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lemonluvgirl · 2 years

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WIP Whenever Post a snippet of whatever you’re working on!

I saw @thelettersfromnoone opened up this invite to anyone who wanted to participate! So thank you!

This is a scene from chapter 32 of Promise Me, my katniss solo victor story.

Sleep was elusive after my conversation with Peeta, and my day starts later than I’d like.

The sun has already been up for hours when I finally wake. I hate the feeling of swinging between extremes of waking up before dawn and then waking up well after it the next day because of exhaustion. But I have no idea what remedy there could be found for a victor who alternately couldn’t sleep and then once in a while slept too much because their body just gave out from exhaustion.

The only other victor I know personally uses alcohol to achieve what little sleep he can, and his results are unreliable at best.

I dress myself quickly and don’t bother putting on my sling again. I hadn’t been wearing it since I got home after the viewing last night and the pain wasn’t too bad when I moved carefully.

Still, working my thick hair into a braid was out. I decided to swallow my pride and ask my mother for help. After Peeta’s comment about how I look different with my hair down, I felt apprehensive about not plaiting it back in my usual style. Even though I’m sure that the peacekeeper was just looking at my scars, I’d rather not attract too much attention. In case I have to go into town.

My mother seems surprised when she opens the door to her bedroom after I knock, but when I explain why I need her help she quickly consents to braiding my hair.

I sit down on the edge of her bed and close my eyes when I feel her nimble and delicate fingers expertly braiding. I have to stop myself from sighing when I realize I’ve missed this feeling.

I don’t think she’s braided my hair on a regular day that’s not a formal Reaping since before dad died. After that I always did it myself. I usually braided Prim’s hair too, until she was old enough to do it on her own.

But this feels…nice.

It’s only when my mother starts to hum as she begins to place a few hair pins in that I start feeling conflicted. It’s the memories her voice stirs up that leave me internally spinning. Even though my father was always the one gifted at singing, my mother has a pleasant voice. Not as skillful or as easily flowing as my father’s had been but just like the rest of her, it's soft and pretty.

Her hands go still, and come to rest on my shoulders and I look at our reflection in her bathroom mirror. She’s still almost a full head taller than me, and unless I have a latent growth spurt she most likely always will be.

“Your father would be so proud of you,” she tells me with a watery smile as she stares back at my reflection. I give her a weak smile in return, wondering what her comment means.

Does she mean my father would be proud to see how I’ve grown up, continuing his traditions of hunting and foraging to keep our family alive? Or for winning the Games and coming home? For volunteering for Prim? Surely he wouldn’t be proud of this Capitol paid for house and the strings that come with it.

I stare at my mother’s dainty features, her perfectly symmetrical eyes and her long slim neck. Though she looks tired and perhaps a few years older than her actual age, she is still very beautiful. It’s easy to see what my father saw in her. I can’t imagine how dazzling she must have been in her youth. Looking at the two of us side by side, even though my coloring is different from hers it's plain to see we have some similar features if you look closely enough. Our hands for instance, our cheekbones, and our mannerisms.

Some might even have called me decent looking if it weren’t for all the scars I now sport on the right side of my face and neck, that travel all the way down my body.

I look away from the image of the young woman standing next to her mother in the mirror.

If my father were alive, I am one hundred percent sure he’d hate the Capitol even more for the way I came home. Looking like something that had been chewed up and spat out, even after all these months.

I stuff down my dissatisfaction. But there’s a small voice in the back of my head that says it’s not really about feeling pretty. I just want to feel normal. I miss my normal skin. I miss who I used to be, before my life was turned upside down. Because even though I was hungry and struggling every day, sometimes every hour to make sure we all survived, I was still me. Now that girl and that life seem so far removed from my everyday reality. I am not sure I will ever get used to this new life as a victor.

It makes me want to turn back the clock. Makes me think of Gale’s crazy plan to escape into the woods with our families and never look back. But that’s not going to happen. Not now that I’m one of the most recognized faces in Panem. Most days it makes me feel trapped. Not just inside this huge house that I’ll never, ever feel like I earned, as Effie so ineloquently puts it, but also trapped inside my own mind, inside my own skin.

And if I keep thinking about how powerless that leaves me I’ll go mad. Like having a panic attack, and full blown arena hallucinations brought on by the overwhelming stress-mad.

So instead, I offer my mother another smile, and this time I try to make it a convincing one. It’s not her fault I look this way, or that I feel this way everyday. It’s not her fault Prim’s name was picked. It’s not her fault I came home from the Games a complete mess.

I can blame her for a lot, and on my uncharitable days, which are most days, I still blame her for a great deal of the hardship we endured in the years after my father’s death. But this specific blame I cannot and will never attribute to her.

It belongs only to Snow. I will never forget that.

“Thank you,” I tell her as I reach a hand up to touch the intricate braid she wove for me. I tug the tail over the right side of my neck, hiding the scars there. Just as I turn to leave I hear her say, “You're welcome. Now don’t forget to put on your sling.”

#PMLB #lemonluvwrites #snippits #sneak peeks #WIPs #I'm working on it I promise

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wilder-minded · 3 years

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SFB Chapter 4

Read previous chapter.

Our school gave us a holiday every year for the few weeks that the Games were broadcasting, the Capitol deeming it of the utmost importance for most life to take pause. This meant that aside from the mines and some merchants, everyone was to take the time off to watch the torturous broadcast. As the daughter of the Mayor, I had been afforded the luxury of my father's library as a child, though stocked with Capitol-approved titles only. By now, I had read my way through all of the books I found interesting. I had loved helping our housekeeper tend to our small patch of flowers as a child, though I mostly occupied myself with reading or playing the piano.

On days like today when I had nothing to take up my time, I found myself on the piano bench playing my way through the keys in patterns that had become second nature over the years. My mother felt well enough to come downstairs and was perched in a chair by the window, wrapped in a blanket with her tea in hand. Some days, when the migraines hit especially hard, even the soft music from the piano was too much and I was confined to silence. But my mother always insists that she loves hearing me play, so I do today—for her.

Her eyes were focused on the life outside of the window, but I watched her quietly. Between my parents, I resembled my mother the most. We had the same wavy blonde hair and soft features, but my blue eyes came from my father. I had a distant memory of my mother mentioning to my father that I looked so much like Maysilee; a thought that put her in bed for three days after. I supposed I did after all, they were twins.

"I wonder how Emily is doing," she says softly, breaking the silence between us.

"Emily?" I respond, my fingers stilling on the piano keys as I try to place the name.

She nods wordlessly, her eyes still gazing through the window. "Her mother." It takes me a moment before I realize that she means Mrs. Everdeen. They must have been friends as children, I think. Mrs. Everdeen was the daughter of the apothecary in the district and grew up with the other merchant children. It made sense that they would have known each other.

"I'm not sure," I admit and she sighs sadly, her eyes finally moving from the window to the tea cup cradled in her hands.

"She must be..." she trails off, her voice wavering. "I can't imagine what she must be feeling." She's right, she can't. I was never at any real risk of being reaped, but neither was Prim. One slip of paper is all it takes, I supposed.

"I'm sure this is difficult on them. Katniss has been taking care of them since her father passed away," I tell her, moving from the piano bench to the chair beside her.

"Yes," she says thoughtfully. Her eyes meet mine finally and she gives me a soft, sad smile. I notice the dark circles under her eyes and the way her cheeks curve slightly in. The years of constant pain and dependency on morphling have taken their toll. No one really knew what happened to my mother, and my father once told me that the only relief she has had was the first few years of my life.

"Emily loved him so much," she confides, adjusting the blanket draped around her shoulders. "She heard him sing when we were young, and she never looked back."

"Were the two of you close?" I question, not used to my mother speaking of her past. This was something she had always kept to herself.

She sighs, her eyes gazing back out the window again. "She was our best friend as children." My mind pauses on 'our' before the realization that she means her sister. I nod without speaking, watching her quietly for a moment. I can see that she has retreated into her own mind, so I stand and lean over, kissing her cheek softly. I had always wished for a mother who was present. Frequently I would catch myself lost in a bitterness over what could have been, ashamed and guilty. My mother loved me, even if that didn't fit with my idea of how a mother should be.

I tried to busy myself with the housekeeper, assisting with odd jobs in the kitchen before an idea crossed my mind. I pulled a small satchel from the hall closet, filling it with various items from our pantry. As I turned to walk toward the front door, I noticed my mother watching me from a doorway with a small book in her hands. I recognized it, a poetry book with a songbird drawn on the cover. It sat untouched on our bookshelf for years. I had once tried to touch it, and that had been the only time my mother had raised her voice at me.

"Will you give this to her?" she asks, holding the book out to me as I walk closer. I don't need to ask who; she already knows where I'm going.

I nod, smiling softly as I take it from her and tuck it into a safe pocket of the satchel. "Of course, I will," I promise as she reaches out, rubbing my shoulder gently before disappearing up the stairs.

I slip out of the front door and start down the stone road toward the Seam. I pass silently through the alleys lined with merchant shops; the streets much quieter than they would normally be this late in the morning. Once I reached the Seam, I tried to navigate the dirt paths by vague memory and when I reached the small shack with a goat contained in a small pen at the side, I knew I had found my destination. I had remembered Katniss mentioning the goat her sister doted on a few times during school.

I had barely knocked on the door once when it opened, and Prim's small face peaked out with a small smile. "Madge?" she asked, the door opening more. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see your mother, can I come in?" I ask and she nods, letting me slip in beside her. It isn't until I turn to close the door that I see the eyes watching me from behind curtains across the street. I was used to it by now, but I could only guess that they were not used to seeing someone like me in their neighborhood.

Mrs. Everdeen stood over a wash tub; her arms wet up to the elbows as she worked over some clothes. Their small one room home had the few windows open to let the summer breeze pass through, the small television playing quietly in the back corner. "Miss Undersee, is everything alright?" she asks, using a towel tucked into her belt to dry off her hands as she comes around the table toward me.

I nod reassuringly, my fingers pulling the satchel from my shoulder. "I wanted to bring some things by for you, we have far more than we need..." I say, trailing off as she helps me lift it onto the table. I reach in, pulling out the small book.

I run my thumb along the binding before holding it out for Mrs. Everdeen. "My mother wanted me to give this to you," I tell her, watching her eye fix on the cover. As she takes it from my hands, her fingers brush along the edges of the drawing on the cover. I see the creases in the corner of her eye deepen before she shakes her head, blinking quickly.

"This was her sister's," she says quietly, suddenly grabbing my hand. "Tell her I said thank you?" I nodded in agreement, noticing the tears in her eyes—eyes that looked similar to my own.

"Of course," I promised, both of my hands gripping hers. If she had been close with my aunt, I realized that Katniss wasn't the first person that the Games had taken from her. We let go and she moved to place the book on a small shelf with a beautiful tea set.

"Would you like to stay for a while?" Mrs. Everdeen asked, gesturing toward where Prim was curled up by the tv on a small chair. "I'm just getting some things done, but I'm sure she'd enjoy the company."

I accept the offer, taking a spot in a chair beside Prim. As she filled me in on what had happened that morning, I noticed a cat slink in from the open window. He automatically strode over, weaving himself between Prim's legs before she scooped him up in her arms. "What's his name?" I ask, reaching over to scratch the top of his head. He seems to like this, giving me a small purr as Prim strokes down his back.

"Buttercup, I've had him since he was a kitten. Katniss hates him, but she let me keep him," she says proudly as the cat jumps down, fixing the tousled fur on his back end. "My goat's name is Lady."

"I love that," I smile and I see her eyes light up for the first time since I had arrived. Nearly everyone loved Prim, and it was easy to see her gentle nature even just in passing. It was easy to see why Katniss took her place; Prim would have no chance in that arena.

I listened as Prim told me about all of the animals she had attempted to keep as pets, her mother chuckling behind us at the memories, when there was a knock at the door. It swung open and Gale stepped in, his game bag hanging heavy at his hip. He and Mrs. Everdeen immediately get to work sorting through the game and herbs that he brought for her, and it's a few moments before he notices Prim and I across the room.

"Hey, Prim," he says, his smile warm toward her. "Undersee," he nods toward me, though I notice that his smile lingers for just a moment.

"Hawthorne," I return the greeting, Buttercup now weaving himself between my legs.

"I didn't think he liked anyone but Prim," he comments, gesturing at the cat as he pulls over a chair beside Prim.

"He likes people who like him," she retorts, her tone with a slight teasing edge. He chuckles and reaches over to mess up her hair.

"He's only useful for keeping the rats away," he shrugs, his eyes meeting mine for a moment before he looks at the television. The cat turns back to look at him, giving him a half-assed hiss almost on cue before stalking off. "So what's new?" he asks as he rests his elbows on his knees, nodding his head toward the tv.

Prim shrugs, playing with the end of one of her braids. "She was hiding in a tree for most of the morning. The career pack killed a girl right by her and I was scared that they would find her, but they didn't. And... Peeta is with them... the career pack," she tells him, her voice quieter.

"Why would he do that?" he says bitterly, a crease forming between his brows. Prim just shrugs and I say nothing. I am perplexed by this as well as I think back to the gentle boy I had crossed paths with occasionally. He definitely was no Career tribute. Then a thought occurs to me; he might be trying to protect her.

"She's hunting now, but I don't think she's found water yet," Prim finishes and I notice the cat has perched himself at her feet yet again.

"She will, she knows what she's doing more than anyone else in there," he reassures her and Prim gives him a small smile in return.

"This is the most ideal arena she could have hoped for," I chime in and they both nod in agreement. The arena looked so much like the hills surrounding our district. We settle into silence, watching the Games with occasional comments. An hour passed before Gale got up to leave, refusing the trade Mrs. Everdeen tried to give him.

"When do you start?" she questions, finally convincing him to take a salve for his mother's hands that she had made.

"The week after next," he tells her and I think back to our conversation the day before. "I'll try to get ahead on hunting so both families are okay." She thanks him, and his eyes meet mine as I give him a small, sad smile. He disappears out the door, game bag in tow before Prim and I turn back to the screen demanding our attention.

#the hunger games #catching fire #gale hawthorne #madge undersee #gadge #gale x madge #fanfic #ao3 #slow fire burn

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tthael · 3 years

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What are your thoughts on trans eddie? I love it bc I'm trans and eddie is like one of my comfort characters. Since you're the best writer I've ever seen I'm curious on your thoughts.

Thank you, that’s so nice! I also have some Gender Trouble (transmasc isn’t quite the right word) and I think about gender dynamics a lot, and I think Eddie in particular has an interesting relationship with his masculinity in canon that makes him ripe for this kind of analysis.

Back when I was mostly interested in Hobbit fanfiction, I read a lot of good fics that played around with the gender dynamics of the characters; so while I know that genderswap fics can be a hot button issue because of transphobia and accompanying dynamics, I do like those stories when they’re well-written and taken seriously. For instance, this Dwalin/Nori fic by @thorinsmut features a genderfluid pirate captain and an identity porn romance during the Golden Age of Sail (https://archiveofourown.org/works/1861419) and it’s one of my all-time favorite fanfictions (content warnings for violence against animals, discussion of sexual assault, explicit sex, and a genderfluid character experiencing dysphoria). I tend to prefer always-a-different-sex fics, but I’ve also read a couple of a-wizard-did-it fics, like this Coulson/Hawkeye fic by amireal (https://archiveofourown.org/works/1173773) from back when I was into marvel (content warnings for internalized homophobia, explicit sex, and workplace harassment). I myself have had an idea for a while about a Hunger Games genderswap fic where, because 1 girl and 1 boy are always sent to the Games, Katniss can’t volunteer to go in his sister’s place, but he can volunteer to go in Peeta’s place because he plans to die to save Prim.

So, if we accept that gender essentialism treats children assumed to be girls and children assumed to be boys differently (which it does), I think that a transman!Eddie would have a slightly different experience growing up. Canon Eddie has a sort of glass closet going on and a lot of his childhood bullying is homophobic, and it’s implied that this is because he’s not performing masculinity to the expected level. Also Sonia’s abuse focuses on illness, injury, and contamination. She wants Eddie to be “safe” (goes into hysterics when he tries to get his feet scanned at a shoe-store because of the radiation), but she also wants him to be “clean” and “good to his mother.” Especially in the 90s miniseries and the Muschietti movies that take place in 1989 and 2016, a lot of that is coded to involve the AIDS epidemic, needles, and fears of transmission, which means that there’s an element of homophobia to Sonia’s influence. Also, Sonia canonically sex-shames Beverly, calling her “a dirty girl” and saying that she knows all about her, specifically singling her out of the whole group of Losers. There’s an element of sexual protection to her emotional abuse, as well as just a general unwillingness to let Eddie leave the house or get free of her control.

So if we reverse this dynamic and Eddie is a transboy, I think that the pressures he would experience would involve him not performing femininity correctly as a child, because he’s a boy. Eddie would still be very polite and somewhat soft-spoken and dreamy, and he’d be squeamish about bullies belching in his face and Richie playing in the sewers, just like he is in canon; but I think that his discomfort with his traditionally “feminine” responses would come from him instead of externally now. I’d have him lean harder into his traditionally “masculine” interests--cars and trains and other vehicles of getting away from his mother--and I’d have Sonia be even more aggressive towards Bill, Stan, and Richie, to the point of them not ever daring to enter the house the way they do in the 2017 movie because I think Sonia would be just as revolted by the idea of Eddie going around with a pack of boys as she is by Beverly in canon. I think that Sonia would be very invested in Eddie’s appearance, probably pressuring him about his hair and the way that he dressed, probably preferring him to wear skirts and nice clothes instead of things that he could wear to ride a bike or go running around in the Barrens in. I think that there would be a greater element of sexual shaming and body- and weight-policing to Sonia’s abuse, with elements of her wanting to protect Eddie’s “virtue” from “those dirty boys.” @pineapplecrushface wrote an always-women AU Nightingale (https://archiveofourown.org/works/24979312) and while Richie and Eddie are women in this story so it’s not the trans Eddie fic you are looking for, I think that the mentions of Eddie’s childhood bedroom seems pretty accurate for the environment that he would grow up in if he were assigned female at birth--a pink canopy bed and looking for clothes that don’t make him “feel like a cupcake.”

Actually, I think that this might look a lot like Carrie. I know that other people have already talked about the similarities between Sonia Kaspbrak and Margaret White, but Margaret’s abuse tends to orient not just around control but also around sexual maturity and perceived virtue.

I don’t know when or to what degree Eddie would transition--I don’t know if he would take the opportunity to do it while Sonia was still living, though I believe he’d be financially stable enough to afford it very early on. It would all depend on how the writer wanted to handle Eddie’s adult life--is he married to Myra? Does Myra know that he’s trans? Do he and Myra have a sexual relationship? Does Eddie know that he’s attracted to men? Is Eddie out before he gets the call from Mike and goes to Derry? What kind of transition does he want to have, if any? There are so many things to consider and I think it would all depend on what kind of story the author wants to tell--for me, I’d probably write a story where Eddie happens to be trans, and I’ve read some good fic to that effect--Rapacious from the Very Start (https://archiveofourown.org/works/22853020) by InkandOwl (I tried to find their tumblr to tag them and couldn’t) is one of my favorites, though tbh when I read fic I’m looking for explicit sex and that seems to be the core of this series.

But yeah, I’d be down for trans Eddie fic. I think that there’s a lot to unpack there, from how Eddie’s “gazebos” confrontation with Sonia would take place because the primary issue there would not be the idea of keeping Eddie compliant and in the house as a mama’s boy, it would be the idea of keeping him locked in a tower like the witch in Rapunzel because Sonia keeps treating him like a princess; to the idea of needlephobia changing from a threat involving AIDS contamination to perhaps something empowering and self-authenticating like T injections. And Eddie’s such a well-rounded character anyway, I think that there’s a lot of room to dig into his bickering with Richie and his outward aggressiveness and see how much of that is stress and how much of that is the idea that masculinity never shows weak emotions and how much of that is Eddie is quick-witted and thinks arguing is fun. There are also several parallels between Georgie and Eddie, particularly in their relationship with Bill; I think that as a kid, Eddie would think that Big Bill is just the best role model in a real little-brother kinda way, and Sonia would be super threatened by that because she’s Eddie’s mother, Eddie’s supposed to want to be like her.

I think in general I’d be down for most trans fic, as long as it was well-written. In the book there’s an interesting passage from the perspective of Richie’s mother where she reflects on how much she wishes that she had a daughter, because she doesn’t understand Richie and Bill, and she’d feel more confident if she had a daughter she could do things with like baking cupcakes. And I think that a trans Bev would change the way that she experiences abuse from her father, who in the book prefers her to behave in a feminine way (stops being angry at her when he thinks she’s afraid of spiders, because “all girls are afraid of spiders”; becomes irate at the idea that Beverly is playing with boys; obsessive over her virginity) but would behave differently if he thought he had a son and that Bev was transgressing masculine rules.

Anyway! *hammers fist on desk* Bring me my all-trans Losers AU!

#transphobia #gender essentialism #gender roles #child abuse #emotional abuse #gendered violence

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porchwood · 6 years

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THG Reread: Interesting Tidbits from Ch 1

Disclaimer: I’ve never taken part in any official THG reread/discussion and I essentially read the book in isolation, so anything I say in these posts may well have been discussed and dismissed years ago.

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim’s warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. She must have had bad dreams and crawled in with our mother.

I find it interesting that Prim leaves Katniss to find comfort with their mother, especially since Katniss seems to see herself as Prim’s sole protector and provider. Are Prim and Mrs. Everdeen closer than Katniss realizes (having such an abrasive relationship with her mother as she does) or is it simply that Mom will always be Mom and in a moment of terror most children prefer the embrace of their mother over a sibling?

Also: sleeping directly on a rough canvas-covered mattress? Are bed sheets are that great a luxury in the Seam? :(

I swing my legs off the bed and slide into my hunting boots. Supple leather that has molded to my feet. I pull on trousers…

So she gets out of bed and puts on her boots, then her trousers... So...girl’s a firefighter, right? :D

(Sorry for the crummy pics. Apparently the Tumblr presence of the Emergency! fandom is microscopic at best - I guess that happens with a ‘70s show :P - so these are screenshots I made from the S1 DVD, because yes, I’m that big of an Emergency! fangirl and you can never have too much Johnny Gage!)

It gives “girl on fire” a whole new meaning!! ;D

All merriment aside, we know that fire was a constant danger in the Seam, with its “old wooden homes embedded with coal dust,” so it’s entirely possible that residents slept with trousers and boots in readiness at the bedside, to be stepped into at a moment’s notice for a rapid escape if needed.

I…tuck my long dark braid up into a cap…

This has been discussed in previous rereads so it really isn’t news, but I’d love to see more Katniss-in-a-cap popping up in fics and fanart. THG opens in summertime and she’s still wearing the cap, so it was definitely a staple of her wardrobe! (And it brings us a little closer to the girl-disguised-as-a-boy trope, which is one of my all-time faves! :D)

(Behold this adorable @ghtlovesthg rendering!)

Our part of District 12, nicknamed the Seam, is usually crawling with coal miners heading out to the morning shift at this hour…

Somehow I had always (erroneously) assumed that there was just one twelve-hour shift that all the miners worked (ex. 6am-6pm). Since artificial light would be required inside the mines anyway, I suppose they could work around the clock with no regard to the sun and stars. Folks who live in/near coal mining communities: do they generally operate 24 hours a day or is there some arbitrary cut-off point in the evening? (I’m sorry I’m so ignorant about this!)

Most of the Peacekeepers turn a blind eye to the few of us who hunt…

Has anyone else figured out who these mysterious additional hunters are??

I watch as Gale pulls out his knife and slices the bread. He could be my brother. Straight black hair, olive skin, we even have the same gray eyes. But we’re not related, at least not closely.

First off: it truly befuddles me that Katniss’s hair color is stated on page 8 of THG (though, interestingly, never explicitly afterward) and yet it’s unusual - maybe even rare - to find fanart or even fics that depict her with black hair. Why is that? I was in love with her long black hair from moment one (truly black hair is unique, at least in my part of the world, and so striking to boot) so I probably belabor it a bit in my own writing, but it’s such an exquisite feature, why would you not?

Secondly: “He could be my brother.” That feels significant, and not merely in the “we look alike” sense. I’ve been working on a post about how Gale came into Katniss’s life in a very significant fashion after her beloved father’s death and she was drawn to him because of certain (I would venture to say striking) commonalities, but as I was wrapping it up last night (and sharing various details with my favorite sounding-board @ghtlovesthg), I realized there was a whole - vitally important - flipside to my theory that absolutely cannot be overlooked. So I might not get that finished till we’re on CF or even MJ. (No spoilers just in case someone pips me at the post - pun inadvertent ;) - but I think it’s pretty cool!)

And thirdly, because I can’t resist: I headcanon that Gale and Katniss are cousins through their great-great-grandfather (Galen Greenbrier, if anyone cares :D), who had two daughters (Aisling and Elspeth), who each had a daughter (Wren and Ashpet), who had Hazelle and Jack (Mr. Everdeen), who begat Gale and Katniss, respectively. Ergo: related but “not closely,” per canon. :)

With both of us hunting daily…

I’d always thought Gale and Katniss only hunted a few times a week, with Sundays being their largest haul/best trading day. (“Usually we devote all of Sunday to stocking up for the week.”) I know Twelve is an unusually permissive district at this point in time, but if two Seam kids were sneaking back and forth under the fence every single day and (forgive me) flaunting the fact by selling game in town (and when did they do this? before school, after, both?), surely, inevitably, the Peacekeepers would have been obliged to do something about it. Or were there some trips where Gale and Katniss only brought back enough for their own families, making their illegal activities not quite so blatant?

Cross-referencing with Catching Fire, I find Katniss saying, “Back when we were in school, we had time in the afternoons to check the lines and hunt and gather and still get back to town to trade” - exactly what time did they get out of school and how late were they doing these trades (not to mention, when did anyone get homework done)?? - but she also says it’s “an hour-and-a-half trek” just to check the snare line. I guess it isn’t impossible, but it seems a much more extensive (and time-consuming!) arrangement than I would have thought they could get by with, even in Twelve.

We easily trade six of the fish for good bread…

Like the rest of you, I’m trying to figure out who’s selling this “good bread” at the Hob. For some odd reason, at one point I thought maybe the bakery’s day-olds were sold there, à la:

They could potentially sell said day-olds at less of a discount than merchant clientele would demand but the reduced prices would be low enough for some Seam clientele to afford, and of course, even day-old bakery bread would be superior to homemade tessera bread (and therefore: “good bread”).

I’m not sure where I got the “bakery outlet” idea (I think it was all the early canonverse fics where Katniss ran into Peeta in the Hob, so I figured he was running a day-olds stall or something) but having been away from it for awhile, I actually kind of like it! :)

You become eligible for the reaping the day you turn twelve.

I’m going to wax exceedingly about reaping ages in another post, but for the moment: I presume this rule means that anyone who turns twelve between reaping days becomes eligible for the subsequent reaping, correct? So if we arbitrarily set the reaping at, say, June 1, someone whose birthday is on June 2 wouldn’t be eligible till the following year. (Which would be especially terrible for your 18-yr-old reaping: being a day away from 19 and freedom, of a sort, but still having to go through one last reaping.) Now I think of it, it’s possible Career districts took advantage of this. Highly invested parents in a Career district could have planned their pregnancies with the intent of a late summer birth (i.e., a month or two after reaping day) so the resulting children would have the advantage of extra months up on other tributes in their same age group.

On the flipside of this: Prim, whose birthday is in late May, would be an especially young tribute, since she’s only just turned twelve (think school kids with summer birthdays who don’t turn the “right age” for their grade till 1-3 months after school is out), and similarly Katniss, whose birthday is May 8, would be on the young side of the group of sixteens.

“Pretty dress,” says Gale.

Madge shoots him a look, trying to see if it’s a genuine compliment or if he’s just being ironic. It is a pretty dress, but she would never be wearing it ordinarily. She presses her lips together and then smiles. “Well, if I end up going to the Capitol, I want to look nice, don’t I?”

Now it’s Gale’s turn to be confused. Does she mean it? Or is she messing with him? I’m guessing the second.

Gaaah, so much going on here! I can’t decide if I want to make a proper Gadge post, so in the meantime, here’s some food for thought:

1) Why does Gale remark on her dress? Really - give me suggestions, because I’ve been turning it over in my head. If it’s meant to be ironic and she gives him sarcasm in reply (as seems to be the quintessential Gadge dynamic :D), it’s odd that he would be confused and not have a volley/riposte/etc of his own on deck. I mean, Katniss doesn’t seem to know (or at least, doesn’t clarify in her narration) whether or not it’s a compliment -

2) Which is interesting, because she guesses straightaway that Madge is “messing with him” in reply. ;)

3) Gale gives Madge what outwardly seems like a compliment and this is what ensues. One might surmise they’ve done this before... :D I mean, if there was no precedent, Madge would’ve just said “thank you” and exchanged money for berries. Since the mayor is such a valuable customer (being one of very few who can afford their asking price for strawberries), it’s interesting that Gale would antagonize Madge and risk losing the strawberry trade - not to mention bringing up the subject of tesserae at the mayor’s back door on reaping day! Does he take similar potshots at other merchants or is it just Madge? Is he irked (even threatened) by Katniss’s friendship with Madge? (I love that Katniss immediately defends Madge in the face of Gale’s tesserae rant. ♡) Does he feel like he can sound off at her (with impunity) because she’s Katniss’s friend? Or is he secretly crazy about her and resigned to the fact that he’ll never get her but the reminders of the impassable gap between them still incense him? Sorry, my hand slipped there for a sec. ;)

Gale knows his anger at Madge is misdirected.

I didn’t recall this line from previous reading and it just makes me happy. :)

To my surprise, my mother has laid out one of her own lovely dresses for me. A soft blue thing with matching shoes. [...] For a while I was so angry, I wouldn’t allow her to do anything for me. And this is something special. Her clothes from her past are very precious to her.

I’d never caught the “matching shoes” bit before! Do you suppose Katniss means dyed [blue] to match/covered with matching fabric (so that’s what they do at the shoe shop!) or simply that they go well with the dress? And if she means that the shoes literally match the dress: is this a particularly special dress (hence particularly special shoes) or is it customary for merchant girls to order shoes to match their dresses?

And further: why this year? It doesn’t sound like Mrs. Everdeen has offered one of her apothecary-era dresses before, which could have been due to Katniss’s repeated rebuffs, but still: why offer one of those very precious dresses this year? Did she have a feeling about this reaping? Or is she starting to see Katniss as a young woman, not just an angry, resourceful child? (Coupled with the fact that she subsequently puts Katniss’s hair up, the latter makes a lot of sense.)

On a sidenote: Has anyone written meta on the significance/usage of braids in Twelve? (Notwithstanding WTM: Ch 13 and all that Mellark bridal braids/braid coils/engagement hairpin business.) Ex. Does a girl "graduate” from pigtails to a single braid around puberty and then to a crown braid as a young woman/wife, or does she/her mother simply style it however she feels on any given day? I’m just now realizing that I consistently picture reaping day!Prim in pigtails because of the film, but it doesn’t state in the text how her hair is styled, so it might be in a single braid or held back at the temples with a clip or even worn loose.

The square’s surrounded by shops, and on public market days, especially if there’s good weather, it has a holiday feel to it.

I’m really curious about “public market days,” since the Hob seems to be Twelve’s primary market - or at least, has become so in fanon - but Katniss makes a clear distinction between them (“Make only polite small talk in the public market. Discuss little more than trades at the Hob, which is the black market where I make most of my money”). Is this public market like a farmer’s market or a craft fair - or a bit of both? Is it simply the “merchant version” of the Hob? How often are they held? Who gets to sell at this market, and what sort of wares are we talking about? (Is it just merchants bringing their product outside, like a sidewalk sale?) Does the Capitol/Justice Building collect a fee from everyone wanting a stall/booth/table?

Edit: While looking up details for a different post, I found this passage:

Gale and I went to the market on the square so that I could buy dress materials [for Prim].

So apparently they sold fabric and notions in the public market? (Not at, say, a mercantile/general store?) I’m wholly confused now!

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