The latest chapter has just been posted!
Summary: In a Panem where Katniss and Peeta have both aged out of the Reaping, their lives technically free of the wrath of the Capitol, they both struggle to find their footing in the harsh realities of Twelve. Change is in the air though, and things are happening fast.
Hello All!
This first round of thgcommentfeast has been so exciting and fun to host! As this feast comes to an end we are planning upcoming feasts for upcoming months.
For upcoming feasts, works do not need to be newly written works nor do you have to be an author to submit a work to the list following the prompt.
We have some prompts to use for the upcoming feasts but would like your help deciding.
The winning prompt will be announced once this poll closes and we will begin seeking works fitting that prompt to add to a masterlist to release on Jun 1st, noon ET. Submissions (both already established/published works and if you want to write a new work) are due May 31st at 5pm ET.
There will be an option to submit a new work to an AO3 collection just like May 2024's feast but this is not required!!
More info will be released soon! If you have any questions, comments, or concerns feel free to shoot a message!
-E
I don’t think that we talk sufficiently about how crazy the line “and it could be true now, couldn’t it?” is. Because the natural next sentence should be something along the lines of “if the Capitol had gotten their way.“ But it’s not. It has everything to do with Katniss’s personal reservations about marriage and family warring with what she might want otherwise. Granted, of course, these reservations have to do with the society she is living in and the atrocities in which the Capitol citizens are complicit, but the thing that is holding her back is not lack of innate desire. It is a self acknowledged wall of defense that makes her recoil. Also, realistically, given the way we see preparations for the wedding unfolding, which I imagine would put it sometime near or a little before the summer of the Quell (perhaps after her birthday? to appease her mother at least from a PR standpoint?), that would be one fast honeymoon pregnancy. Sure, she could reasonably anticipate the pressure for them to have children, but I just don’t get the sense that this unrealized Capitol future is what she’s referring to at all. I think she’s strongly implying that were she not living in the nightmare of Panem (especially one without her father) she would feel free to fall for Peeta, and it wouldn’t be completely outside the realm of possibility for them to have had a very young marriage (and pregnancy). Now, that’s cultural, as per Coryo’s musings in the prequel, and I don’t know that I’d recommend that course of action for Katniss, but it’s wild that she’s even theoretically open to it. It tells you so much about the themes of this series, as embodied by Katniss. A young person should have the chance to make such a happy choice unburdened by the thought of dire consequences, but in a world where people are metaphorically (and almost literally) encouraged to eat each other, there is no freedom for that. The ultimate irony is that every reader that buys into the “Katniss has no time for love! she has a war to fight” line utterly misunderstands why Katniss becomes a force for change: yes, she has no time for love, and no one does, and that is wrong. The Capitol wants her to have the picture perfect domestic ending. Coin wants her to go out in a blaze of Mockingjay glory. The point of Katniss is that she wants neither prescribed end. Katniss wants something that is her own choice, and she spends a lot of the final book thinking that suicide is the answer, the act of autonomy. She comes full circle when she realizes that going on living is the act of autonomy, and only then is she able to begin to figure out who she is when she isn’t in defense mode. We don’t see much of it, but that’s the entire point. We’re not supposed to. She doesn’t give us intimate details about Peeta and her children because those things are most precious to her, now that they are true. She expects us, the readers, to have come to care for her enough to give her the privacy she deserves.
Peeta is always open to drawing or painting anything for Katniss and she's frequently taken him up on it. It's usually not that difficult for him, he loves the chance to paint, to refine his skills. Katniss loves having not only a reminder of certain memories but also a physical representation of Peeta's enduring and almost quiet love for her. And it's easy. Natural. That is until Katniss looks at Peeta one day and asks, "Would you do a self-portrait for me?"
That's hard for him. The sketches are never quite right, the colors are off. Katniss doesn't ever nitpick at his paintings, and she isn't being unkind or anything, but she always looks at the drafts with an uncertain expression only to say, "Somethings not right, Peeta."
Peeta gets frustrated. Why can't he just do this painting? He asks Katniss what is off about the sketches, and it's always a thousand little things. His eyes aren't that severe. He's supposed to have freckles there. His mouth is softer in real life. His hair doesn't curl like that. His expression is off. He can never seem to get it right. What is it about this painting?
They're lying on the couch one day when Katniss says, "Maybe you just can't see yourself the way I do."
That makes him curious. How does she see him? They start trying to figure that out. He says that she should describe his face to him as if he were a plant for the book, and maybe they could arrive somewhere accurate.
Katniss finds it a little funny, even odd, he's himself. He has to be more familiar with his own face than she is, but she humors him. They sit down in his studio together and begin.
It becomes an exercise in getting to know her, somehow, on a level that he hadn't explored before. She spends a long time talking about the shape of his eyes, the fan of his eyelashes, and the color of his irises. Her cheeks stain with embarrassment, and his heart knocks against his ribs, trying to escape, maybe even trying to reach out to her.
She has something to say about details he'd never even thought of before. The angle of his chin, the exact colour of his hair. She has descriptions that don't make much sense to him too. His smile is like spring and his scars are like marigolds. When given time, Katniss ends up arranging a whole bouquet of wildflowers with her descriptions.
He loves her. He already knew that. Heck, people on the other side of the country already knew that, but he'd had no idea, somehow, he still had no idea the depth of Katniss's devotion. It's beautiful and seemingly never-ending and it fills his own heart with joy.
They create the portrait together, after many hours spent alone. It's a painting of his own face, yet, it holds a deep intimacy and he can't seem to look at it without smiling and blushing like a fool. He doesn't think of it as his, even if it's a painting of himself, the painting is wholly Katniss's. He presents it to her when he's finished and Katniss smiles warmly, looking down at it with such affection. She hangs it in the hall, near the bench where she keeps her arrows so she can look at it when she leaves every morning and when she comes back home. That part of the house is very private, he doesn't even really go there that often, so it feels special. To know that Katniss wanted to bring him there with her, in her own way.
Humiliation Kink is a name you’d see in a family tree from 1640s Massachusetts
Alright you thirsty wenches. About two months ago, I wrote and posted a silly little drabble in response to an ask about Everlark and sending nudes but didn't say which of my stories the drabble came from. Well, turns out that was an opening for me to play myself into writing a bunch of drabbles from almost all of my au's (because you all are TERRIBLE PEOPLE who kept guessing incorrectly on purpose) wherein either Katniss or Peeta asks the other one to send nudes... I promised to post an expanded version of the drabble that started it all and reveal which universe it belongs to, and then I never did.
Oops.
Well I am here to deliver (finally). Here is the original thread with all of the pieces attached. I do plan on posting these to ao3 in the coming days, along with a backlog of other pieces I've neglected to cross post. The expanded version is below the cut. But first, I have to tag a few people. @distractionsfromthefood!! For guessing correctly on the first try, although I'm still not convinced you weren't just naming a story no one else had guessed yet... @missmoony and @triassictriserratops for handing in multiple guesses to include the correct one at some point, and definitely getting yourselves on my shit list for all the wrong ones. ;) (I tease. This was a lot of fun). @everdares and @bellairestrella for being game to play along as well. And my eternal thanks to my beta and friend, buttercupbadass, for gleefully plotting along with me as I wrote each one. And now...
Can you imagine if the THG movies actually stuck to the books?
People would have walked out of the theatres absolutely shell shocked
Witchy Wednesday tomorrow
- what time it is
- how long you’ve been reading
- how many chapters you’ve covered in the last 24 hours
- what you were late for because you were reading
- the woeful few hours you have left to sleep
- the emotional outbreaks you’re experiencing
- the inappropriate place you’re having said outbreak
- the general public’s reaction to your outbreak
- how much phone battery you have left
Katniss Everdeen ❤️🩹🌼 I hadn’t drawn her in so many years!! my babygirl since I was 13/14 i love her sm!!
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imagining Katniss dropping the baby bomb instead of Peeta is actually so funny. Not only would no one believe her, but everyone would know she was a raging virgin with a strong suppressed desire for Peeta Mellark:
"Oh yeah. We did it. Aaaall night long. We were... knocking boots. We did it, a lot! So much! It was awesome. And hot and raw and tender. That's right. I'm soooo pregnant. Pregnant! With twins! Triplets! So many babies, because we did it so much. I'm so satisfied, but also... also not. 'Cause, oh no, we're going to die! So you need to stop this! So I can have more babies, and we can do it. More. A lot. So much."
"And that's all the time we have. Give it up for Kat--"
"So pregnant! Pregnant!"
"Okay, we understood Kat--"
"Because we did it! All over the place! Even on the floor!"
"Can we cut to commercial?"
happy birthday, katniss everdeen, my beautiful, healing warrior! may your life remain as gentle as his love for you has always been.
i would argue that one of katniss's greatest fears is being abandoned. left alone to deal with the cruelty of the world alone.
when she finally considers that she and peeta might be able to make it back home, she considers what her life post-hunger games would look like. her thoughts immediately turn to haymitch. all alone. no one to care for him (thg, 311).
her mind is racked with the fear of becoming that way until she verbally calms herself through the reminder that she won't be alone. she will have prim and her mother (thg, 311). but, as katniss hypothesizes further into her future, she realizes that they might not stay with her forever. with her mother dead. and prim married, away with a new family. leaving her forgotten. and utterly alone (thg, 311).
but as katniss is consumed with these thoughts, the sun rises and illuminates peeta, forcing her attention to him. yet, as katniss thinks about her future with her dandelion in the spring, all she can think about is how they will be friends, good friends (thg, 312). it never even crossed her mind to consider that he could leave her too. because he can't leave her. he just can't.
and when katniss is forced to recognize that he is going to die for her so that she can return the lone victor, she desperately tries to figure a way out of it. because no matter what he wants, he can't "leave [her] there alone" (thg, 343). and so he doesn't. and they leave as two victors.
this same fear of solitude follows katniss into catching fire. especially after gale decides to abandon katniss (and her plan to flee district twelve) in order to join the rebellion. because that night, after everything, katniss holds peeta's hand to her cheek and tries to confirm if he too will leave her. will he leave her for loftier plans or stay with her? and of course, he confirms his resolve to stay with her. always (cf, 46; mj, 187).
but at the end of everything, her worst fear seems to come true. her sister dead. her mother fleeing. her best friend gone.
with only a daily visit from an assumed government-employed family friend to keep her company, katniss everdeen is left utterly alone (mj, 323).
that is, until peeta comes back. with the turn of the seasons. his arms full of primroses to remember a little girl. ready to remind katniss of the beauty existing in their broken world.
because he came back for her. because he heard her desperate plea in the 74th games. the one ingrained in every 'stay with me' and 'i need you' that followed. because he wasn't going to leave her to deal with the cruelty of the world alone.
he promised he wasn't going to leave her. and he never did.
I think something that truly shows Katniss’s character growth is her reaction to death
She says in THG that she used to double over in pain, wondering where her father has gone. In mockingjay, she collapses with Buttercup because she knows where Prim is.
Her father’s death gave her the ability to kill - it gives her the strength to hunt, both animals and people. Prim’s death gives her empathy for life as she cares for the cat she once tried to drown.
I think Prim’s death also shows what she is at her core - a caregiver. Prim kept her going after her father died since she had someone to look after - she only starts to properly process her feelings once she has Buttercup (named after another small yellow flower) to care for.
And that is Katniss’s problem. All throughout the series, she never lives for herself, only to care for others. And if that keeps her going, it’s enough. But I like to imagine that perhaps she learns to care and live for herself after the war.
