#project: mockingjay | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ilguna · 8 months

Note

Hi again this is from the supply run. Could you please do #17 from aisle 1 and # 22 from aisle 2 with finnick? Thank you! 🎉 -🪐

☼ only friends (Finnick Odair) ☼

warnings; swearing, gore, blood mention, death, death mention.

wc; 5.7k

prompt; 17. denying their relationship strongly. 22. "They won't take you away from me ever again."

—

“Tomorrow morning, when we pull Katniss Everdeen’s body from the ashes, we will see exactly who the Mockingjay is. A dead girl who could save no one, not even herself.” Snow’s voice is haunting as he gives the final word. The Capitol seal replaces his face, the anthem plays, and the television shuts off.

“Except that you won’t find her.” Finnick says to the empty screen, turning his head to glance at you.

The Peacekeeper’s that will be sent to retrieve the bodies tomorrow will be missing twelve of them, actually. All they’ll come across is Boggs and one of the Leeg sisters. The rest of you made it out safely.

“We can get a head start on them at least.” Katniss says, pulling out the Holo. She moves closer to Jackson, listening to a set of directions on how to work the device. She manages to get the coordinates in, and a projection of the surrounding streets fills the air.

The silence is suffocating as you watch all the different colored blinking lights. No matter what direction you decide you’re going to go, there will be hundreds of pods waiting for you. And these all happened to pop up in the past couple of hours.

You look at Finnick again, and find that he’s got his eyes on you already. This trip has just gotten ten times more dangerous, and your options on travel are beginning to dwindle, quickly.

“Any ideas?” Katniss asks.

“Why don’t we start by ruling out the possibilities.” Finnick tears his eyes from yours. “The street is not a possibility.”

“The rooftops are just as bad as the street.” Leeg says.

“We still might have a chance to withdraw, go back the way we came.” Homes suggests. “But that would mean a failed mission.”

Katniss frowns briefly. “It was never intended for all of us to go forward. You just had the misfortune to be with me.”

“Well, that’s a moot point. We’re with you now. So, we can’t stay put. We can’t move up. We can’t move laterally.” Jackson shakes her head. “I think that just leaves one option.”

“Underground.” Gale agrees.

Your nose crinkles at the idea, but you force your face to smooth. Now is not a time to be picky, especially when you’re being cornered so harshly. You want to make it out of this city alive, which means you’ll do anything for it to happen.

Katniss switches the Holo to show the pods beneath the surface. While it appears that there’s not nearly as much pods underground, the sewers are going to be harder to navigate. The streets are straightforward, the sewer is full of twisting and turning tunnels. It’s a mess.

With no other option, it’s decided.

“Okay, then. Let’s make it look like we’ve never been here.” Katniss says.

You all get to your feet, picking up empty cans to send down the trash chute, while packing the full ones into your bag. The others flip the couch cushions over to hide the blood, wipe the tracks of black oil from the tile, and lock the second bolt on the door from keeping it from looking like the door got kicked in.

Peeta sits on the blue sofa. “I’m not going. I’ll either disclose your position or hurt someone else.”

“Snow’s people will find you.” Finnick tells him, you stop next to him, crossing your arms.

“Then leave me a pill. I’ll only take it if I have to.”

“That’s not an option. Come along.” Jackson says.

“Or you’ll what? Shoot me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Peeta.” You say.

“We’ll knock you out and drag you with us.” Homes says. “Which will both slow us down and endanger us.”

“Stop being noble! I don’t care if I die!” He shouts, proceeding to turn to Katniss. “Katniss, please. Don’t you see, I want to be out of this?”

Katniss stares at him for a long moment. “We’re wasting time. Are you coming voluntarily or do we knock you out?”

Peeta takes in a breath, burying his face in his hands, letting out a long sigh. He then gets to his feet to join you.

“Should we free his hands?” Leeg asks.

“No!” Peeta snarls, pulling the cuffs closer to his body.

“No.” Katniss agrees. “But I want the key.” Jackson pulls it out, handing it over to Katniss, who slips it into a pocket in her pants.

With this decided, you all begin to head for the maintenance shaft that you have to enter through the back closet on the upper floor. From there, two doors down, a vertical tube connects the row of apartments to the tunnels below. When Homes opens the small metal door to the shaft, it’s clear that the shells Castor and Pollux are wearing will not fit.

They shed them, stashing the shells in the closet, because that’s the only option they have. Castor and Pollux settle on using their emergency cameras, which are roughly the size of a shoebox.

You let them go in through first, motioning for Finnick to go next. He does the same, the two of you stare at each other for a long second. “Come on, Finnick.”

“I’m not letting you take up the rear.” He tells you.

“It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Which is why you’ll be going first.” He raises his eyebrows.

You roll your eyes, shedding your backpack to drag next to you while you shuffle through the tight space. You sidestep past the first apartment, and join the others in the second one, where they’ve already begun to crowd around the tube to the tunnels.

Messalla frowns at the circular cover behind the utility door. “It’s why no one ever wants the center unit. Workmen coming and going whenever and no second bath. But the rent’s considerably cheaper.” He mutters, when he looks up and sees the way you and Finnick are looking at him, he adds, “Never mind.”

The cover opens easily, there’s a wide ladder with rubber treads on the steps to allow quick movement up and down. You don’t bother to argue with Finnick about this one, sliding down the ladder, gathering at the bottom.

It’s terribly dark down here, even with the strip of dim lights. You wait for your eyes to adjust, while being forced to breathe in the smell down here. A sickening mixture between chemicals, mildew and sewage.

“Are you alright?” Finnick asks, moving a hair out of your face. “You look like you’re going to puke.”

“It’s the smell.” You rub your nose.

Pollux is pale, sweat running down the side of his forehead. He grabs onto Castor, holding on with white knuckles.

“My brother worked down here after he became an Avox.” Castor says. “Took five years before we were able to buy his way up to ground level. Didn’t see the sun once.”

It’s quiet between you all, no one knowing how to respond to something so horrid. You couldn’t imagine being forced down here for an extended period of time. You would go crazy. You’d break out and run and get yourself killed because you’re so desperate to see the sky.

“Well, then you just became our most valuable asset.” Peeta says, turning to Pollux. Castor laughs, and Pollux manages to smile.

Pollux leads the way down the first tunnel, you and Finnick walk side by side in the very back, behind Jackson and Gale, who are watching over Peeta like hawks. He doesn’t seem to care, hunched over, watching the ground.

It turns out that there’s a network of wide tunnels that corresponds to the main street plan above. They call it the Transfer, because small trucks use it to deliver goods around the city. The pods are deactivated during the day, but at night it’s a different story. It’s as bad as the ground above.

Pollux knows details that would be dangerous for a newcomer. The tunnels hold hundreds of additional passages, utility shafts, train tracks and drainage tubes that work together to form a multilevel maze. Some offshoots might require gas masks, have live wires, or rats the size of beavers.

He'll alert the gush of water that sweeps through the sewers like clockwork, and anticipates when the Avoxes will be changing shifts. He even brings you into damp, obscure pipes to hide from almost silent cargo trains. And most importantly, he has knowledge of the cameras. There aren't many down here, except in the transfer.

You make remarkable time, compared to when you’d been traveling above. Still, after six hours, everyone is tired and irritated. It’s three in the morning, when Katniss suggests to rest. Pollux leads everyone into a small, warm room that hums with machines. He holds up his fingers to tell you that you must be gone in four hours.

Jackson works out a guard schedule, one that has you take watch right in the middle. You grit your teeth, unhappy because you won’t be getting much sleep after all, but Finnick objects and tells her that he’ll work your shift, and his.

“Stop it.” You whisper to him. “You need to sleep too.”

“I feel fine.” Finnick looks at you. “You can’t think straight when you’re tired.”

You narrow your eyes. “Yeah? And you become a walking hazard.”

“I’m not arguing with you.” He laughs. “Just be grateful I’m your best friend and go to sleep.”

You press your lips together, tilting your head back to rest against the wall. It’s not very comfortable, you adjust several times, until Finnick pushes your head to rest on his shoulder. You let out a snort, and he shushes you.

It doesn’t take long for you to fall asleep, but it’s too easy to wake you. Finnick slides out from where he’d been sitting next to you, and you can’t fall back asleep. He sits next to Pollux, watching the opening you came from. You watch him quietly with tired eyes.

“Are you okay?” Finnick murmurs to Pollux.

He nods, waving away Finnick’s concern with a hand. And then, he motions to you and Finnick, and signs the word ‘date’. You can see Finnick begin to turn his head in your direction, so you close your eyes and fight the smile that wants to come across your face.

It was only a matter of time before he asked, Cressida already did yesterday. She watched Finnick give you a hand down after doing a propo with Katniss. He made a joke, you crinkled your nose at him in response, and he told you that he thought it was cute when you did that.

Cressida had bumped your shoulder a few minutes later, and asked if you and Finnick were dating, or if there was anything between you two. You had to tell her that you and Finnick are only friends. You’ve known each other since high school, which was a decade ago. If either of you had feelings, then it’d be obvious.

You’re used to the assumptions by now, that’s why you’re not bothered by it, and you find it funny.

“No, we’re not dating.” Finnick says, you peek your eyes open to see Pollux blink in surprise, and begin to move his hands. Finnick lets out a laugh. “Yes, I know sign, so does (Y/n). Annie, the victor that was rescued, uses sign language from time to time to communicate when she’s having trouble.”

Pollux nods, making a face, and begins to sign again. Finnick falls quiet enough for the drowsiness to wash over you. You tilt your head back to sleep.

—

“(Y/n).” Finnick shakes your shoulder. “We’ve got to go.”

You take in a breath, holding it for a second, until it erupts into a yawn. When you open your eyes, you’re met with Finnick, making sure you’re alright. You squint, rubbing your face to make yourself more awake.

“You didn’t sleep well.” Finnick says, it’s not a question.

“I woke up after you moved.” You admit, “It’s fine, I fell asleep again.”

He makes a noise, going to open his mouth to speak, when Katniss shushes the group of you. She’s got her eyes on the entrance, listening hard. For a second, all you can hear is the humming of the machines around you, and then you make out the hissing sound.

“Katniss.”

It echoes throughout the tunnels, coming back to you, repeated over and over. Katniss is confused, glancing back at you briefly, before looking away. She jumps at the sound of her name coming from inside of the room, and lands on Peeta. She waits, slowly pulling an arrow out to put on her bow, positioning it over the sleeping Peeta.

He jerks up before she can act on her violence. His eyes are wide, head whipping in her direction, but it’s not because of the arrow pointed at him. “Katniss! Get out of here!”

Katniss lowers the bow slightly. “Why? What’s making that sound?”

“I don’t know. Only that it has to kill you.” Peeta says. “Run! Get out! Go!”

Finnick gets to his feet at the sound of that, holding his hand out for you. You let him pull you to your feet, adjusting the straps on your body until they’re comfortable again. This makes the others move as well, Katniss returns the arrow to where it came from.

“Whatever it is, it’s after me. It might be a good time to split up.” She says.

“But we’re your guard.” Jackson tells her.

“And your crew.” Cressida adds.

“I’m not leaving you.” Gale shakes his head.

Katniss looks between the eleven of you, eyes going from person to person. “Okay,” She agrees. “Finnick, give a gun to Castor. Jackson, will you eject the empty cartridge from Peeta’s and load it with a real one? And (Y/n) do you still have the other Leeg sister’s gun?”

“Yes.” You reach for it, pulling it out for her to see.

“Give it to Pollux.” She tells you. She and Gale then give up their guns, handing them over to Messalla and Cressida because they have their bows. They give a brief lesson on how to shoot the guns, which is all you can afford to do at the moment.

Everything is cleaned up and packed into backpacks, including empty cans to avoid leaving a physical trail, just a scent. When you step foot out of the room, the hissing becomes louder, coming from a fair distance behind you. Without a second thought, you go out in front of Finnick, and you can feel the weight of him grabbing onto your backpack.

You try to move quickly and quietly, but it’s nearly impossible with this many people. The sounds of your shoes splashing in water, the clang of a gun against a pipe, and Katniss giving directions. Still, you manage to cover more blocks before the screaming begins.

You go rigid.

“Avoxes.” Peeta tells you without missing a beat. “That’s what Darius sounded like when they tortured him.”

“The mutts must have found them.” Cressida murmurs.

“So they’re not just after Katniss.” Leeg says.

“They’ll probably kill anyone. It’s just that they won’t stop until they get to her.” Gale says, and he’s right.

Katniss shakes her head. “Let me go on alone. Lead them off. I’ll transfer the Holo to Jackson. The rest of you can finish the mission.”

“No one’s going to agree to that!” Jackson says.

“We’re wasting time!” Finnick whisper-shouts, leaning over your shoulder.

“Listen.” Peeta whispers.

The screams have stopped, and the hissing has resumed, much closer than it was before. Katniss nudges Pollux wordlessly, and the twelve of you begin to run through the tunnel. She opens up the Holo when you reach a staircase, scanning for another route, when she begins to gag.

“Masks on!” Jackson orders.

Katniss forces her way through a door, stumbling out onto the Transfer. She begins to move, pulling out an explosive arrow to activate the pod. The streets are pastel, smooth, easy to run on. The road is empty from deliveries as far as any of you can tell, but cameras could be at any corner.

Regardless, she sprints for the next intersection, telling you to keep close. Finnick lets go of your bag, running past you to grab a hold of her. “Katniss!”

A beacon of white light encapsulates Messalla, who is as still as a statue inside. With his head tilted back, on the ball of one foot, mouth opened wide. You watch in horror as the flesh melts off of his body.

“Can’t help him!” Peeta shoves you from behind, making you stumble a step. “Can’t!”

You begin to move again, following after him and Katniss, dodging beams of light as they come down from the ceiling. You’re sweating bullets by the time you’ve made it to the next intersection, where a spray of gunfire brings you to a stop.

Peacekeepers are running down the Transfer after you, shooting. You swing your gun up to start shooting back, because you have nowhere to go past here. This is the pod that Katniss wanted to activate first before moving on. The others begin to join you, and together, you manage to bring down a good portion of the Peacekeepers before more begin to swarm in from the door you’d just come from.

You can’t help the startled scream that leaves your mouth when you realize that these aren’t, in fact, Peacekeepers. They’re mutts. They’re naked, about the size of a human, with heads that are jutted forward, arched backs and reptilian tails. They hound the Peacekeepers, living and dead, and begin to rip helmeted heads off of shoulders.

It’s only seconds before all the Peacekeepers are decapitated, and they’re slithering toward you on their bellies.

“This way!” Katniss shouts, hugging the wall and making a sharp turn to avoid the pod. As soon as you’ve successfully cleared the pod, Katniss shoots at it. Mechanical teeth burst through the street and begin to chew the tile to dust. She turns to Pollux, you keep your eyes on where the mutts should be coming from. “Forget the mission. What’s the quickest way above ground?”

Pollux moves, going down the Transfer and through a doorway. The shiny tile turns to concrete, Finnick pushes you in front of him as you travel through a tight pipe and onto a ledge that leads you to the main sewer.

A yard below, a nauseating brew of human waste, garbage and chemicals slide by, bubbling when it touches the wall. It’s hard to tear your eyes away from the parts of the surface that are on fire, and you can physically see the vapor that it emits.

You hurry down the path, over a narrow bridge and into an alcove on the far side. Pollux smacks a ladder with his hand and points upward. Katniss turns to look at you, and her face twists. “Wait! Where are Jackson and Leeg One?”

“They stayed at the Grinder to hold the mutts back.” Homes tells her.

“What?” She lunges toward the bridge, and Homes pulls her back.

“Don’t waste their lives, Katniss. It’s too late for them. Look!” Homes nods to the pipe, where the mutts are coming out by the dozen.

“Stand back!” Gale shouts, firing an explosive arrow into the bridge’s foundation. It snaps, bringing down a good number of mutts.

With them being so close, you’re able to see what they actually look like. Their mouths are wide, teeth sharp, smeared blood on their reptilian skin. Their clawed hands and feet have chunks of flesh stuck between them. You gag.

The mutts throw themselves into the sewage without thinking, wanting to get their hands on you. Everyone open fires, and this lasts for a good few minutes, throwing everything you have at the monsters. They don’t die easily, though. Not even with a dozen bullets in their body, which causes everyone to come to the same consensus.

You have to run.

You have no other option, especially because of the sheer volume of them that are still coming out of the sewer pipe. Finnick tries to make a grab at you to swing you toward the ladder, but you shove him first.

He opens his mouth to speak, but doesn’t get a chance to when you point your finger and bark, “Go!”

Finnick begrudgingly grabs the ladder rungs and begins to climb up after Peeta, Cressida following directly on his trail. It’s you, Gale, Homes and Castor left at the bottom. You shoot what you can, making a big enough gap for Gale to begin to climb the ladder. When Castor goes to follow, a rogue mutt from the sewer river reaches up and grabs him. He disappears over the edge.

“Go ahead!” Homes shouts at you, “I’ll hold them!”

You make it to the ladder, you’ve got your right foot placed on a rung, looking up to see how far you have to climb. You’re met with the sight of the Holo, falling down in your direction, projecting a bright blinking red light, and beeping like a dangerous bomb.

“No!” You scream.

Homes turns to see what’s happening, when your body slams into his, bringing the two of you to the ground. The mutts begin to pile on top of you, just as the bomb explodes.

The blast pierces your eardrums before you have a chance to cover your ears. You squeeze your eyes shut, feeling the ground shake beneath you. A shower of wet and clumped matter rains down on you. When you open your eyes, you find that the mutts on top of you are gone, and with their sacrifice, you’re still alive.

You roll over, the mutts in the surrounding area are dead. You struggle to breathe through the smoke and debris that rains down from the ceiling above, your throat and lungs already raw from breathing in the poisonous soup below. You look at Homes, shaking him to get him to move, because the ringing in your ears is so strong.

He doesn’t move. You turn his head, and it moves with no resistance. You scoot away, eyebrows twitching, heart pounding in your chest at the sight of his face, half blown away from the blast.

You struggle to get to your feet, limping over to the ladder, which is covered in the gore from the mutts. When you look up, there is no opening like there had been previously. They threw the cover over. You begin to climb quickly, and at the top, you try to swing it open. It doesn’t budge.

They locked it.

You hang off of the ladder for a moment, taking deep breaths. You have to get out of here. You’re not going to be trapped here. You go back down, and shuffle through the bodies of the mutts to stare at what’s left of the bridge that Gale decided to blow. It’s not much.

It’s possible, though. You swing your bag off of your shoulder and throw it the distance to the other side. You watch helplessly as it slides on the ledge, coming close to falling. Right when you’re sure it’s going to stop, it slips over the side, and into the sewage.

You let out a defeated sigh.

You stare at what you have to work with, and it’s virtually nothing. The bag wouldn’t have helped much, anyway. It just had food and other supplies if you managed to get stuck down here for an extended period of time.

That won’t happen, you’ll get to the other side of the bridge. You grab a hold of Homes’ body, flipping him onto his stomach to expose the back of his vest, which is clean of blood. You carefully push him to where the bridge should be, and then walk all the way back to the ladder, where you’ll start.

You can cross the gap, the issue is slipping on the blood. That’s why, when you break out into a run, you use Homes body as a launchpad. Your stomach is in your throat the second you’re off of the ground and flying over the gap. You come into harsh contact with the cement on the other side.

You get to your feet, starting to backtrack the way you came. It’s through the tight pipe, down to the doorway until concrete turns back to cute pastel tile. It leads you back to the Transfer, where the grinding pod has stopped. You pick up a piece of broken tile to throw at it, and when it doesn’t start back up, you go through it.

There’s a sea of bodies of Peacekeeper and mutt alike. Among them, you find Jackson and Leeg, both decapitated. You start to head in the direction of where you’d come from, from here. The sight of Messalla stops you, and you turn around to go back through the grinding pod.

You begin to walk down the street of the Transfer, taking your time, occasionally throwing broken tiles in the direction you’re going in hopes that it’ll set off a pod. The familiar sound of hissing seizes your heart, making you stop dead in your tracks. You turn your body slightly, afraid to see if it’s true.

It is.

You begin to run down the Transfer, abandoning your original plan of taking your time to find a place to crawl out. You have nothing to defend yourself with. You almost took the gun off of Jackson, but you thought that you were past the mutts and you had to worry about the pods. You should’ve known better than to trust the silence.

You throw yourself at the first door you see, slamming your shoulder into it because you expect it to swing open. It’s locked, a pain begins to blossom in your shoulder, but you push through, heading further in.

Every door you run across is locked. The mutts are practically on top of you, if you slow down for even a second, it’ll surely mean your death. You don’t know how long you go on like this for, triggering pods, trying to kill what’s sent after you, getting injured because of it.

It must be an hour later when you finally see a door ajar. You throw yourself into it, right as you step off of a tile that had sunk with your weight. It explodes, launching you further into the hall. This does nothing to stop the mutts, as it went off too soon. A sharp claw scrapes your ankle, beginning to pull you toward it, when you slam your foot into its absent face.

You manage to scramble back to your feet, hurrying to the ladder that’s waiting for you at the end. You cross your fingers that this latch won’t be locked, because it’s your last chance to get out of here. You can’t go back, they’re swarming beneath you. The ladder isn’t slippery this time around, you yank yourself up in record time, reaching the top of the ladder in a matter of seconds.

You shove the cover open, pulling yourself out. When you’ve cleared the top, you slam it shut, twisting the latch to lock it. The mutts pound on it from the other side, you sit directly on top of it, gasping for air after running for your life for an hour straight.

You hold your arms out, looking at the cuts and bites you’ve received. The blood that’s on your body is more than your own, it belongs to the mutts and Homes, too. You won’t know the real damage until you’re clean, and that could be days from now.

When you feel like you can move, you get to your feet, stumbling to the next ladder that’ll surely lead you to the surface. You’re not going to run around in this tunnel looking for the others. They have to think you’re dead, which means they’ve moved on to the next place.

Thankfully, you know where that is.

At the top of this ladder is another cover, you open it to find that you’re in a utility room, which means that you’re in someone’s apartment. You pat down all of the pockets in your pants, trying to find a weapon. You come across something solid further down your pant leg. When you pull it out, you can see that it’s Finnick’s knife.

You let out a breath of relief, flicking it open. There are times when he makes you mad when he doesn’t listen to you. Other times, it comes in handy. If you run across anyone in this building, you have only one choice.

You open the door, heading into the room quietly. You can hear the sound of a television playing a room over. You slip into the hallway that’ll lead you to the front door, stealing a glance at the bedroom to see a Capitol woman with brightly colored yellow hair and white skin laying on a bed.

You make it to the kitchen and out the front door, into a small hallway with one other door. You leave down the stairs, almost going out to the street, when you see the light pouring through the windows. You back up, shaking your head. You need a disguise if you want to go out there. You’ll be spotted in the matter of minutes, every Capitol citizen knows your name and your face.

You sigh through your nose, going back up the stairs and into the apartment you just came out of. You fix the knife in your hand, creeping around the kitchen and to the hallway that leads to the bedroom. When you peek, she seems to be sleeping. Still, you don’t risk going up close, throwing the knife from where you stand.

Now you enter the room, leaving her body while you go to search through her belongings. You find several large coats, all brightly colored, and outfits you wouldn’t imagine wearing if it weren’t forced on you. You throw several aqua blue and lime green items onto the bed, pulling the knife out of her skull.

The front door is unlocked, so you relock it. In the woman’s bathroom, you start the shower, shedding everything you’re wearing to step beneath the warm water. It stings every cut on your body, you grit your teeth, watching as the water turns pink and doesn’t run clear for several minutes.

When you step out, you get dressed in the outfit you’d set aside. You tie your hair back into a tight bun at the back of your head, and opt for pulling on a brightly colored wig. As soon as you’re dressed and fairly disguised, you drag the woman to the utility closet, dropping her body down the ladder. The outfit that District Thirteen provided for you follows, as well as the bloodied bed sheets and towel. By the time you’re done, it doesn’t look like you were here at all. You shut the cover, lock the latch, and leave the apartment building.

It takes you a moment of wandering down the roads before you begin to recognize where you are. You’ve been here before, a couple times, actually. The Peacekeepers escorted you to these buildings, and then back to the Tribute Center when you were done working.

It takes you over an hour to get to the designer shop that Cressida was talking to you about. By then, the sun has risen and it’s got to be around noon. You enter through the door, trying to be casual about the way you do. It’s warm inside, there are pants and shirts and underwear made out of fur on mannequins, but there’s no sign that your friends were ever here.

“Can I help you?” A voice purrs.

You turn to see a tall woman, who has been surgically altered to have the appearance of a tiger. With her skin pulled back tightly, tattooed to have black and gold stripes. Her nose has been flattened, there’s whiskers protruding out of her lips. She wears a long fur coat that matches what she’s wearing.

“Possibly.” You murmur, “Are you Tigris?”

“Yes,” She says, looking over your face, eyes squinting. “And you are?”

“Looking for some friends.” You say, pulling off the wig. “I was told by Cressida that you could help.”

She hums, walking past you to the door. You turn to watch her, body tense, terrified that she’s about to shout to everyone out there that you’re a fugitive. Instead, she turns a lock, coming back your direction.

“Follow me.”

You do, she brings you behind a rack of clothes, sliding open a panel at the base of the wall. You peer inside and find that there’s a staircase on the other side. You look at her.

“Thank you.”

You have to crawl through the space, she slides the wall shut behind you. You go down the steep steps, eyes searching the darkness. You run into a hanging chain, which you instinctively reach up to pull on. Light fills the room, and you’re met with the sight of several people on the floor, now covering their eyes as they struggle to see their intruder.

It’s easy to spot Cressida, Pollux and Gale. You have to take a few more steps down in order to see Katniss and Peeta.

“(Y/n)...” Cressida’s voice is quiet.

“Where’s Finnick?”

The sound of moving fabric makes you turn your head. Finnick’s on his feet, coming in your direction, arms outstretched to take you in a hug. You run into him, pulling at his vest to bring him flush against your body.

He’s breathing heavily into your shoulder, a hand on the back of your head, the other wrapped around the middle of your back. “It’s okay.” You tell him, fingers wrapped in his curls. “I’m okay.”

“They won’t take you from me ever again.” Finnick tells you, pressing a kiss to your cheek.

You close your eyes. “I know.” You stroke his hair for a moment, and then pull away to hold onto his face. Finnick searches your eyes, you offer him a soft smile. “I’ll never leave you.”

this is part of my 3k celebration!!

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sameschmidtdiffname · 3 months

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I’m so fond of Soft for her Loved Ones Katniss and a Peeta who knows his grumpy wife is the soft one. I think that he always knew she was soft since he saw her with Prim, and that was part of him realizing she loved him. “She lets me get away with murder and my smile and baby blues get me anything”.

On a serious note, I do feel like during their growing back together period, Katniss is just so incredibly gentle and careful with Peeta when she can be. Like when they get close enough they're back to spending every day (every hour, every minute) together again Peeta has to barely suggest something before Katniss is up and running to get it for him. He nics himself once with an exacto knife during a project and Katniss is suddenly all "Doctor Everdeen" again and Peeta 'never had genuine care and affection growing up' Mellark, who somewhat remembers how she used to care for him pre-hijacking, is just slowly melting at every fret and touch, just watching her care with the biggest, lovesick puppy eyes he's ever had because it was tortured out of him to remember how nice it feels to be genuinely cared for.

I feel like this is even more exaggerated by the fact that after Mockingjay Katniss and Peeta I think switch some aspects of their personality. Like I would imagine Peeta is more akin to Katniss at the beginning of the series with falling in love now because he's very skeptical even though he can now remember how he used to feel, but that's like a completely different person in his head almost, so it's more a theory than a memory. So everytime Katniss is kind or loving to him at first he's nice about everything while internally semi distrustful of the whole thing, and definitely not fond of the idea of allowing himself to be vulnerable. Meanwhile Katniss has switched to needing validation and affection so bad it hurts, but knowing she can't demand it because that's not fair to Peeta so she just pours as much love as she feels she's allowed into all of her actions without trying to reveal her state of longing for him because she's just glad he's returned to her period. It doesn't have to be romantic.

I also feel like this would apply to when Katniss has nightmares and Peeta eventually begins comforting her via physical touch. I think it would be extremely obvious how touch starved Katniss is post-Mockingjay even though she tries to hide it for Peetas sake, and eventually Peeta just can't handle not doing whatever he can to help ease her mind, even if it's just holding her hand (which helps a lot) until all the subdued feelings just come pouring out that night they finally confess while tangled in their bedsheets.

Once they're well settled into their relationship? Peeta is 1000% abusing his husband privileges. One time he's three days into a painting project, there's acrylics all over the floor and Katniss tries to clean up but Peeta is insistent that it's fine because once they dry he can just scrape them off the floor with a washcloth. No, really honey, I used to do this all the time, as he pushes her quickly out the door of his study because he's way too invested to chit-chat and wants her to be surprised by the work anyways (he likes the praise from her seeing it go from a rough sketch to a full blown painting, especially since it's turned into a where's Waldo situation of her looking for themselves in his paintings.) And then he goes to clean up the paint himself only to realize this is really nice paint that has stained really nice Capitol-grade imported wood and it is not coming out. Katniss is fully aware of what happened the minute Peeta comes home rambling quickly about these "wonderful rugs Effie had" and "I just had to get one for the house" because "It's good luck" and he'll tell her about it some other time, he's gotta get this rug upstairs. Ignore any bumps you hear! (She does not. The bump is Peeta falling down the stairs cuz his prosthetic glitched and between the giant woven rug and his natural clumsiness that fucker went down.) But she doesn't say anything because he has this stupid smile as he presents her with three paintings and a basket of cheese rolls because he just loves her so much, that's all.

Then there's one time a load of laundry goes missing and Peeta is just insistent that the clothes must be in some odd corner unwashed, even though she could've sworn she put that load in the wash. So for two weeks straight she's just constantly thinking about this load, sometimes getting out of bed in the midst of the night when she can't sleep anyways to look for the damn clothes because they're obviously somewhere. Clothes don't move. But then her husband starts asking her to give up, they'll pop up sooner or later, and she's starting to wonder why he's baking so much bread. Like, lots of bread. Bread with cheese, or honey, or nuts. Just constantly kneading dough in their kitchen while chewing on his bottom lip, lost in thought. And at first she's convinced she's actually losing it. Maybe she's starting to have black out episodes. Is that even possible? To do something and just have absolutely no memory of the event at all? What if she starts hurting people during these episodes? What if she's already hurting people while she's in these episodes?? And that's why Peeta is so nervous now???

She's got an appointment with Dr. Aurelius next week, she'll bring it up to him. Peeta is definitely hiding something from her. But then one day after she comes home from her hunting trip, longing for her favorite sweater instead of the one she's wearing today, Peeta is beaming in the kitchen saying he found the load and it's all washed and hung up in the closet. "Oh, it was just behind the washer! Who knows how it got there."

Except Katniss knows she checked behind the washer. Three times, actually. And Peeta doesn't smile like that naturally. So she's not crazy, and Peeta has got something going on. So, when they go to bed that night, Katniss waits for three hours before she finally slips out of bed, knowing he's too konked out at this point to notice her missing and sneaks into his study to see what all could be in there. And after an hour of looking, she doesn't find anything, and now she feels bad for suspecting something and going through her husband's things. She's about to click off the light when she notices a bottle of oil paint missing in a set she'd bought for Peeta a little while ago for his birthday. And things start clicking together. Because first off, he doesn't go through paints that fast. Second off, even if he does, he never throws away the bottles. Like, ever. There is an entire drawer filled with empty bottles and such of paint and other supplies partially because Peeta needs to remember the names or brands, and partially because Peeta hates the idea of potentially wasting something unless he is fully convinced it's done. Which he never is.

It takes one day before he confesses, and when he does it's because Katniss casually mentions how her favorite sweater doesn't seem to have an old snag from when her ring caught on the yarn and nearly ripped a hole in the arm. And that's how she finds out Peeta accidently left a poorly closed bottle of azure blue paint in his pants pocket and not even Effie had been able to save the load, so she helped him reorder everything. Thus why he's been stress baking. And Katniss is way too entertained to be mad because at this point, there's no better reprimand than the one Peeta has given himself.

But idk tho. I don't think about them much :)

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caesarflickermans · 5 months

Text

A TENTH ANNIVERSARY INTERVIEW WITH SUZANNE COLLINS

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the publication of The Hunger Games, author Suzanne Collins and publisher David Levithan discussed the evolution of the story, the editorial process, and the first ten years of the life of the trilogy, encompassing both books and films. The following is their written conversation.

NOTE: The following interview contains a discussion of all three books in The Hunger Games Trilogy, so if you have yet to read Catching Fire and Mockingjay, you may want to read them before reading the full interview.

transcript below

DAVID LEVITHAN: Let’s start at the origin moment for The Hunger Games. You were flipping channels one night . . .

SUZANNE COLLINS: Yes, I was flipping through the channels one night between reality television programs and actual footage of the Iraq War, when the idea came to me. At the time, I was completing the fifth book in The Underland Chronicles and my brain was shifting to whatever the next project would be. I had been grappling with another story that just couldn’t get any air under its wings. I knew I wanted to continue to explore writing about just war theory for young audiences. In The Underland Chronicles, I’d examined the idea of an unjust war developing into a just war because of greed, xenophobia, and long-standing hatreds. For the next series, I wanted a completely new world and a different angle into the just war debate.

DL: Can you tell me what you mean by the “just war theory” and how that applies to the setup of the trilogy?

SC: Just war theory has evolved over thousands of years in an attempt to define what circumstances give you the moral right to wage war and what is acceptable behavior within that war and its aftermath. The why and the how. It helps differentiate between what’s considered a necessary and an unnecessary war. In The Hunger Games Trilogy, the districts rebel against their own government because of its corruption. The citizens of the districts have no basic human rights, are treated as slave labor, and are subjected to the Hunger Games annually. I believe the majority of today’s audience would define that as grounds for revolution. They have just cause but the nature of the conflict raises a lot of questions. Do the districts have the authority to wage war? What is their chance of success? How does the reemergence of District 13 alter the situation? When we enter the story, Panem is a powder keg and Katniss the spark.

DL: As with most novelists I know, once you have that origin moment — usually a connection of two elements (in this case, war and entertainment) — the number of connections quickly increases, as different elements of the story take their place. I know another connection you made early on was with mythology, particularly the myth of Theseus. How did that piece come to fit?

SC: I was such a huge Greek mythology geek as a kid, it’s impossible for it not to come into play in my storytelling. As a young prince of Athens, he participated in a lottery that required seven girls and seven boys to be taken to Crete and thrown into a labyrinth to be destroyed by the Minotaur. In one version of the myth, this excessively cruel punishment resulted from the Athenians opposing Crete in a war. Sometimes the labyrinth’s a maze; sometimes it’s an arena. In my teens I read Mary Renault’s The King Must Die, in which the tributes end up in the Bull Court. They’re trained to perform with a wild bull for an audience composed of the elite of Crete who bet on the entertainment. Theseus and his team dance and handspring over the bull in what’s called bull-leaping. You can see depictions of this in ancient sculpture and vase paintings. The show ended when they’d either exhausted the bull or one of the team had been killed. After I read that book, I could never go back to thinking of the labyrinth as simply a maze, except perhaps ethically. It will always be an arena to me.

DL: But in this case, you dispensed with the Minotaur, no? Instead, the arena harkens more to gladiator vs. gladiator than to gladiator vs. bull. What influenced this construction?

SC: A fascination with the gladiator movies of my childhood, particularly Spartacus. Whenever it ran, I’d be glued to the set. My dad would get outPlutarch’s Lives and read me passages from “Life of Crassus,” since Spartacus, being a slave, didn’t rate his own book. It’s about a person who’s forced to become a gladiator, breaks out of the gladiator school/arena to lead a rebellion, and becomes the face of a war. That’s the dramatic arc of both the real-life Third Servile War and the fictional Hunger Games Trilogy.

DL: Can you talk about how war stories influenced you as a young reader, and then later as a writer? How did this knowledge of war stories affect your approach to writing The Hunger Games?

SC: Now you can find many wonderful books written for young audiences that deal with war. That wasn’t the case when I was growing up. It was one of the reasons Greek mythology appealed to me: the characters battled, there was the Trojan War. My family had been heavily impacted by war the year my father, who was career Air Force, went to Vietnam, but except for my myths, I rarely encountered it in books. I liked Johnny Tremain but it ends as the Revolutionary War kicks off. The one really memorable book I had about war was Boris by Jaap ter Haar, which deals with the Siege of Leningrad in World War II.

My war stories came from my dad, a historian and a doctor of political science. The four years before he left for Vietnam, the Army borrowed him from the Air Force to teach at West Point. His final assignment would be at Air Command and Staff College. As his kids, we were never too young to learn, whether he was teaching us history or taking us on vacation to a battlefield or posing a philosophical dilemma. He approached history as a story, and fortunately he was a very engaging storyteller. As a result, in my own writing, war felt like a completely natural topic for children.

DL: Another key piece of The Hunger Games is the voice and perspective that Katniss brings to it. I know some novelists start with a character and then find a story through that character, but with The Hunger Games (and correct me if I’m wrong) I believe you had the idea for the story first, and then Katniss stepped into it. Where did she come from? I’d love for you to talk about the origin of her name, and also the origin of her very distinctive voice.

SC: Katniss appeared almost immediately after I had the idea, standing by the bed with that bow and arrow. I’d spent a lot of time during The Underland Chronicles weighing the attributes of different weapons. I used archers very sparingly because they required light and the Underland has little natural illumination. But a bow and arrow can be handmade, shot from a distance, and weaponized when the story transitions into warfare. She was a born archer.

Her name came later, while I was researching survival training and specifically edible plants. In one of my books, I found the arrowhead plant, and the more I read about it, the more it seemed to reflect her. Its Latin name has the same roots as Sagittarius, the archer. The edible tuber roots she could gather, the arrowhead-shaped leaves were her defense, and the little white blossoms kept it in the tradition of flower names, like Rue and Primrose. I looked at the list of alternative names for it. Swamp Potato. Duck Potato. Katniss easily won the day.

As to her voice, I hadn’t intended to write in first person. I thought the book would be in the third person like The Underland Chronicles. Then I sat down to work and the first page poured out in first person, like she was saying, “Step aside, this is my story to tell.” So I let her.

DL: I am now trying to summon an alternate universe where the Mockingjay is named Swamp Potato Everdeen. Seems like a PR challenge. But let’s stay for a second on the voice — because it’s not a straightforward, generic American voice. There’s a regionalism to it, isn’t there? Was that present from the start?

SC: It was. There’s a slight District 12 regionalism to it, and some of the other tributes use phrases unique to their regions as well. The way they speak, particularly the way in which they refuse to speak like citizens of the Capitol, is important to them. No one in District 12 wants to sound like Effie Trinket unless they’re mocking her. So they hold on to their regionalisms as a quiet form of rebellion. The closest thing they have to freedom of speech is their manner of speaking.

DL: I’m curious about Katniss’s family structure. Was it always as we see it, or did you ever consider giving her parents greater roles? How much do you think the Everdeen family’s story sets the stage for Katniss’s story within the trilogy?

SC: Her parents have their own histories in District 12 but I only included what’s pertinent to Katniss’s tale. Her father’s hunting skills, musicality, and death in the mines. Her mother’s healing talent and vulnerabilities. Her deep love for Prim. Those are the elements that seemed essential to me.

DL: This completely fascinates me because I, as an author, rarely know more (consciously) about the characters than what’s in the story. But this sounds like you know much more about the Everdeen parents than found their way to the page. What are some of the more interesting things about them that a reader wouldn’t necessarily know?

SC: Your way sounds a lot more efficient. I have a world of information about the characters that didn’t make it into the book. With some stories, revealing that could be illuminating, but in the case of The Hunger Games, I think it would only be a distraction unless it was part of a new tale within the world of Panem.

DL: I have to ask — did you know from the start how Prim’s story was going to end? (I can’t imagine writing the reaping scene while knowing — but at the same time I can’t imagine writing it without knowing.)

SC: You almost have to know it and not know it at the same time to write it convincingly, because the dramatic question, Can Katniss save Prim?, is introduced in the first chapter of the first book, and not answered until almost the end of the trilogy. At first there’s the relief that, yes, she can volunteer for Prim. Then Rue, who reminds her of Prim, joins her in the arena and she can’t save her. That tragedy refreshes the question. For most of the second book, Prim’s largely out of harm’s way, although there’s always the threat that the Capitol might hurt her to hurt Katniss. The jabberjays are a reminder of that. Once she’s in District 13 and the war has shifted to the Capitol, Katniss begins to hope Prim’s not only safe but has a bright future as a doctor. But it’s an illusion. The danger that made Prim vulnerable in the beginning, the threat of the arena, still exists. In the first book, it’s a venue for the Games; in the second, the platform for the revolution; in the third, it’s the battleground of Panem, coming to a head in the Capitol. The arena transforms but it’s never eradicated; in fact it’s expanded to include everyone in the country. Can Katniss save Prim? No. Because no one is safe while the arena exists.

DL: If Katniss was the first character to make herself known within story, when did Peeta and Gale come into the equation? Did you know from the beginning how their stories would play out vis-à-vis Katniss’s?

SC: Peeta and Gale appeared quickly, less as two points on a love triangle, more as two perspectives in the just war debate. Gale, because of his experiences and temperament, tends toward violent remedies. Peeta’s natural inclination is toward diplomacy. Katniss isn’t just deciding on a partner; she’s figuring out her worldview.

DL: And did you always know which worldview would win? It’s interesting to see it presented in such a clear-cut way, because when I think of Katniss, I certainly think of force over diplomacy.

SC: And yet Katniss isn’t someone eager to engage in violence and she takes no pleasure in it. Her circumstances repeatedly push her into making choices that include the use of force. But if you look carefully at what happens in the arena, her compassionate choices determine her survival. Taking on Rue as an ally results in Thresh sparing her life. Seeking out Peeta and caring for him when she discovers how badly wounded he is ultimately leads to her winning the Games. She uses force only in self-defense or defense of a third party, and I’m including Cato’s mercy killing in that. As the trilogy progresses, it becomes increasingly difficult to avoid the use of force because the overall violence is escalating with the war. The how and the why become harder to answer.

Yes, I knew which worldview would win, but in the interest of examining just war theory you need to make the arguments as strongly as possible on both sides. While Katniss ultimately chooses Peeta, remember that in order to end the Hunger Games her last act is to assassinate an unarmed woman. Conversely, in The Underland Chronicles, Gregor’s last act is to break his sword to interrupt the cycle of violence. The point of both stories is to take the reader through the journey, have them confront the issues with the protagonist, and then hopefully inspire them to think about it and discuss it. What would they do in Katniss’s or Gregor’s situation? How would they define a just or unjust war and what behavior is acceptable within warfare? What are the human costs of life, limb, and sanity? How does developing technology impact the debate? The hope is that better discussions might lead to more nonviolent forms of conflict resolution, so we evolve out of choosing war as an option.

DL: Where does Haymitch fit into this examination of war? What worldview does he bring?

SC: Haymitch was badly damaged in his own war, the second Quarter Quell, in which he witnessed and participated in terrible things in order to survive and then saw his loved ones killed for his strategy. He self-medicates with white liquor to combat severe PTSD. His chances of recovery are compromised because he’s forced to mentor the tributes every year. He’s a version of what Katniss might become, if the Hunger Games continues. Peeta comments on how similar they are, and it’s true. They both really struggle with their worldview. He manages to defuse the escalating violence at Gale’s whipping with words, but he participates in a plot to bring down the government that will entail a civil war.

The ray of light that penetrates that very dark cloud in his brain is the moment that Katniss volunteers for Prim. He sees, as do many people in Panem, the power of her sacrifice. And when that carries into her Games, with Rue and Peeta, he slowly begins to believe that with Katniss it might be possible to end the Hunger Games.

DL: I’m also curious about how you balanced the personal and political in drawing the relationship between Katniss and Gale. They have such a history together — and I think you powerfully show the conflict that arises when you love someone, but don’t love what they believe in. (I think that resonates particularly now, when so many families and relationships and friendships have been disrupted by politics.)

SC: Yes, I think it’s painful, especially because they feel so in tune in so many ways. Katniss’s and Gale’s differences of opinion are based in just war theory. Do we revolt? How do we conduct ourselves in the war? And the ethical and personal lines climax at the same moment — the double tap bombing that takes Prim’s life. But it’s rarely simple; there are a lot of gray areas. It’s complicated by Peeta often holding a conflicting view while being the rival for her heart, so the emotional pull and the ethical pull become so intertwined it’s impossible to separate them. What do you do when someone you love, someone you know to be a good person, has a view which completely opposes your own? You keep trying to understand what led to the difference and see if it can be bridged. Maybe, maybe not. I think many conflicts grow out of fear, and in an attempt to counter that fear, people reach for solutions that may be comforting in the short term, but only increase their vulnerability in the long run and cause a lot of destruction along the way.

DL: In drawing Gale’s and Peeta’s roles in the story, how conscious were you of the gender inversion from traditional narrative tropes? As you note above, both are important far beyond any romantic subplot, but I do think there’s something fascinating about the way they both reinscribe roles that would traditionally be that of the “girlfriend.” Gale in particular gets to be “the girl back home” from so many Westerns and adventure movies — but of course is so much more than that. And Peeta, while a very strong character in his own right, often has to take a backseat to Katniss and her strategy, both in and out of the arena. Did you think about them in terms of gender and tropes, or did that just come naturally as the characters did what they were going to do on the page?

SC: It came naturally because, while Gale and Peeta are very important characters, it’s Katniss’s story.

DL: For Peeta . . . why baking?

SC: Bread crops up a lot in The Hunger Games. It’s the main food source in the districts, as it was for many people historically. When Peeta throws a starving Katniss bread in the flashback, he’s keeping her alive long enough to work out a strategy for survival. It seemed in keeping with his character to be a baker, a life giver.

But there’s a dark side to bread, too. When Plutarch Heavensbee references it, he’s talking about Panem et Circenses, Bread and Circuses, where food and entertainment lull people into relinquishing their political power. Bread can contribute to life or death in the Hunger Games.

DL: Speaking of Plutarch — in a meta way, the two of you share a job (although when you do it, only fictional people die). When you were designing the arena for the first book, what influences came into play? Did you design the arena and then have the participants react to it, or did you design the arena with specific reactions and plot points in mind?

SC: Katniss has a lot going against her in the first arena — she’s inexperienced, smaller than a lot of her competitors, and hasn’t the training of the Careers — so the arena needed to be in her favor. The landscape closely resembles the woods around District 12, with similar flora and fauna. She can feed herself and recognize the nightlock as poisonous. Thematically, the Girl on Fire needed to encounter fire at some point, so I built that in. I didn’t want it too physically flashy, because the audience needs to focus on the human dynamic, the plight of the star-crossed lovers, the alliance with Rue, the twist that two tributes can survive from the same district. Also, the Gamemakers would want to leave room for a noticeable elevation in spectacle when the Games move to the Quarter Quell arena in Catching Fire with the more intricate clock design.

DL: So where does Plutarch fall into the just war spectrum? There are many layers to his involvement in what’s going on.

SC: Plutarch is the namesake of the biographer Plutarch, and he’s one of the few characters who has a sense of the arc of history. He’s never lived in a world without the Hunger Games; it was well established by the time he was born and then he rose through the ranks to become Head Gamemaker. At some point, he’s gone from accepting that the Games are necessary to deciding they’re unnecessary, and he sets about ending them. Plutarch has a personal agenda as well. He’s seen so many of his peers killed off, like Seneca Crane, that he wonders how long it will be before the mad king decides he’s a threat not an asset. It’s no way to live. And as a gamemaker among gamemakers, he likes the challenge of the revolution. But even after they succeed he questions how long the resulting peace will last. He has a fairly low opinion of human beings, but ultimately doesn’t rule out that they might be able to change.

DL: When it comes to larger world building, how much did you know about Panem before you started writing? If I had asked you, while you were writing the opening pages, “Suzanne, what’s the primary industry of District Five?” would you have known the answer, or did those details emerge to you when they emerged within the writing of the story?

SC: Before I started writing I knew there were thirteen districts — that’s a nod to the thirteen colonies — and that they’d each be known for a specific industry. I knew 12 would be coal and most of the others were set, but I had a few blanks that naturally filled in as the story evolved. When I was little we had that board game, Game of the States, where each state was identified by its exports. And even today we associate different locations in the country with a product, with seafood or wine or tech. Of course, it’s a very simplified take on Panem. No district exists entirely by its designated trade. But for purposes of the Hunger Games, it’s another way to divide and define the districts.

DL: How do you think being from District 12 defines Katniss, Peeta, and Gale? Could they have been from any other district, or is their residency in 12 formative for the parts of their personalities that drive the story?

SC: Very formative. District 12 is the joke district, small and poor, rarely producing a victor in the Hunger Games. As a result, the Capitol largely ignores it. The enforcement of the laws is lax, the relationship with the Peacekeepers less hostile. This allows the kids to grow up far less constrained than in other districts. Katniss and Gale become talented archers by slipping off in the woods to hunt. That possibility of training with a weapon is unthinkable in, say, District 11, with its oppressive military presence. Finnick’s trident and Johanna’s ax skills develop as part of their districts’ industries, but they would never be allowed access to those weapons outside of work. Also, Katniss, Peeta, and Gale view the Capitol in a different manner by virtue of knowing their Peacekeepers better. Darius, in the Hob, is considered a friend, and he proves himself to be so more than once. This makes the Capitol more approachable on a level, more possible to befriend, and more possible to defeat. More human.

DL: Let’s talk about the Capitol for a moment — particularly its most powerful resident. I know that every name you give a character is deliberate, so why President Snow?

SC: Snow because of its coldness and purity. That’s purity of thought, although most people would consider it pure evil. His methods are monstrous, but in his mind, he’s all that’s holding Panem together. His first name, Coriolanus, is a nod to the titular character in Shakespeare’s play who was based on material from Plutarch’s Lives. He was known for his anti-populist sentiments, and Snow is definitely not a man of the people.

DL: The bond between Katniss and Snow is one of the most interesting in the entire series. Because even when they are in opposition, there seems to be an understanding between them that few if any of the other characters in the trilogy share. What role do you feel Snow plays for Katniss — and how does this fit into your examination of war?

SC: On the surface, she’s the face of the rebels, he’s the face of the Capitol. Underneath, things are a lot more complicated. Snow’s quite old under all that plastic surgery. Without saying too much, he’s been waiting for Katniss for a long time. She’s the worthy opponent who will test the strength of his citadel, of his life’s work. He’s the embodiment of evil to her, with the power of life and death. They’re obsessed with each other to the point of being blinded to the larger picture. “I was watching you, Mockingjay. And you were watching me. I’m afraid we have both been played for fools.” By Coin, that is. And then their unholy alliance at the end brings her down.

DL: One of the things that both Snow and Katniss realize is the power of media and imagery on the population. Snow may appear heartless to some, but he is very attuned to the “hearts and minds” of his citizens . . . and he is also attuned to the danger of losing them to Katniss. What role do you see propaganda playing in the war they’re waging?

SC: Propaganda decides the outcome of the war. This is why Plutarch implements the airtime assault; he understands that whoever controls the airwaves controls the power. Like Snow, he’s been waiting for Katniss, because he needs a Spartacus to lead his campaign. There have been possible candidates, like Finnick, but no one else has captured the imagination of the country like she has.

DL: In terms of the revolution, appearance matters — and two of the characters who seem to understand this the most are Cinna and Caesar Flickerman, one in a principled way, one . . . not as principled. How did you draw these two characters into your themes?

SC: That’s exactly right. Cinna uses his artistic gifts to woo the crowd with spectacle and beauty. Even after his death, his Mockingjay costume designs are used in the revolution. Caesar, whose job is to maintain the myth of the glorious games, transitions into warfare with the prisoner of war interviews with Peeta. They are both helping to keep up appearances.

DL: As a writer, you studiously avoided the trope of harkening back to the “old” geography — i.e., there isn’t a character who says, “This was once a land known as . . . Delaware.” (And thank goodness for that.) Why did you decide to avoid pinning down Panem to our contemporary geography?

SC: The geography has changed because of natural and man-made disasters, so it’s not as simple as overlaying a current map on Panem. But more importantly, it’s not relevant to the story. Telling the reader the continent gives them the layout in general, but borders are very changeful. Look at how the map of North America has evolved in the past 300 years. It makes little difference to Katniss what we called Panem in the past.

DL: Let’s talk about the D word. When you sat down to write The Hunger Games, did you think of it as a dystopian novel?

SC: I thought of it as a war story. I love dystopia, but it will always be secondary to that. Setting the trilogy in a futuristic North America makes it familiar enough to relate to but just different enough to gain some perspective. When people ask me how far in the future it’s set, I say, “It depends on how optimistic you are.”

DL: What do you think it was about the world into which the book was published that made it viewed so prominently as a dystopia?

SC: In the same way most people would define The Underland Chronicles as a fantasy series, they would define The Hunger Games as a dystopian trilogy, and they’d be right. The elements of the genres are there in both cases. But they’re first and foremost war stories to me. The thing is, whether you came for the war, dystopia, action adventure, propaganda, coming of age, or romance, I’m happy you’re reading it. Everyone brings their own experiences to the book that will color how they interpret it. I imagine the number of people who immediately identify it as a just war theory story are in the minority, but most stories are more than one thing.

DL: What was the relationship between current events and the world you were drawing? I know that with many speculative writers, they see something in the news and find it filtering into their fictional world. Were you reacting to the world around you, or was your reaction more grounded in a more timeless and/or historical consideration of war?

SC: I would say the latter. Some authors — okay, you for instance — can digest events quickly and channel them into their writing, as you did so effectively with September 11 in Love Is the Higher Law. But I don’t process and integrate things rapidly, so history works better for me.

DL: There’s nothing I like more than talking to writers about writing — so I’d love to ask about your process (even though I’ve always found the word process to be far too orderly to describe how a writer’s mind works).

As I recall, when we at Scholastic first saw the proposal for The Hunger Games Trilogy, the summary of the first book was substantial, the summary for the second book was significantly shorter, and the summary of the third book was . . . remarkably brief. So, first question: Did you stick to that early outline?

SC: I had to go back and take a look. Yes, I stuck to it very closely, but as you point out, the third book summary is remarkably brief. I basically tell you there’s a war that the Capitol eventually loses. Just coming off The Underland Chronicles, which also ends with a war, I think I’d seen how much develops along the way and wanted that freedom for this series as well.

DL: Would you outline books two and three as you were writing book one? Or would you just take notes for later? Was this the same or different from what you did with The Underland Chronicles?

SC: Structure’s one of my favorite parts of writing. I always work a story out with Post-its, sometimes using different colors for different character arcs. I create a chapter grid, as well, and keep files for later books, so that whenever I have an idea that might be useful, I can make a note of it. I wrote scripts for many years before I tried books, so a lot of my writing habits developed through that experience.

DL: Would you deliberately plant things in book one to bloom in books two or three? Are there any seeds you planted in the first book that you ended up not growing?

SC: Oh, yes, I definitely planted things. For instance, Johanna Mason is mentioned in the third chapter of the first book although she won’t appear until Catching Fire. Plutarch is that unnamed gamemaker who falls into the punch bowl when she shoots the arrow. Peeta whispers “Always” in Catching Fire when Katniss is under the influence of sleep syrup but she doesn’t hear the word until after she’s been shot in Mockingjay. Sometimes you just don’t have time to let all the seeds grow, or you cut them out because they don’t really add to the story. Like those wild dogs that roam around District 12. One could potentially have been tamed, but Buttercup stole their thunder.

DL: Since much of your early experience as a writer was as a playwright, I’m curious: What did you learn as a playwright that helped you as a novelist?

SC: I studied theater for many years — first acting, then playwriting — and I have a particular love for classical theater. I formed my ideas about structure as a playwright, how crucial it is and how, when it’s done well, it’s really inseparable from character. It’s like a living thing to me. I also wrote for children’s television for seventeen years. I learned a lot writing for preschool. If a three-year-old doesn’t like something, they just get up and walk away from the set. I saw my own kids do that. How do you hold their attention? It’s hard and the internet has made it harder. So for the eight novels, I developed a three-act structure, with each act being composed of nine chapters, using elements from both play and screenplay structures — double layering it, so to speak.

DL: Where do you write? Are you a longhand writer or a laptop writer? Do you listen to music as you write, or go for the monastic, writerly silence?

SC: I write best at home in a recliner. I used to write longhand, but now it’s all laptop. Definitely not music; it demands to be listened to. I like quiet, but not silence.

DL: You talked earlier about researching survival training and edible plants for these books. What other research did you have to do? Are you a reading researcher, a hands-on researcher, or a mix of both? (I’m imagining an elaborate archery complex in your backyard, but I am guessing that’s not necessarily accurate.)

SC: You know, I’m just not very handy. I read a lot about how to build a bow from scratch, but I doubt I could ever make one. Being good with your hands is a gift. So I do a lot of book research. Sometimes I visit museums or historic sites for inspiration. I was trained in stage combat, particularly sword fighting in drama school; I have a nice collection of swords designed for that, but that was more helpful for The Underland Chronicles. The only time I got to do archery was in gym class in high school.

DL: While I wish I could say the editorial team (Kate Egan, Jennifer Rees, and myself ) were the first-ever readers of The Hunger Games, I know this isn’t true. When you’re writing a book, who reads it first?

SC: My husband, Cap, and my literary agent, Rosemary Stimola, have consistently been the books’ first readers. They both have excellent critique skills and give insightful notes. I like to keep the editorial team as much in the dark as possible, so that when they read the first draft it’s with completely fresh eyes.

DL: Looking back now at the editorial conversations we had about The Hunger Games — which were primarily with Kate, as Jen and I rode shotgun — can you recall any significant shifts or discussions?

SC: What I mostly recall is how relieved I was to know that I had such amazing people to work with on the book before it entered the world. I had eight novels come out in eight years with Scholastic, so that was fast for me and I needed feedback I could trust. You’re all so smart, intuitive, and communicative, and with the three of you, no stone went unturned. With The Hunger Games Trilogy, I really depended on your brains and hearts to catch what worked and what didn’t.

DL: And then there was the question of the title . . .

SC: Okay, this I remember clearly. The original title of the first book was The Tribute of District Twelve. You wanted to change it to The Hunger Games, which was my name for the series. I said, “Okay, but I’m not thinking of another name for the series!” To this day, more people ask me about “the Gregor series” than “The Underland Chronicles,” and I didn’t want a repeat of that because it’s confusing. But you were right, The Hunger Games was a much better name for the book. Catching Fire was originally called The Ripple Effect and I wanted to change that one, because it was too watery for a Girl on Fire, so we came up with Catching Fire. The third book I’d come up with a title so bad I can’t even remember it except it had the word ashes in it. We both hated it. One day, you said, “What if we just call it Mockingjay?” And that seemed perfect. The three parts of the book had been subtitled “The Mockingjay,” “The Assault,” and “The Assassin.” We changed the title to Mockingjay and the first part to “The Ashes” and got that lovely alliteration in the subtitles. Thank goodness you were there; you have far better taste in titles. I believe in the acknowledgments, I call you the Title Master.

DL: With The Hunger Games, the choice of Games is natural — but the choice of Hunger is much more odd and interesting. So I’ll ask: Why Hunger Games?

SC: Because food is a lethal weapon. Withholding food, that is. Just like it is in Boris when the Nazis starve out the people of Leningrad. It’s a weapon that targets everyone in a war, not just the soldiers in combat, but the civilians too. In the prologue of Henry V, the Chorus talks about Harry as Mars, the god of war. “And at his heels, Leash’d in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire crouch for employment.” Famine, sword, and fire are his dogs of war, and famine leads the pack. With a rising global population and environmental issues, I think food could be a significant weapon in the future.

DL: The cover was another huge effort. We easily had over a hundred different covers comped up before we landed on the iconic one. There were some covers that pictured Katniss — something I can’t imagine doing now. And there were others that tried to picture scenes. Of course, the answer was in front of us the entire time — the Mockingjay symbol, which the art director Elizabeth Parisi deployed to such amazing effect. What do you think of the impact the cover and the symbol have had? What were your thoughts when you saw this cover?

SC: Oh, it’s a brilliant cover, which I should point out I had nothing to do with. I only saw a handful of the many you developed. The one that made it to print is absolutely fantastic; I loved it at first sight. It’s classy, powerful, and utterly unique to the story. It doesn’t limit the age of the audience and I think that really contributed to adults feeling comfortable reading it. And then, of course, you followed it up with the wonderful evolution of the mockingjay throughout the series. There’s something universal about the imagery, the captive bird gaining freedom, which I think is why so many of the foreign publishers chose to use it instead of designing their own. And it translated beautifully to the screen where it still holds as the central symbolic image for the franchise.

DL: Obviously, the four movies had an enormous impact on how widely the story spread across the globe. The whole movie process started with the producers coming on board. What made you know they were the right people to shepherd this story into another form?

SC: When I decided to sell the entertainment rights to the book, I had phone interviews with over a dozen producers. Nina Jacobson’s understanding of and passion for the piece along with her commitment to protecting it won me over. She’s so articulate, I knew she’d be an excellent person to usher it into the world. The team at Lionsgate’s enthusiasm and insight made a deep impression as well. I needed partners with the courage not to shy away from the difficult elements of the piece, ones who wouldn’t try to steer the story to an easier, more traditional ending. Prim can’t live. The victory can’t be joyous. The wounds have to leave lasting scars. It’s not an easy ending but it’s an intentional one.

DL: You cowrote the screenplay for the first Hunger Games movie. I know it’s an enormously tricky thing for an author to adapt their own work. How did you approach it? What was the hardest thing about translating a novel into a screenplay? What was the most rewarding?

SC: I wrote the initial treatments and first draft and then Billy Ray came on for several drafts and then our director, Gary Ross, developed it into his shooting script and we ultimately did a couple of passes together. I did the boil down of the book, which is a lot of cutting things while trying to retain the dramatic structure. I think the hardest thing for me, because I’m not a terribly visual person, was finding the way to translate many words into few images. Billy and Gary, both far more experienced screenwriters and gifted directors as well, really excelled at that. Throughout the franchise I had terrific screenwriters, and Francis Lawrence, who directed the last three films, is an incredible visual storyteller.

The most rewarding moment on the Hunger Games movie would have been the first time I saw it put together, still in rough form, and thinking it worked.

DL: One of the strange things for me about having a novel adapted is knowing that the actors involved will become, in many people’s minds, the faces and bodies of the characters who have heretofore lived as bodiless voices in my head. Which I suppose leads to a three-part question: Do you picture your characters as you’re writing them? If so, how close did Jennifer Lawrence come to the Katniss in your head? And now when you think about Katniss, do you see Jennifer or do you still see what you imagined before?

SC: I definitely do picture the characters when I’m writing them. The actress who looks exactly like my book Katniss doesn’t exist. Jennifer looked close enough and felt very right, which is more important. She gives an amazing performance. When I think of the books, I still think of my initial image of Katniss. When I think of the movies, I think of Jen. Those images aren’t at war any more than the books are with the films. Because they’re faithful adaptations, the story becomes the primary thing. Some people will never read a book, but they might see the same story in a movie. When it works well, the two entities support and enrich each other.

DL: All of the actors did such a fantastic job with your characters (truly). Are there any in particular that have stayed with you?

SC: A writer friend of mine once said, “Your cast — they’re like a basket of diamonds.” That’s how I think of them. I feel fortunate to have had such a talented team — directors, producers, screenwriters, performers, designers, editors, marketing, publicity, everybody — to make the journey with. And I’m so grateful for the readers and viewers who invested in The Hunger Games. Stories are made to be shared.

DL: We’re talking on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of The Hunger Games. Looking back at the past ten years, what have some of the highlights been?

SC: The response from the readers, especially the young audience for which it was written. Seeing beautiful and faithful adaptations reach the screen. Occasionally hearing it make its way into public discourse on politics or social issues.

DL: The Hunger Games Trilogy has been an international bestseller. Why do you think this series struck such an important chord throughout the world?

SC: Possibly because the themes are universal. War is a magnet for difficult issues. In The Hunger Games, you have vast inequality of wealth, destruction of the planet, political struggles, war as a media event, human rights abuses, propaganda, and a whole lot of other elements that affect human beings wherever they live. I think the story might tap into the anxiety a lot of people feel about the future right now.

DL: As we celebrate the past ten years and look forward to many decades to come for this trilogy, I’d love for us to end where we should — with the millions of readers who’ve embraced these books. What words would you like to leave them with?

SC: Thank you for joining Katniss on her journey. And may the odds be ever in your favor.

#thg #the hunger games #suzanne collins #katniss everdeen #catching fire #mockingjay #tbosas #thg book club #saw they took the pdf version down smh

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