumped into any conclusions. The fact that Effie Trinket was writing her own narrative, in a manner of speaking, was something he was curious about. Real estate was certainly not what he had in mind for her. He had pictured something more glamourous, something that would give her fame. Then again, in his excitement, he had only really ever written her attitude, her personality and her physical description, nothing more than that.

"We all need goals in our lives and I intend to achieve mine," she declared. "This Village will be occupied and it will prosper."

His face morphed into one of disgust and displeasure.

"I liked it better when I'm the only one around," he scowled. "Now you come here and you want more people to move in? Come on, sweetheart. Help me out here, Katniss."

"You should take it up to the Capitol," she muttered. "Wouldn't suggest it, though. They might throw you out of your home and get someone else to move in."

"Katniss, dear, do not frighten him so," Effie chided. "No such thing will happen, Mr. Abernathy! The land's title deed merely changed hands but I assure you that your lease on the house still holds. No revision to the terms will take place. Nothing will change except... there will be more people. It might even be good for you."

"You don't know me enough to know what's good for me," he retorted.

"Well, then, I hope we will have plenty of opportunities to get acquainted."

It was a challenge if the sparkle in her eyes and the way she tilted her head at him was any indication; a challenge to the town's recluse.

[amorremanet]

10, 23, 37, 42

asks for fanfic writers.

10. how do you do your researches?

Depends on what I’m researching, but usually, it starts with Google and/or Wikipedia, unless I have other sources that are immediately on-hand, or that have pointed me to places I should be looking. Sometimes, I’ll go use my grad student access to various academic databases for something that is actually useful.

Then, I filter through the stuff to find contradictions I should look at, find the pieces that are unreliable (e.g., gossip journalism with no demonstrable basis in fact, history about POC that was written by white people, LGBTIQ history written by straight people, things that might have been questionably translated, etc.). And then I sorta have to play it by ear, because this is about when it starts getting more variable, based on what I’m researching and what I’ve found or not.

23. least favorite story you’ve ever written

Do you want me to go chronologically or alphabetically? That being said:

* A lot of my old school, “I wrote this when I was fifteen and so deeply closeted that I was Katniss Everdeen levels of, ‘Everybody seems to know my secrets before I know them myself’ before Katniss was even a character who existed, and I really, really thought I was straight for like a minute. A really extended minute” Wolfstar fics are capital-B BAD.

Like, they’re OOC as fuck, they buy into all of the heterosexist and misogynistic top/bottom bullshit that fandom is still so fond of, I forced myself to write a bunch of fluff that I hated and that is absolutely disgusting to me because it’s: 1. overly derivative of “The Shoebox Project” but with absolutely no nuance or depth (so like, the fanon version of TSBP), because, like every other Wolfstar shipper at the time, I loved it and unfortunately, I subsequently emulated it way too much in my own writing, because I was fifteen and thought the only way to find any kind of a place or friends in fandom was to do the popular thing

Pro-tip, kids at home: this is an absolutely bullshit way to try and find a place or friends in fandom. It just straight up DOES NOT WORK.

All of the happy feels that resemble friendship you get will be totally surface-level at best, and unless you are really socially competent — which I was and still am not — you won’t be able to translate it into any meaningful connections with anyone else, because they won’t really be accepting YOU.

They will be giving you attention and appreciation, but you’ll be more or less the same as everyone else who’s doing The Popular Thing Of The Moment, especially if you’re creating content for a huge ship, like Wolfstar was at the time — or for newer examples, like K*laine, like S*terek, like V*iktuuri, like Skittles after a certain point, like [insert literally any popular dudeslash otp here] — but they won’t be accepting YOU, YOURSELF.

If what you are legitimately into happens to be The Popular Thing, then disregard this and keep doing your thing because you’re doing it in earnest and that means that you actually ARE sharing yourself with people through the content you make, and have an actual chance of finding a fannish place for yourself and finding friends in fandom who actually value you as a person, and not just as a creator of The Popular Thing.

But for everybody who’s just doing The Popular Thing because it happens to be The Popular Thing? No. Stop that. You are better and you deserve so much better than that.

Find what really makes you happy. This is a deceptively simple idea, because finding your bliss as a content creator — or the thing that gives you the most sense of purpose as a content creator, since tbh, finding happiness as a content creator is often going to feel pretty impossible — it’s hard. It takes time. It takes a lot of trial and error, it takes soul-searching, it might very well take skydiving and seeing what flashes through your mind (it didn’t for me but I wouldn’t be very surprised if it did for someone)

—but whatever it takes? Find what kind of content it REALLY makes you happy to create, and then do that. It won’t always be The Popular Thing, and yes, let’s be honest, it will fucking suck to put your heart and soul into something, only to feel like people are just totally ignoring it.

But it’s also more likely to help you find people who genuinely share your interests and who are more likely to click with you (especially out in Rarepair Hell; there aren’t enough of us, so we sometimes end up bonding more tightly), and in the end?

Artistic integrity and truly making something that you can be proud of? That’s worth more than how many kudos or followers you can get by doing The Popular Thing when your heart isn’t actually in it.

This has been the most pretentious, “you’re a star, baby, just be yourself” PSA ever, and now back to our regularly scheduled self-deprecation!

and 2. Those old Wolfstar fluff pieces I wrote are gross to me now because they are so fucking emotionally dishonest — both to how Sirius and Remus are as characters, and to how I felt at the time, which was, “meh, varying degrees of miserable but with no functional idea why this is and even less of an idea of how to articulate it” — because I was so desperate to be accepted somewhere and get validation in the form of people on FF.net liking my terrible fanfic.

Like, every sin you can commit as a writer, I probably committed it with those fics and as such, they’re all completely atrocious. Even the “angsty” ones aren’t worth shit because I copped out and gave most of them either pasted-on happy endings or, “lol i am using canon as an excuse to not do a happy ending but i’m still not actually exploring everything as much as it deserves la la laaaaaa~ (somebody please please love me)” endings. They are all hooooooorrible, period, end of discussion.

There’s exactly one (1) that I wouldn’t burn if it were an actual printed book, and it’s the one that has ‘vaguely genderfluid but I didn’t have that word in my vocabulary in 2005’!Sirius having gender and presentation feels about wearing pretty skirts, and a parallel Hermione/Luna story about soft dapper butch!Hermione having gender and presentation feels about wanting to wear suits that were Totally Not Inspired By The Pics from And Fanart of Tipping The Velvet That I’d Seen Online, Nuh Uh, Nope (except that they totally were).

It’s still pretty, “meh” because I wrote it when I was fifteen, and if I were to rewrite it now, I’d do a looooot of things differently but still. It’s about the only not-horrible thing I ever wrote.

oh wait, actually? There are two (2) that I wouldn’t burn.

The other one, I wrote right after we first got HBP and found out that Remus had been out with the werewolves, on Top Seekrit Spy Missions!!! — it had Albus (who was still assumed by most of us to probably be having it off in secret with McGoogles because DH hadn’t happened yet and brought us G*rindeldore For Real Though) going to his office after handling shit with Harry and the kids and all of the Order members who got injured at the battle at the end of OOTP

Because it was a Wolfstar fic, Remus is naturally in said office.

It’s, like, dawn or getting close to it, and Albus is like, “well fuck shit dammit, how am i supposed to have this conversation with Remus when he’s probably going to clam up and emotionally retreat and try to say that he isn’t hurting about losing Sirius, and i can’t entirely call him on it without invalidating him — which i am especially sensitive to at the moment because Harry just almost called me out on it lol — and it’s not like his and Sirius’s relationship was ever simple like fuck, they have one of the most complicated relationships i’ve ever seen, crap fuck dammit, remus make this easy on both of us and let me comfort you okay”

And Remus is just like, “no, fuck that, dnw”

“i don’t suppose that i can ask what you’re planning to do”

“well i’m homeless again but it’s nbd”

“the order still has headquarters—”

“I AM NOT GOING TO LIVE IN GRIMMAULD PLACE WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF SUGGESTION IS THAT”

“i’m just saying—”

“please just give me some pasted-on condolences and then give me a mission so i don’t have to think about anything”

“that sounds like one of the most emotionally unhealthy ideas that you have ever had this week”

“hey, so, you need somebody to go do reconnaissance/outreach with the werewolves, right”

“um i think that can wait—”

“NO IT CAN’T TELL ME TO GO UNDERGROUND WITH THE OTHER GODDAMN WEREWOLVES”

“…………*dumble-sighs* remus, will you please go underground to do information gathering and outreach with the werewolves :/”

“yes. thank you, professor. i absolutely will.”

“this is still one of your worst ideas ever, jsyk”

“la la la can’t hear you over the sound of you giving me permission to do it la la la”

this is, at best, a really sketchy recreation of it that isn’t historically accurate on the grounds that i’m writing the sketch with the view of canon that i have now — minus the obvious omission of the Truth of Grindeldore — but that’s the basic outline of things

if I were to rewrite the thing now, I would do a lot of things differently

but the original fic isn’t completely without its merits, even if it could be a lot better

* “Close Enough For Rock and Roll” — Absolutely terrible, forever abandoned WIP because it’s absolutely terrible. It’s completely bogus D*estiel cis mpreg that has no reason to exist because it’s TERRIBLE. I cringe so hard whenever I get any FF.net emails about people liking it because…… ew. no. why would you even. I don’t even know you but plz. Love yourself and read something better, you deserve that.

* It is a closely-guarded secret of mine — by which I mean that it’s on my FF.net account — that once upon a time, I wrote D*rarry not once, but twice. They’re patently horrible fics, and there’s a reason for that. Namely: I don’t ship it, I have never shipped it, I have never for the life of me understood why it is A Thing, and I am never, ever GOING to ship it — usually, this would be shooting myself in the foot but it’s been 16+ years and I still don’t ship it, so I think I’m in the clear — but the girl I was in love with at the time dared me to write it, just to see if I could. She had a beautiful smile, but I refused to lose.

The fics are garbage and the only reason I don’t regret them is that nah nah nah nah nah nah, I won.

* It is a less closely-guarded secret of mine — by which I mean that it is up on my AO3 — that I wrote NC-17 S*terek once. I hate it a bit less than everything else I’ve listed here, because it’s not completely awful and I wrote it for a friend who’d been having a shitty time of things, and hey, it made her happy so mission accomplished — but it’s still pretty bad. It has a Derek who’s a darker shade of morally gray than he usually is and unnecessarily special!Stiles and consent that is at best highly questionable (though at least I acknowledge it and tagged it as such).

But mostly I hate it because I don’t actually ship that and have so many better fics but ugh, of course the garbage, poorly-written porn for the fandom’s favorite OTP is one of my most popular fics on AO3. UGGGGGGGGGGGGH.

37. canon or AU?

*shrugs* Both are good, it depends on how I feel today.

42. do you plan or do you write whatever comes to your mind?

………Can I just say, “yes” and leave it at that, like??? Sometimes one, sometimes the other, but usually, it’s a mix of both?