#mineheadcanon

[cloverskentwells]

ficlet: inspired by this scene from the show never have i ever

when the rule change is announced, shortly after the hunt for katniss draws a dead end and the two cannons in quick succession of each other combined with the fact that marvel never met up with them announce the very probable fact that he's dead, cato and clove are left facing one another, shocked into stillness by the news. their weapons lie discarded at their sides, gathering dirt and whatever else is lying under the arena's soil to add little dark specks among the blood. the resounding silence echoes around them in a stark contrast from claudius templesmith's booming voice that had swept the arena just seconds before.

clove recovers first - out of the two of them, she'd always considered herself the faster one - and shrinks back into a persona she's comfortable with, her default shell of biting sarcasm and scathing sharp wit wrapping around her comfortably like a blanket to a newborn. "so it looks like we're the only two left," she mutters slowly, more to herself than for cato's benefit. "and we're in the finals, apparently." cato grunts in confirmation.

"it's awesome that you made it this far," he says slowly, and she can visibly see him regaining his wits in real time, the transformation obvious in the unsubtle changes of his facial expressions - unlike her, he had no practice in carefully controlling and mastering what he allowed his face to reveal. clove observes his recovery and takes note of his surprise, which is followed by slow acceptance, and then followed by the dawning of a reality she'd accepted several seconds before him.

naturally, his irritating habit of finding every opportunity to provoke her returns with his recovered senses. it doesn't take long for him to become his typically insufferable self. gathering his weapons and approaching her with the cocky smirk she'd come to associate him with, cato continues his jab. "we'll see how it goes, clover." his large hand settles companionably on her shoulder in a friendly gesture clove decides not to punish. she also doesn't bother to protest at the term of endearment - better cato, anyways, who says it with some modicum of grudging respect and admiration, then marvel (an ally she did not at all "dearly miss") who liked to relentlessly tease her and imply that there was something going on between her and her district partner that existed under the surface of their mutual antagonism and vicious barbed-wire threats.

clove watches him walk away, probably back towards their campsite (because of course he just assumes she'll blindly follow along like he's still the leader of a pack that's mostly dead - or close to it, in peeta's case), incredulously. "what the fuck do you mean by - cato, i'm telling you 'how it'll go' right now!" in a rare moment of weakness that she isn't proud of, she hastily stumbles after him so they can walk side by side as she gets the last word. normally, clove prides herself in not putting that much effort to win a verbal battle against someone, always ready with a cutting remark, but this time he's gotten the better of her.

cato's amused chuckles only agitate her further. "it'll go bad for you! and good for me! because i'm the better tribute and we both know it, you blonde oaf!"

he comes to a stop beside her to laugh, almost hysterically. and clove can't blame him, she can only blame herself for her lame attempt to sass him.

but because she was never one for self awareness, she blames everything but her own behavior. so many factors were responsible. the stupid rule change that meant they were inextricably tied to one another, cato for making it difficult for her to contemplate a reality without his hubris and deep chuckles and strength complementing her own as they fought side by side. cato for being her only tie to home and weakening her so badly she'd begun to consider him a friend. a friend, of all things, when he was supposed to be just some competitive asshole with an ego she could easily check with a well aimed blade at a lethal area.

because he felt the need to worsen her current feeling of indignity, cato smiles down at her - fondly, with crinkling and affectionate eyes as if he has grown to enjoy her presence. like an insane person. "fine, but we can go home together now, you know."

"stop that. we're still enemies. it doesnt change anything, and you know it." she feels the need to regain distance, and fast. hide whatever is the reason for this weird sense of gratitude that claudius templesmith's announcement had drawn out of clove.

"yeah, no shit, i can't stand you," he agrees, although clove doubts his sincerity based on the impish smile he's not working too hard to cover. cato watches her glaring back at him with his arms crossed in an obvious attempt to flex, leaning casually against a tree like he's some unreasonably handsome capitol model endorsing a weird makeup product, as always too confident and assured in his sense of righteousness.

it's a fight she has no chance of winning. with a huff, clove opts to ignore him, resuming the trek to their campsite and keeping him at her back where she doesn't have to deal with visual evidence of his presence.

he laughs lightly behind her, obviously amused by her failure to one-up him. her lips twitch upwards responsively in an exasperated smile that she forcibly suppresses.

[cloverskentwells]

TITLE: untitled SUMMARY: Clove can't sleep, and so she makes the wise decision to break into her district partner's house.

--

Being a Games Victor, as it turns out, is mostly just facing a lifetime of sleepless nights alone.

She stares despondently up at the oscillating ceiling fan of her Victor's Village bedroom, from a bed that is the size of her old living room, and wonders why sleep remains so elusive to her. For maximized performance, the Academy had mandated that each Trainee achieved the eight hours a night required for optimal performance and alertness, so forcing herself to follow a strict sleep schedule - especially with the fear of what consequences her Trainers might inflict - had never been a problem for Clove, ever the obedient future Tribute.

But she can't help but think that this peaceful spacious room in a large mansion far removed from the lifestyle that the majority of Two's population experienced is too damn quiet. The oppressive silence looms over the big empty house like a living, present being, its breath on the back of her neck. The complete lack of sound should be a relief, but it only feels unnatural to her instead. Weeks in the Arena had taught her to fall asleep to the lullaby of insects chirping, fearful screams in the night, and the quiet growls of animals that seemed content to not attack them but still felt the need to make their presence known. Then there was the added effect of a crackling fire just a few feet away, warming her into a numb hibernation.

The fancy and expensive little noise machine she'd ordered from the Capitol (a lovely little perk of being a Victor, she now has disposable money to waste on completely useless technology) being set to Sounds of The Forest does little to help her - it's obvious that the nerds in District Three had never set foot outside of their homes let alone into any environment qualifying as nature.

Nor does dragging several blankets down the stairs and curling up on the floor next to her fireplace. Thankfully, living alone meant she never had to worry about how insane she looked, and no one is around to judge her for this odd little attempt at sleep. Regardless, this strategy is equally as ineffective.

Even the lovely ice cold metal of Clove's beloved knives resting against her bare skin does nothing to relax her. Unfortunately, she's beginning to identify the problem, although she is vehemently against acknowledging the fact that maybe her inability to force herself into unconsciousness is really caused by the absence of a person who had become, much to her dismay, an essential part of her sleep routine. Every single night in the Arena, without even meaning to, she'd settled into a sleeping bag positioned only inches from her district partner's and listened attentively to the evening out of his breathing, allowing it to soothe her into sleep.

Of course, she'd justified it to herself as a precautionary measure at the time - as if she couldn't hear whether or not he was truly asleep instead of preparing to attack her just as well from several feet away - but the alternative was to admit to herself that maybe she just found a source of comfort being near him, a safety that even the extensive arsenal of weaponry secured within the loops of her jacket couldn't give her.

And now, although the thought - the simple truth - is too absurd and sickening for her to stomach, apparently her body physically cannot sleep without Cato nearby.

Damn him.

She viciously grabs her pile of blankets in her arms with a frustrated huff and marches petulantly over to his house, which is conveniently right next door to hers. The lights are all off, meaning he must have been sensible enough to be long asleep by now. A little painful spasm twists in Clove's chest when she concludes that he must be doing just fine without her there, and her pride demands of her - begs her, really - to retreat back to her own home instead of letting it be obvious how much she needs him, how the distance that has lodged its way between them after the Games affected her. Which outcome would be worse - her never sleeping again, or allowing the boy who respected her more than anyone else, who expects far more from her, to see her as weak?

But the mere idea of spending the next several hours listlessly staring at her ceiling and contemplating how much easier it would be if she had simply never won the Games is too much for her to bear, so Clove chooses the path of least resistance - or, at least, the one where she won't be stuck in her home and trapped with her own thoughts - and creeps into Cato's home like a damn burglar. Except - he had given her a key for emergencies (making intense eye contact and inhaling deeply when he handed it to her, but Clove has no energy left to examine what any of that meant), so is she really a burglar? Perhaps an uninvited guest, maybe... without permission to enter his home...

Still, Clove is already halfway there. Might as well finish what she started.

She clutches her covers in one hand. gingerly taking great pains to avoid them hitting the floor, while closing the door and locking it behind her with the other. A wave of panic courses through her as she realizes that if he were to see her right now, Cato might assume she was here to steal from or assassinate him. Clove had heard of such incidents where some drunken idiot dared to break into a Victor's home and was found the next morning in the front yard with, at best, a severed tongue/broken limb or, at worst, his throat slit clean and wide open. Her district partner was very much the type to maim first, ask questions never, and while Clove never went anywhere without the protection of her knives, she was still much smaller than him and severely disadvantaged in the dark.

Besides, even if she could fend him off long enough to identify herself and avoid a chokehold, Clove knows it will be a very difficult task justifying her invasion of his home.

The self-doubt quickly creeps in, screaming at her that this is a horrible idea, but some part of her refuses to make the smart decision and walk away while she still can. Her feet pad quietly up the stairs, one hand grappling blindly at the railing for balance. Little wooden creaks resound with each step. Old homes are so damn loud, she thinks.

Maybe they were made so on purpose - every Two Victor comes home with a vicious paranoia but is too prideful to have a security system installed.

Sure enough, her gait was not as sly and inconspicuous as she would have liked. She manages to reach the entrance of what is presumably the master bedroom, and before she's even through the doorway, she hears her co-Victor, a shapeless blob obscured under his bedsheets, murmur an exhausted greeting: "Hey, Clove."

Clove freezes at the entrance, somehow surprised at having been identified. He only chuckles mirthfully at her silence, the sound deep and throaty and so him in a way that fills some little empty hole inside her she hadn't known existed.

Forcefully shoving aside such idiotic, sentimental thoughts, Clove states her business as neutrally as possible despite the electric current of nervousness running through her body and quickening the pace of her heartbeat. "I couldn't sleep," she states. It sounds almost accusatory, and maybe it is.

"Missed me too much?" He teases, his voice thick and groggy with sleep. Or... sleeplessness? Perhaps it was possible that he wasn't quite as adjusted to their new sleeping arrangements as she'd thought.

"Just move over, idiot," Clove orders, too tired to play their typical verbal games of cat and mouse (besides, she adamantly refuses to be the mouse). He complies with her demand rather agreeably, which would have surprised anyone else who knew he didn't take well to being bossed around. For their dynamic, him obeying her... it was almost second nature, and though Clove has no hope of understanding why, she knows from their experience in the Arena that the dangerous, brutal boy will for some reason do anything she says. The power of it was overwhelmingly seductive, and there were plenty of opportunities to take advantage of it in the Games, but she couldn't bring herself to.

She hadn't needed it when the rule change was reversed. Cato had been all too willing to end himself, and every instinct within her had fought against him daring to leave her, until she had been prepared to drag the blade across her own throat as well. That moment of clarity, weakness, defiance had led them here, with her crawling under the covers and him reflexively pulling her close. Her hands find his body to gain her bearings until she makes contact with bare skin-

"Fucking - Cato, tell me you're at least wearing pants," she gasps as her palms lay flat on the smooth, unfairly tempting plane of his torso. His deep, booming laughter resonates through her chest and she doesn't stop the full body shiver in time, the involuntary movement of her body something he can surely feel with this close proximity. Her breaths are embarrassingly shallow and Clove feels a little lightheaded at the prospect of spending the rest of the night with her body curled into his shirtless, well-maintained form, feeling the hard lines of his body against her...

"Yeah, Clove, I'm wearing pants. But I sleep without a shirt because it gets too hot," he explains, amusement making his voice high-pitched, and Clove just knows he has an insufferably smug grin on his face right now. "But if you're uncomfortable, I can change," he continues sincerely, a sweetly genuine offer. And that ridiculous fluttering of her heart absolutely loathes the very idea - before she can stop her traitorous mouth, Clove protests, too quickly to reign her voice back to a casual indifference, "don't."

What the fuck is wrong with you? Clove chides herself as she awaits Cato's response.

Thankfully, he seems to have had enough fun with her for one night because he wordlessly wraps one heavy arm around her waist, his hand resting gently on the small of her back. She tucks her head under his chin, resisting the urge to burrow her nose into his throat that is right there and breathe in his sensitive skin. Clove has no idea what's gotten into her, but already she feels her eyelids becoming heavy and her brain slowly drifting until her thoughts are a muddled soup.

Absentmindedly scratching her nails across the smooth expanse of his back, she's startled at his sudden groan of delight. "Yeah, that's nice. Keep doing that," he mutters placidly into her hair. Some oddly unselfish part of her wants to make him feel as good as he does for her, so Clove continues the pattern, lightly digging her nails into little soft spots of muscle and sometimes the hard ridges of his spine.

"This is a one time thing," she warns him sternly. Cato barks out a disbelieving laugh, and she stops scratching his back in retribution. He doesn't seem to mind terribly, instead picking up her slack by languidly tracing patterns along her shoulder blades.

It turns out, he was correct not to believe her, because Clove returns the next night, and then the night after, and then the night after, and then...

[cloverskentwells]

"You're enjoying this a little too much," she can't help but tease. Her knees are bent against the old, creaking hardwood floors of their Victor's Village mansion, on either side of Cato's hips, basically straddling him with one of her beloved knives resting on his jugular notch.

Remaining true to their Training, he never breaks her gaze, doesn't even gulp out of nervousness. Clove is relieved to see that defiant, invigorating fire return to his eyes where there was before only dullness and a haunted pain that made him unreachable to her, little more than a ghost of the boy she knows. She unconsciously squirms a little as his hands find her waist, firmly holding her to him with a strength she'd always known was typical of Cato but hadn't before understood just how effective it really was.

They'd been Victors for months. Had been practically living together despite being given their own separate houses and told they wouldn't need to play up some insipid lovers act. Yet Cato and Clove never could seem to break the habit of instigating conflict, of pushing one another to their limits until the eventual snap came and led to... this.

Her last straw was when he'd returned home hours in the night - leaving her worried sick like some fucking wife - with a black eye and three crackled ribs last night. Frustrated, she allowed him to recover and then decided if Cato wanted a fight that bad, she'd give him one, classic Academy style.

Those fights, however, had never ended in this. Back in school, the end result was typically one or the other drawing first blood, or in the combat skills training that was previously authorised to extend to the extreme, a hand crushing an unlucky training partner's throat.

Whatever her Trainers would say in commentary if they could see him gently brushing an escaped curl behind her ear and cradle her face in his palm, Clove doesn't know or care.

"I promise I won't get into street fights again," he mutters. Remorseful, agreeable. She likes him this way, yes, but there exists a fine line between being rational and completely letting go of what she (sometimes) found likeable about him - his fire, his zealous behavior, how he never could back down from a challenge.

"No, you won't. I'm your training partner. Your ally. Your district partner, co-Victor." Best friend. A little more, a little less goes unsaid. "If anyone gets to touch you," he winces as she places more pressure on the knife against his skin. "To hurt you," and the little thin trail of blood running down his throat pulls a delicious gasp out of him, "it's gonna be me."

If she were more daring, she'd drag her tongue across the injured area, let the taste of his blood on her mouth show him how serious she is. But she's done enough for one day, so she gracelessly rolls off of him and leaves him incapacitated on the floor, walking to the kitchen without a single glance back.

[cloverskentwells]

one of my fave tumblr mutuals calls her boyfriend her boytoy (affectionate) so now i just imagine that with all my OTPs including: clove and glimmer calling their boys that when girltalk-ing with one another! cato and marvel find it oddly cute that they get called boy toys but cato is about saving face/his ego lmao so he's like "clove i am not a toy i could literally throw you across a room" and clove and glimmer look him dead in the eyes as they start cackling

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as i said before yeah cato after his games always gets in a bunch of random street fights and yeah it's a coping mechanism to release aggression/residual anger and deal with the fact that he doesn't know how to not be in extreme survival/training mode but also... it gets clove's attention. like she's actually kind of worried sick about him and she stitches his wounds and is visibly concerned about him and she also yells at him for being an idiot (literally exposing the fact that she cares) and sometimes gives him the fight he wants when she pushes her to her limits. it's messed up but it's what helps him feel better

[cloverskentwells]

enobaria has an affinity for strategy, and has learned this lesson many times the hard way that the game will go in the direction that will most satisfy the capitol citizenry's interests and wants. regardless of who the best or most deserving tribute is.

she let hope creep into her heart for one stupid moment of weakness that she vows to never allow again when the rule change is announced. the district can have two victors, and that's actually a good outcome for everyone involved - that's relevant to her, anyways. another mentor, another example of a role model, and even if she's partial towards the little one with the knives and irritated by the boy's complete absence of self composure, she can honestly say they both deserve to win.

but she remembers. enobaria understands too well how these little twists work, how they reel in and entrap vulnerable, gullible tributes. she's seen how the public has taken a liking to those kids from twelve and their romantic melodrama, that her kids have no chance now. despite the persona she's carefully crafted over the years of cold and apathetic victor, she still gives in to pity when she watches her tributes rejoice. tragically, they truly and wholeheartedly believe the lie that they're being fed - and why shouldn't they? it's just another part of the lie that they've been forced to accept and cherish their entire lives.

what's worse is that she's not blind, or emotionless. she sees how her tributes soften towards one another. become more trusting, vulnerable, share the same space with a welcoming energy directed towards each other rather than regarding the other as a convenient but disposable ally.

it built up slowly, but still happened. how the little one smiles at the blond's idiocy, how he wipes the blood off her face with his fingers, quiet and unsmiling but still tender, gentle, softer than any two kid would ever dare to be. they're not too far gone to attempt a romance falsehood like twelve, and still respect the dignity of the games and their district, but she knows how this story will end. the same way all stories in panem that involve caring about someone you shouldn't end.

she remains cool, indifferent, because what the hell is she supposed to do at this point? just another pair of dead children walking, unaware of their fates. but enobaria isn't as soulless or uncaring as she would like to be, so she watches with silent but controlled and manageable regret when he defies all expectations of his character archetype and begs her to stay alive for him - on his knees for fuck's sake, even holding her - and when the littler one breaks the first rule of being a district two tribute by displaying weakness and screaming desperately for her partner's aid.

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i know the careers already have fucked up childhoods on their own but just imagine clove with a serial killer for a dad!! you know, like a tara carpenter/hope mikaelson situation. it makes a lot of sense for her character and explains why she's slightly more unhinged and feral than cato or glimmer

[cloverskentwells]

clove is such a brothers girlie like i truly don't see her with sisters. she has the vibes of having had to compete with taller stronger males her whole life and how that experience toughened her up real quick, but also the same exact energy of a girl who weaponized her smallness/femininity and got whatever she wanted because her older brothers couldn't say no to her

[cloverskentwells]

so new established canon fact clove's dad was a serial killer! except not in the games aka the only place it's legal to kill people so he was hunted and shot down by peacekeepers right in front of clove when she was like six. her mom fell into a drinking problem because of it and sent clove to training so she wouldn't have to be responsible for her daughter all the time. everyone talked about clove behind her back because they'd all heard the story of what her father did, and it hurt so much but she took that pain and used it to become the best knife thrower and clawed her way up to the top so that she could get a spot in the games and everyone would fear her.

clove's mom didn't think she was going to be such a successful trainee, all she'd thought of was needing clove to be away so she could have space to herself. she encourages clove to take advantage of her talent and go into the games and return a Victor because that would essentially solve the problems of their lives, and clove cant really say no to that but killing 23 real humans is a lot different than sending a bunch of knives into cardboard cutouts for the sake of moving up the ranks/intimidating people. but when she thinks of all that blood on her hands and all the pain she'll cause and the sick twisted connection it has to her father something in her comes alive and she leans into this, taking advantage of the sick crazy girl everyone thinks she is and using it as her games persona/angleTM.

[cloverskentwells]

the 74th hunger games, female careers

don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise, the career girls are an iconic trio of murderous women and besties!! panem's version of the powerpuff girls/bonnie & caroline & elena/brooke & peyton & haley

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when caesar asks her about family back home, she doesn't know how to respond. clove dodges specifics with a standard line about how proud her parents are that she would be bringing glory to their family and representing the district well, and caesar's questioning doesn't extend beyond that moment, but what can she say about a family where most of the members feel like complete strangers to her?

her father works late shifts at the quarry, bringing in a meager income. it was his idea to send her to the academy, lured by the promise of a stipend for each individual student that trained for the games, sent to the potential tribute's families. and she had such a talent with a knife. once she realized she had the opportunity to use that skill on real people someday, clove was hooked, and begged her parents to let her train full time. she was forever grateful that they had said yes, and had done everything they could to help clove achieve this dream of hers.

but she sees her father five minutes a day, and her mother started to shrink away from clove over the years, almost as if she was afraid of her. clove hated when her mother pretended not to be, when she attempted welcoming her home with a hug like she was a weak child in need of a mother's embrace.

and then there were the brothers whom she could only recognize from old family photos and her own compromised memories from when she was a toddler, rendered useless with the passage of time.

the oldest had left before she was born, stationed as a peacekeeper in another district and cutting ties with the family for reasons her parents never talked about. she only knew of his existence, and that he was still alive, because of the portion of his income that he sent home to support his parents. that was marcellus, the forgotten child - then came mason, 15 years older than her, who was a mere ten minutes away working as a miner in the nut, but for some reason could never visit. gunner bothered to make the effort via a yearly dinner with the kentwells before taking off to do god-knows-what on the other side of the district where clearly he must be making some form of money if he was able to live alone.

clove had only ever cared about winning the games and having an impressive collection of sharpened knives and daggers to her name. she had a relatively well-adjusted home life with reliable, working parents and was, by no means, damaged or neglected or brutalized - luckier than many people she knew from back home who suffered those fates. but caesar's question did lead her to briefly wonder what it might have been like to be a real family, with brothers who weren't faceless nobodies only connected to her by blood relation/circumstance, a father who said more than one sentence a day to her, and a mother she could stand to be around.

[cloverskentwells]

headcanons about clove & glimmer & d4 female tribute (i named her cecaelia):

clove & cecaelia are bonded by the fact that they're both much less social and cheery compared to glimmer; glimmer thinks this is cute and calls them "c squared" or "grumpy twins"

clove isn't one to make forced conversation and pretend a friendship/camaraderie exists where it doesn't. but glimmer loves conversation and even temporary friendships. and despite their circumstances she does want to get to know her fellow career girls. cecaelia is more obliging than clove despite being herself reserved and in her own shell, and is more responsive to glimmer's icebreakers. clove remains sullen and quiet when glimmer asks her a question, only bothering with one word responses and a pointed flash of her knife

on the first night, hours after the bloodbath when they set up camp and get ready to sleep, glimmer chatters away and cecaelia listens, indulgently polite. glimmer wears clove down in the dark, and after a lot of tireless efforts at questioning finally gets clove to open up just a crack.

they all discuss what they'll do/how they'll live as a victor. cecaelia will own her own seafood restaurant either in d4 or the capitol if she's lucky enough to be permitted to live there. glimmer will spend money on shiny things and be a glamorous fashion model. clove's plans are less ambitious, and she'll retire to a lone mountainside cabin in the recesses of two.

glimmer, being the girls' girl that she is, immediately starts with the nicknames, calling cecaelia cece and clove... her own damn name, because clove's a lot less agreeable/conflict averse than cece and will pull out a knife if someone is too familiar with her. but even clove slips up and calls them each cece and glim once.

glimmer fixes cecaelia's hair - practically demands to, because according to her how the d4 stylists butchered it is atrocious. she also waxes poetic about what a lovely district cece comes from, with their pretty sea theme and gorgeous eyed-people and the wonderful weather there.

glimmer also admires her fellow career girlies' tokens. very loudly and excitedly, with so much enthusiasm that cecaelia and clove send each other bemused looks over glimmer's head. clove brought with her into the games a gorgeous beaded bracelet - mostly white pearl-like beads with some artfully painted blood red as if it had been dipped into a corpse. cecaelia brought a similar bracelet but it's black string through a simple teal ball. they both - even clove, much to her own surprise - let glimmer grab their arms to admire the bracelets, and snicker when she tells them about losing her own token, a pink diamond ring that had contained an allegedly poisoned spike.

clove loses them both to tracker-jackers, and she wasn't particularly attached to them - they all knew how the games worked and how this would end - and couldn't act like it was a great loss to her. but she still, on some level, misses them afterwards, especially having to deal with a mercurial unstable district partner and a boy who told too many jokes... it was nicer, clove thinks sometimes, when there were girls around.

[cloverskentwells]

inspired by @thefloatingwriter to make a list of clove headcanons because dayne did such a good job with johanna headcanons

so i see the vision for her as an only child/orphan but i'm of the strong belief that she has a lot of little sister energy. she has three older brothers - marcellus, mason, and gunner.

marcellus went off to be a peacekeeper in district 7 or 9 or whatever, months before clove was born, and she never met him.

mason was her favorite before he moved out when she was five because he was super nice and always playing with her.

... gunner is a weapons maker who visits like once a year but he always happens to visit when clove is at training so she doesn't get the chance to talk to him.

her brothers are all a lot older than her because she was an "accident baby"

clove's a bi girlie but she doesn't think about it that often since she's obviously super busy with training and doesn't date.

she's such a loner girl, like she's worse than katniss because she doesn't think people like her and also doesn't know anyone she genuinely likes enough to hang out with. it surprised her in the arena how funny marvel was and how surprisingly nice glimmer is, and even more when cato whom she'd written off as an arrogant and a jerk turns out to have a lot in common with her and really understand her

i've seen a lot of fics about clove's hobby/talent being woodcarving and you are all 100% correct. cooking and woodcarving are both great things that involve knives, and clove also sometimes likes to garden because knives might be her life but she's a person outside of that

her personal fashion style -> comfortable, quick, easy to wear but also flattering her body. leather jackets with spaces to hide knives, dark hair always in stylish braids to keep it out of her face during training/workouts and still look cute, and black combat boots. she likes knee length cardigans when she's in her home.

she hates cold and so you can find her huddled in front of the fireplace.

clove is a frigid bitch (affectionate) who keeps others at a distance and she unlearns this habit as a victor, first with cato and then with her parents. she laid that groundwork with cato in the arena and her parents watching the tv were surprised by how companionable she seemed to be around him and how she smiled a little more.

she clutches the handle of her knife in her sleep, it's like her stuffed animal and it's adorable. clove also murmurs death threats in her sleep, like a lot!!

she secretly loves it when someone she likes/cares about (cato, maybe glimmer on like the first night of the games, her mom at one point before they drifted apart with clove's training) braids her hair because the hands on her scalp and a tender touch from someone she loves deeply feels good. she'll never admit it though because she wants to give a strong don't touch me energy

ooh here's an interesting one that just came to me: so remember that lizard clove killed in the games? so mason actually gave her a pet lizard as a birthday gift on one of his few visits, and she took care of it and loved it so much. however one night she was practicing her knife throwing at targets in the backyard and the lizard was climbing up the tree she was throwing at and she accidentally killed it. clove cried like a little kid for hours that night but she didn't want anyone to see her in such a shameful position so her parents never found out. the lizard in the arena triggered that memory

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its giving modern au clove fashion

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more clato-isms

[cloverskentwells]

i know it's canonically established that cato is the one with the temper and that clove calms him down/brings him back but the way she was goading katniss, this brat definitely gets in a lot of fights after the games as well and cato has to restrain her like there is no way cato is the only one out of them with anger management issues she's just more logical and rational about it in a way that he isnt