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nishimura-writes · 6 months

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Coriolanus x Reader Echoes of Fate: PART 1

Paring: Coriolanus x Reader

Warning: Slow burn... REALLY SLOW BURN

Summary: In a surprising turn of events, you find yourself teamed up with Coriolanus Snow as a mentor for Lucy Gray. Although you seek change, your immediate task is to ensure her victory. As you and Snow strive for Lucy's safety, you both embark on a journey of understanding each other, for better or worse…

WORD COUNT: 1.8k

A/N: Before we delve into the story, I'd like to clarify a couple of things. Some parts of the narrative will be drawn from the original book, but I've incorporated elements from the 2023 movie adaptation of "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" by Suzanne Collins. It's important to note that all the characters in this story belong to Suzanne Collins, except for you—the reader. Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading.

In the winding corridors of the Academy, a place where every whisper seemed to tell a secret, you stood alone. All around you, students moved through the halls, each wrapped up in their own thoughts. The grand staircase, the heart of the Academy, was alive with students, each lost in their private world, as varied and unpredictable as leaves swirling in a wild autumn wind.

Your eyes found Sejanus Plinth. In a crowd dressed mostly in uniform shades, he stood out sharply, his curly hair and tanned skin as distinctive as a bold stroke of colour on a plain canvas.

Today was the day of the Reaping, a day that always felt heavy with fate and uncertainty. The Academy was filled with a quiet tension, the event casting a long shadow over everyone's thoughts. It wasn’t just another day; it was a moment that could change everything.

You walked up to Sejanus, taking his arm to pull him aside, barely noticing the curious looks from others. Today, more than ever, you needed a familiar face, someone who stood out from the rest.

“Plinth, a pleasure as always,” you began with practised ease. “I trust you're faring well in these trying times?”

His reply was cut short by your wandering gaze, your mind elsewhere, haunted by the looming spectre of the Reaping. The hall buzzed with activity, a stark contrast to the solemnity of the districts.

Sejanus' eyes softened, a gesture of understanding. He knew you well, you were afraid. Since defending him from bullies, he had become like a brother to you, a beacon of warmth in the cold Capitol.

You glance around the room, your eyes darting in search of something, anything, to distract you from the weight of the day ahead. With a deep sigh, you fold your arms, unconsciously nibbling on your lip.

The hall buzzes with a mix of faculty, students, and numerous Games officials, who aren't needed for today's initial broadcast. Their formal attire stands in stark contrast to the simpler garb of the district folk. For them, it's a day of grandeur, a significant day to shape the future of Panem.

"I suppose I had to get away. For a moment," you murmur.

"Are you alright?" Sejanus questions, his voice is soft, laced with concern, his eyes searching yours for the truth that lies beneath.

You pause, questioning yourself. Are you really alright? The honest answer would be no, but all you manage is a nod and a forced smile.

"Yes, dear Plinth. Everything's fine."

He looks at you, his eyes searching for the truth.

"You’re not fine."

"I'm managing just fine," You assert, clinging to a semblance of composure.

You're trying to convince both him and yourself, while Sejanus gently probes for your vulnerability. You scan the room, landing on the entrance. Your gaze shifts, seeking a distraction, and finds one as Coriolanus Snow enters the room.

“Look, there’s Snow,” you note, a hint of distraction in your voice.

Sejanus, ever the mediator, remarks with a hint of curiosity,

"I've always wondered why you and Snow don't talk much. Both of you are such good friends of mine."

Your eyes flicker with a mix of confusion and contemplation. Why would Coriolanus Snow, of all people, engage in conversation with you? Such an association could only render him more vulnerable, particularly given his existing friendship with the gentle-hearted Sejanus.

“I've never seen the point in conversing with him. We're both preoccupied with more pressing matters,” you replied dismissively, though Sejanus seemed unconvinced.

Nevertheless, Sejanus, undeterred, gently steers you towards Snow.

"Corio, you remember [Y/N] [L/N], don’t you?"

Snow’s eyes, deep blue and piercing, lock onto yours for a fleeting moment before shifting to Sejanus.

"Of course, we’ve met. But our separate commitments have kept us from further acquaintance. Always a pleasure, Ms. [L/N]."

His words, polite and well-spoken, stirred a complex whirl of emotions deep within you, leaving you with an unsettling mix of curiosity and doubt. They strangely mirror what you had said earlier, almost as if he's unknowingly echoing your thoughts. But the idea that he might have overheard you seems far-fetched. It's probably just a quirky twist of fate, two minds landing on the same note without intention.

You nod, your thoughts a tangled web as you ponder the hidden layers behind his courteous facade. His words, sweet on the surface, felt empty underneath.

Memories from last year fluttered in your mind, about the time you mistook Tigris for being more than just his cousin. It seemed like a silly mix-up now, especially since you hadn't been thinking clearly that night.

"Likewise, Snow," you reply, maintaining a cautious tone.

Snow and Sejanus soon delve into their own discussion, leaving you feeling somewhat lonely. From a distance, you observed them, their shared laughter and knowing glances weaving an invisible barrier, a poignant reminder of the closeness you longed for more but couldn't reach.

The way Snow's eyes lit up at something Sejanus said, the comfortable ease with which Sejanus responded – it was a dance of friendship you could only watch from the sidelines.

Sejanus, ever observant, caught the fleeting look of longing on your face. His eyes met yours across the distance, offering a sympathetic smile, but even this small gesture couldn't bridge the gap.

The ringing of a bell signalled the gathering of students near the dais. Your heart pounded with a mix of fear and resolve. You found your seat beside Sejanus, with Coriolanus close by, and a special section reserved for the mentors.

The mentor section fills up, and the room falls into a hushed anticipation as Dean Casca Highbottom, the mastermind behind the Hunger Games, clumsily commences the mentorship announcements.

“Ho there,” he slurred, brandishing a crumpled paper. “We shall commence with the assignments. Listen closely, if you please.”

His announcement of the pairings provoked a spectrum of reactions—frowns, gasps, excitement, and despair echoed through the hall. When Sejanus’ name was called, his expression turned sorrowful, his distaste for the Games no secret.

The final announcement caused confusion.

“And last, for District Twelve's girl... she shall be mentored by both Coriolanus Snow and [Y/N] [L/N].”

Perplexed, you speak out, your voice tinged with disbelief.

"Sir, there seems to be some error."

Snow's gaze meets yours, reflecting your bewilderment.

Highbottom, adjusting the nonexistent glasses perched on his nose, dismissed your concerns.

“No errors here. Consider yourselves fortunate.”

A sudden realisation hit you - this must be your father's doing. The thought left a bitter taste in your mouth. Teaming up with Snow, a star student at the academy, was a smart move for the tribute's survival. Yet, it felt like a chess piece moved by unseen hands. Snow's sharp mind was an asset, but your motives for victory weren't the same. This forced partnership was like a well-crafted play where each actor had their own hidden script.

The room falls into a heavy silence, with murmurs and chatter from the audience gradually dying down as they all turn their attention to the broadcast featuring Lucy Gray Baird.

A sense of scrutiny washes over you, and you look to your right, locking eyes with none other than Coriolanus Snow. His expression tells a story of deep disappointment. You can't help but admire his composure, which stands in stark contrast to how most honour students might react, with tantrums and chaos.

Lucy Gray, a character of intrigue, has undoubtedly left a lasting impression. Her audacious act of placing a lizard in the girl's dress speaks volumes of her bravery, and her distinctive attire stands out prominently among the others.

"She's like a circus performer," one of the girls comments, a sentiment that finds agreement among the other mentors.

You shake your head, considering the possibilities. Perhaps she is, but you hold onto the hope that there is more to her than meets the eye.

On the screen, a Peacekeeper's hand rises, marking Lucy Gray's cheek with a cruel stroke. Her trembling form and teary eyes showcase the harsh realities of the districts, serving as a stark reminder of the injustice they face.

Just as it seems Lucy Gray is on the brink of yielding to her tears, a voice, young and ethereal, emerges from the crowd, singing a haunting melody that seems to transcend the silence of the square.

Lucy Gray herself joins in, her voice blending seamlessly with the singer's.

You are captivated, as is the entire audience. The girl's singing feels like a beacon of hope in the midst of despair. It strikes you that this unexpected turn of events could potentially sway the audience to support your tribute. You make a mental note to discuss it with Snow later, realising the profound impact it might have on the unfolding drama.

As the reaping came to an end, the tantalising aroma of the evening buffet wove its way through the air, creating a tapestry of enticing scents that promised a sensory feast. Snow sat with himself, savouring each bite from the array of food. Perhaps each taste served as a contemplative pause in the midst of the evening's heavy surroundings.

“May I join you?” you inquired, approaching his table.

He nodded, allowing you to sit. “Regarding Lucy Gray, she’s quite the character. Her time is lamentably short, wouldn’t you agree?”

He looks up from his food, deliberately setting down his utensils with a thoughtful expression. “She’ll survive, by any means necessary.” he affirms with determination.

Nodding, you lift a fork loaded with creamed onions to your mouth, savouring the taste while musing about Snow's icy demeanour, which seemed to reflect his very name.

"How do you propose we do it, Snow?"

He pauses for a moment, his expression thoughtful, as if carefully assembling his thoughts. Finally, he speaks.

"We'll assess the situation in the arena, but I do have a plan before that. Of course, we'll need the tributes' cooperation. We must speak with her."

You blink in disbelief.

"You're suggesting we meet her?" Your voice trembles slightly, though you keep it low enough not to draw attention.

"Yes," Snow whispers, glancing around cautiously to ensure no prying ears or eyes are nearby. His gaze returns to yours, laced with a touch of concern. "Please, lower your voice."

"Okay," you concede, a knot of unease tightening in your chest. "Okay," you repeat, your heart pounding with apprehension.

Across the table, Corionlaus reaches out to take your hand, the distance between you feeling strangely intimate. His touch catches you off guard, sending a ripple of surprise through you, mingled with an inexplicable sense of familiarity.

"We'll be alright. Everything will work out. I promise," he reassures, and you nod, willing to accept his word.

You take that promise to heart.

PART 2 II MASTERLIST

#coriolanus snow #the hunger games #hunger games #corionalus snow x reader #hunger games x reader #lucy gray baird #sejanus plinth #ballad of songbirds and snakes #the ballad of songbirds and snakes

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lovestory · 7 months

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i kinda feel like people are just missing the point completely when they talk about how we need a book and movie for the backstory of every victor in the hunger games (i hear this all the time about haymitch, finnick, johanna) 😭 suzanne collins won't write a book because you like a character and would find reading about their experience in the arena entertaining, she writes when she has something to say in a much broader context

#and i've spent the past few years hearing people whining about how TBOSAS was gonna romanticise snow....and did it? you guys are NOT smarter #than miss collins! like please #in the case of the victors i mentioned also....it would add nothing to the world that's already been built! we know it happened

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ionlybleedbubbles · 9 months

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Writing tips deep in my heaps of cringe, that are actually good (imo) :

When writing in third person, don't say what a character cannot do while talking from their perspective. Frame the idea by telling us what they can do, or through the opinion of other characters. For eg. Instead of saying "Mattie was bad at flying planes", say "Mattie preferred cars to planes, and would much rather his brother do the plane-flying." See? Now you've even managed to drop in a nod about his brother. You could also say, "Kevin felt safer when Mattie's brother flew the plane than when Mattie did." Put the blame on Kevin - don't judge Mattie yourself. As a narrator you must pretend to always be on your MCs' side. Ofc, this would vary with different styles of narration, but this is a general rule.

Show how important a character is by how much time you take to talk about them. You would describe your MCs well, and bring up their hobbies and interests. You wouldn't describe a background character as much. You can use this to humanize or dehumanize characters. You may initially talk very little about the main villain yourself, and rely on dialogue among the other characters. This makes the villain feel like a force rather than a person. As the story progresses though, and you decide you want to drop in a *hairflips dramatically* sad back story, you can humanize the villain, and make them more understandable as a person.

Learn from art. Try describing different sceneries or portraits as practice. Also practice writing comic books or manga as stories. Visualizing your story as comic or manga panels can really help you understand pacing and paragraphs. Take note of their vibrance and positioning.

Learn from people's mannerisms and how they are received by other people. For eg, when we ask my dad a question, he pauses to gather his thoughts before speaking. Out of respect, we wait silently during this pause. This shows how confident and charismatic my dad is. A friend of mine only verbally roasts people within our friend group, and apologizes profusely after. This shows she is both empathetic and extremely quick-witted. I could create well rounded characters based on just examples as simple as these.

This tip is what I like to call 'the fake solution' and is employed by many famous authors. For this, you force readers to make assumptions. Maybe about how the magic system works, or about who the villain is. Make it seem like the characters have come to a conclusion and that conclusion is the final solution to conflict. Then tear down those assumptions and create a whole other ending. Similar to the red herring, except this time it's all in the characters' heads and dialogue. Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy is a good example of playing with assumptions forced upon readers by the writer.

In your first chapter, focus on creating potential. You don't have to jump into the heart of the action right away, but you have to make sure your readers understand the potential for this action. For example the opening chapter of Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Boys is relatively low paced, but it leaves you with questions. It makes you wonder who the boy who talked to Blue is, and how Blue will deal with life after such a strange prophecy. This makes you need to continue reading, to find answers.

For good worldbuilding, study at least a little bit of history. Wars and military tricks make for good free prompts. If your world contains vibrant races, make sure you research and incorporate the history and implications of racism, social hierarchy and trade. Understand how this will impact travellers and mercenaries (audiences love those). Make up your own old wives' tales and coping mechanisms.

Understand that the best stories are written around an idea rather than a character. Your protagonist is simply the face of your story. The weather of the world reflects on the protagonist's choices and health. Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games focuses on the dark side of media and politics and how they are used to control a people. Notice that by the third book, Katniss, our protagonist, is doing very little herself, though her few moments are loud and powerful. Katniss could achieve nothing alone. It takes a whole bunch of people to fuel the revolution. Note that it is completely okay to write a character based story, if that's what you like. But there are tons of those. If you really want to make an impact, make an idea-based story.

Respect all your characters equally. You may love some characters more than others, but remember all your characters are representatives of people. Make sure each of them has a voice and a chance to prove themselves.

Use prose to your advantage. Let the length of your sentence define whether the sequence is fast paced or slow. For example, if your want to show surprise, your sentences must be short. Instead of saying "She snatched the last dagger and stared at it, observing each engraving", say " She snatched up the last dagger. Each engraving was sick, gnarled. "

That was a heck of a long post, but that's all from me. Feel free to add your own or contradict anything I've written.

#writing #writing advice #author #teen author #brandon sanderson #mistborn #raven boys #maggie stiefvater #the hunger games #suzanne collins #writing tips #worldbuilding #character design #character traits #writing research #fiction #fiction writing #story

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hungergamesbookclub · 6 months

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THG Book Club

We will be hosting a book club for Hunger Games fans starting in early January. This will not be a read-along of the series (we've all probably read them several times over at this point). The purpose of this book club is to expand our reading to novels, essays, short stories, poems, songs, etc. that Suzanne Collins either was inspired by or works that have similar themes to The Hunger Games. While we will be reading these works on their own merit and discuss them on this basis alone, we will also be examining how the themes interact between The Hunger Games and the other work. Discussion is highly encouraged! :)

Short on time? Don't worry! We'll be reading at a manageable pace (1-2 chapters a week, depending on length). This is meant to be a sustainable activity. So even if you get busy or have to skip out for a bit, catching up shouldn't take too much time.

So what will we be reading exactly? Although Suzanne Collins gives interviews rarely, she openly talks about her inspiration for The Hunger Games found in literature, myth, and history. We'll be finding these books and other works she's mentioned, voting on what we want to read, and going from there. Shorter works (such as myths and poems and essays) will be interspersed between longer works such as novels and plays.

What about diversity? Given Suzanne Collins's background, it's no surprise that the list is pretty Western and white. This is why we aren't sticking strictly to a Suzanne Collins reading list. After a "Suzanne Read" we'll open up to works that are written by authors of diverse backgrounds who write on similar themes that we can compare to The Hunger Games and expand our perspective on these topics as well!

What'll it cost me? Many of the works will be free online, but especially when we look into diverse reads, this may not always be the case. We encourage use of libraries, borrowing books, thrifting books, and/or buying on an ereader, depending on what's available to you. If you need help accessing the books, don't hesitate to reach out.

Who's behind this account? Hi, my main is @thesweetnessofspring. :)

How to participate:

Follow this blog for updates.

Follow #thg book club to read everyone else's discussion.

Be kind and have fun!

Currently, I am taking suggestions for the poll for our first Suzanne Read! Books on my list so far:

Far From the Madding Crowd

Coriolanus

Frankenstein

Spartacus

Lord of the Flies

If there are any books Suzanne has mentioned has been an influence on her or THG that you're interested in reading, please leave a reply or message so I can add it to the list! I plan to open up the poll on 12/20/2023 so get your suggestions in by then!

#the hunger games #catching fire #mockingjay #tbosas #suzanne collins #everlark #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark #coriolanus snow #lucy gray baird #thg book club

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mr-tellmeafuckingsecret · 4 months

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Just to put in my thought into the Hunger Games since I have returned to HG brainrot, Catching Fire in particular ever since the new TBOSAS film release.

One thing in Catching Fire we ought to revisit is the arena. Most of the talk I've heard about it is that "it was designed for Finnick (or just District 4) to win" and that it was "so last minute"

No it wasn't.

It was designed so that Katniss would lose. It was carefully planned over that year to ensure her death.

Fire and water are considered complete opposites of the spectrum - water puts out fires. The Girl On Fire dying in an arena of water? The concept of the spark of rebellion being put out by a little bit of water is Snow's aim.

That year of planning the Quarter Quell gave him an excuse to put Katniss in a situation she couldn't survive. An arena filled with strong, smart, experienced fighters and strategists designed to use all of her "weaknesses" against her.

Snow fucking loves his symbolism. Water is the Girl On Fire's weakness. Something so harmless - life-sustaining, even - putting out the symbol of the revolution (by extension, the revolution itself) would exterminate the hope in the Districts.

"Fear does not work as long as they have hope, and Katniss Everdeen is giving them hope." Was something Snow explicitly said.

Killing Katniss kills the hope. But the hope is strong. He needs to ensure there is no room for error - she must die. Meaning - she needs to be in the arena against better, more experienced fighters, surrounded by water.

Idk if this has been said before, I don't think it has - I'm sorry if it has. Just another layer of depth Suzanne Collins added that I thought of after rereading the series recently.

Drink water <3

#the hunger games #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark #catching fire #finnick odair #the hunger games catching fire #suzanne collins

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davidfarland · 2 years

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Scene & Summary: Mastering When to Use Which

Writers regularly need both scene and summary to tell a great story, but sometimes it can be difficult to discern when to use which, for best effect. Occasionally when editing another’s work, I find the writer made what really should have been summaries into scenes, and what really should have been scenes, into summaries.

This can weaken any story. Just imagine what The Hunger Games would have been like if Suzanne Collins summarized the high points of the Games—the cornucopia battle, the tracker jackers, or the mutts at the end. Then consider how slow and boring the story would be if she wrote a scene for every time Katniss went to bed or woke up and ate breakfast while in the Capitol. A high-stakes, fast-paced story would have turned into a drag—and would have been rejected before Effie could say “Primrose Everdeen.”

Writers run into this problem for several reasons:

They can’t yet tell the difference between scene and summary

They can’t yet discern what the story’s major turning points are

They feel too intimidated to write what needs to happen in a scene

They don’t know how to write a strong scene

They don’t know how to write a strong summary

Hi all, September C. Fawkes ( @septembercfawkes ) here for this week’s article. And I will be addressing each of these.

What’s the Difference Between Scene and Summary?

How can you know when to use which when you don’t really know what each is?

Here are the key features of scenes and summaries to help you develop a better eye for them.

Scene:

A scene will happen in real time. The audience will “watch” the characters move across the setting, interact, and speak, as if it is all taking place in the real world.

The characters will be acting within a specific location. They may be sitting at a kitchen table, or on an airplane, or venturing into a forest. Often (though not always) when a scene ends and a new scene begins, the location will have changed. (Alternatively, the story may have jumped forward or backward in time.)

Scenes are “shown” more than “told” to the audience. This means what happens is dramatized. We don’t tell the audience “Matt was angry for the whole dinner.” We show he’s angry through his behavior. He may make a passive-aggressive comment, complain his meat is undercooked, or, if he’s really angry, throw his drink at his girlfriend.

Scenes will be mostly concrete. Because a scene is dramatized, it will more likely appeal to our senses and the physical world and experience.

Summary:

A summary happens over condensed time, not real time. A sentence may span a day, a week, a month, a year. Summaries may talk about recurring events over a period of time, within one paragraph. They may relay past—or even future—events within a brief moment.

The characters or locations may change swiftly, or in some cases, may not even be present. The text may guide the reader through different places, people, or time frames with ease.

Summaries use more “telling” than “showing.” This is because what is happening isn’t in real time. This gives summary a stronger, guiding, narrative hand. Rather than experiencing the passage like the character, it's more like the audience is being guided by a storyteller.

Because summaries use more telling and can move swiftly from one thing to another, they will be more abstract. They will convey ideas and concepts, rather than recreate specific experiences.

To illustrate the differences, check out these two examples from Ender’s Game.

Scene Example:

(Note: Because scenes often take place over pages, this is just part of a scene.)

Anderson palmed the locks that kept students out of the officers' quarters; finally they came to where Graff had taken root on a swivel chair bolted to the steel floor. His belly spilled over both armrests now, even when he sat upright. . . . Time and tension were not being kind to the administrator of the Battle School.

"Seven days since your first battle, Ender," said Graff.

Ender did not reply.

"And you've won seven battles, once a day."

Ender nodded.

"Your scores are unusually high, too."

Ender blinked.

"To what, commander, do you attribute your remarkable success?"

"You gave me an army that does whatever I can think for it to do."

Summary Example:

Ender put them through the obstacle course twice, then split them into rotations on the tramp, the mat, and the bench. . . . He didn't need to worry about exhaustion. They were in good shape, light and agile, and above all excited about the battle to come. A few of them spontaneously began to wrestle—the gym, instead of being tedious, was suddenly fun. . . . At 0640 he had them dress out. He talked to the toon leaders and their seconds while they dressed. At 0650 he made them all lie down on the mats and relax. Then, at 0656, he ordered them up and they jogged along the corridor to the battleroom.

Worth noting is that it is possible to mix scene and summary. For example, you may have a bit of summary within a scene that briefly provides background information. Or, you may write a long passage of summary that has short moments of dramatization. No need to get too strict on keeping summary out of scene or vice versa—but it is important to know the difference between them.

What Should be Scene and What Should be Summary?

A good rule of thumb is, the more important the moment, the more likely it needs to be rendered as a scene.

What Should be Scene

Scenes take place in real time, concretely, which means they are almost always more impactful than summary. Scenes immerse the audience powerfully into the story. We want to dramatize the most important parts for best effect.

If you are familiar with story structure, you can use it as a guide. Major turning points should almost unequivocally be scenes:

The inciting incident should be a scene.

The climax should be a scene.

The midpoint should be a scene.

And the high points in each act should be a scene.

And the pinch points should be scenes.

Anything the story has been building and building and building up to, should probably be a scene.

If you are working with multiple plotlines, all of the major events of the primary plotline should probably be a scene. The less important the plotline, the more you can get away with summarizing important events or even having those events happen “off page.”

Another rule of thumb is that if the moment significantly progresses the character arc, plot, or theme, it needs to be a scene.

Finally, most genres will have what professional editor Shawn Coyne (creator of The Story Grid) calls “obligatory scenes.” These are scenes that the audience expects to see in the story when they pick up the book. For example, in a murder mystery, we expect to have a scene where the body is discovered. In a romance, we expect to have a first kiss scene.

What Should be Summary

On the other side of the spectrum, we have summary. Not everything that happens in a story needs to be dramatized in a full-blown scene. The narrative would become long, flat, and boring.

Use summary when the audience needs to know the fact that something happened, but it's not important for them to experience it.

For example, we may need to know the fact that Henry slept terribly last night because it will affect his test-taking skills in the next scene, but we don’t really need to share his experience of that. It may not be interesting enough to make into a scene, and if we try, it’d likely be dull. How much conflict can you really get out of that scenario?

Summary is also useful when you need to cover a broad length of time in a short amount of space, or when you need to talk about recurring events. If your characters have to go by sea to a new land, and the plot isn’t really about the boat ride, then you’ll be better off summarizing the voyage. And similarly—rather than rendering the fact that Macy is late to work every day, scene after scene, it will probably be more efficient to summarize that, since it’s a recurring issue.

Additionally, summary can work well to transition from one scene to another—particularly when something noteworthy happened between those scenes, but isn’t worth dramatizing.

Finally, summary can be important in providing the reader with context. It may be used to set up a situation or provide background information so the audience can follow what is happening in a plot accurately. For example, summary may be used to briefly explain an ongoing feud between two families, so that the reader will understand why Yolanda and her siblings are sabotaging the Greens’ block party.

What if I Don’t Know How to Write this Part into a Scene?

Sometimes authors avoid writing what should be a scene, into a scene because they feel intimidated or underqualified. They may feel like they can’t write a good action scene or first kiss scene, so instead they just summarize or leave what happened off the page. Or perhaps they need to write a scene from the point of view of a surgeon, but feel clueless about surgeries.

Usually, this doesn’t give you a pass to turn what should be a pivotal scene, into a summary.

And often when a writer does this, it feels like cheating.

If this is a key turning point, it should probably be a scene.

There are a few ways to address this.

First and foremost, do your research so you do feel equipped to handle the scene. Study how other writers have handled it. Interview anyone you need to. And after you write the scene, have others more qualified read over it and give you feedback.

If the information and resources you need are literally unavailable (which, with the internet, is rare these days), learn what you can and work with what you have. While it’s not ideal, on some occasions on some scenes, you can bluff some of it. But this is only merited when the information exists but can’t be obtained. The audience likely won’t have the information either, so if you handle it well, they won’t know the difference.

Finally, and this is iffy too, you can sometimes work around sticky scenarios like this by sinking deeper into the character’s viewpoint. What is he thinking and feeling during this situation? Depending on the story, that may actually be more effective. Perhaps his internal experience of this action scene is much more important than the physical experience.

How Do I Write a Strong Scene?

Other times scenes are a problem simply because the writer doesn’t know how to write a strong scene.

Almost any given scene should follow basic story structure: setup, rising action, climax, falling action. It’s just that they work on a smaller scale than the whole story.

Beyond the basics, you can find other helpful approaches to scene structure. One of the most famous comes from Dwight V. Swain who breaks this small structural unit into two parts:

Scene: Goal, Conflict, Disaster

Sequel: Reaction, Dilemma, Decision

Editor Shawn Coyne also builds on the basic structure with these parts:

Inciting Incident

Progressive Complication

Crisis

Climax

Resolution

You can easily research either approach online. You can also get more help with scenes from David Farland’s writing tip series on scenes.

How Do I Write a Strong Summary?

In the writing community, we focus a lot on scenes and “showing,” so it can be difficult to learn how to write powerful summaries.

Some of the best advice I can give on writing strong summary is to “borrow” elements of “showing” and scene—find ways to weave in appeals to the senses, even though it’s summary.

For example:

Henry slept terribly that night. The room felt hot and his skin stuck to the sheets. Around midnight, a dog’s incessant barking drifted in through his open window, followed by the scent of a skunk. Whenever he did fall asleep, his dreams were riddled with his professor frowning and shaking her head as she graded his test. By the time he showed up to class, he was convinced he would fail.

If you need to write a long passage of summary, my other best advice is to pick a topic or topics to use as a sort of “theme” to weave through the summary. This helps “glue together” everything you need to convey to the audience. So, if I needed to summarize a voyage to another land, I may choose to focus on the wind or weather and thread that through the passage.

There are other techniques, but I think I will cover those another time.

#writing tips #writing tips and tricks #writing help #writeblr #fanfiction #nanowrimo

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wolfnesta · 11 months

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I’ve sort of stopped posting rant peices because meh I feel like everything that’s needed to be said has been said but I just kind of caught myself analyzing SJM’s writing after my reread of the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and it led me to a comparison that somewhat allowed me to pin point why I just couldn’t really get into Feyre’s character. This is not anti Feyre before people get carried away but I do suggest you ignore this post if you’re a diehard fan even if it’s mostly an SJM critique.

For context during my first read of acotar I was a hardcore Hunger Games fan (the books because I loathe the movies). I’m talking obsessed since even before Mockingjay, the book, came out. And so Feyre somewhat gave me Katniss vibes with the whole bow and arrow/hunting theme but I say somewhat because the whole theme was ditched after the first few pages of acotar. Which isn’t a problem I mean they’re two different characters, two different stories, two different genres. (Note: absolutely no one can compare to Katniss. Additionally, Sarah can’t compare to Suzanne. But that’s just me) So the reason I still chose to do this comparison is because it sort of helped me understand why I could obsess over one character but reject the other when they hold similar traits. I think the best way I could describe it is from the beginning Suzanne Collins created a distinction between the protagonist and the situation which is so important because this allows the reader to understand details of characters surrounding Katniss and her demise while also understanding the responses she has to them as her own character. Maybe a bit confusing so let me give an example. It is explained why certain characters play a hand in Katniss’s demise like her mother, the tributes, her mentors etc very clearly, as in, we can grasp all the tragedies of their own while also understanding Katniss’s response to them separate than the readers eg. Katniss never being able to forgive her mother’s neglect at the same time that the reader understands the mother had untreated depression, the Careers trying to kill her with malicious intent but also understanding they’re basically puppets of the Capitol, Haymitch being a detoriating alcoholic she finds culpable for the lack of District winners but also knowing it’s his only way to cope with his ptsd. Anything about those characters after that is character development from what was already clearly established, more examples: the reveal of Finnick Odair’s promiscuity then learning he was being sold for sex, realizing Johanna’s lack of self preservation is because everyone she loved was murdered, and basically the whole entire book for President Snow’s character in The Balllad of Songbirds and Snakes which wasn’t even a redemption story it was just— 🤌

Whereas Sarah decides to bring up things at random when readers are suppose to have already made up their minds about Feyre’s demise. Cue in Tamlin going from having decent qualities to sudden complete douche, Nesta’s spiteful comments to suddenly she’ll save her, Lucien being a friend to suddenly he’s in debted to her, heck even —no especially Rhys’s ‘did bad things but turns out they were all for the greater good’ characterization throughout the books and everything he does is fine because of it. Because SJM uses Feyre as a way to make the readers believe how bad/good so and so is vs Suzanne who uses Katniss to provide to readers how Katniss believe’s so and so is. Then the way Sarah throws vague cryptic things to make characters seem traumatized which I’d go as far as to say is cringe borderline disrespectful the way they seem to be presented just for ‘aesthetic’ purposes instead of the very real things those topics entail (I’m looking at you Nesta’s SA plus others) but that’s another topic, I’m derailing.

Which is why I will definitely always say that from the very beginning of acotar the whole Elain and Nesta constituting Feyre’s wicked family trope fell extremely flat to me. Like I was completely unbothered— I couldn’t even bring myself to dislike them because it felt almost too obvious the way they were written plus the lack of explanation as to why?? There is this disconnection because sjm doesn’t clearly explain their behavior until way later which results in just a weird retcon type situation. Not only that but she goes on to build from it giving the sisters more importance in the series.

But whatever, that’s just my opinion. Which I’m sure has been said before in different terms.

Yet still I enjoyed Feyre book 1, although, as I made myself complete the series it seems by acosf she’s almost entirely different except for her self sacrificing qualities that tend to remain in all MC’s. I mean I really don’t think Feyre book 1 or maybe even book 2 would’ve let Rhys get away with that horrid pregnancy trope thing going on but 🤷🏻‍♀️ I’m not the owner of any of these characters so. In the end she’s an okay character to me, she’s a determined, loving person, but I just wouldn’t consider her a fave of mine.

#sjm critical #anti feyre #I want to like feyre I do but I couldn’t bring myself to love and obsess over her like my dumb ass does #tagging anti because some of her fans are insufferable

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agentem · 7 months

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Preparing for "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes"

I'm going to talk about the Hunger Games series some more because I'm in a hyperfixation.

If you saw the movies and/or read the books awhile ago, you might need a bit of a refresher before seeing The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (in theaters November 17!).

BALLAD is set 64 years before the events of The Hunger Games. It is takes place around the 10th Annual Hunger Games and Katniss competes in the 74th Hunger Games.

So really you just have to remember that Panem is a the country and they have Hunger Games. That's pretty much it. Ballad deals with how the Hunger Games themselves went from being a plain punishment to a spectacle that is still a punishment. You'll see.

There are only two characters from the first movie series in the prequel, as far as I know.

The first is this jerk:

Coriolanus Snow was originally played by Donald Sutherland and will now be portrayed as a teenager by Tom Blyth.

The other is a character you might not remember.

Tigris Snow appeared VERY briefly in the movie Mockingjay Part 2 (and the book Mockingjay). She was played by Eugenie Bondurant. We learn she was a stylist for the Hunger Games. Her heavily tatooed and feline appearance surprises Katniss. The director Cressida approaches her, saying she was part of Plutarch Heavensbee's underground. Tigris smiles when Katniss says she's going to kill President Snow and shelters Katniss's squad.

So it was a bit of a shock when Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes the book came out and revealed that Tigris is Coriolanus' cousin, who practically raised him because his mother died in childbirth.

In Ballad, Tigris is a cinnamon roll too pure for this world played by Hunter Schafer of Euphoria. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that we do not know what happened to her in between the two time periods. (Suzanne, if you are reading this, we need a Tigris novel. Or at leastanother novel in which she appears.)

I'd like to know if Tigris did her body modifications because she wanted to (I hope) or if it was to disguise her appearance (but she kind of draws attention to herself?) or maybe to cover up some scars? I'm worried about her. (Anyone got theories?)

Family Members

We do see some characters that are related to characters that will appear in the main trilogy.

Lucky Flickerman, played by Jason Schwartzman, is related to Cesar Flickerman, played by Stanley Tucci. Both are TV presenters that are involved with the production of the Hunger Games.

Snow is also classmates with members of the Crane and Heavensbee families. Seneca Crane (Wes Bentley) was the Gamemaker with the funny beard in the first movie. And Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) was a key figure in the revolution that eventually overthrows Snow in Mockingjay Part 2.

TLDR, the elite families of the Capitol are insular. They all go to the same school and live in the same area. Outsiders are not welcome. Especially outsiders from the Districts.

Other Connections

SONGS

Ballad will also follow a female tribute from District 12. For the 10th Hunger Games that is Lucy Gray Baird, played by Rachel Zegler. Lucy Gray is very different from Katniss. She is a singer and performer, not a hunter. Her family is a group of other children that were once part of a traveling singing troupe called "the Covey". (They are now kind of stuck in 12 since the Rebellion.)

The song "The Hanging Tree" that Katniss sings in Mockingjay Part 1 is a part of Ballad. We learn that Lucy Gray wrote that song. And it is implied that the littlest member of the Covey, Maude Ivory, is related to Katniss' father. She is probably his mother or grandmother, which explains how Katniss knows the song more than 60 years later. (This theory has not been confirmed by Suzanne Collins but makes the most sense.)

Keep your eye on this little one.

BIRDS

Also you may wish to refamiliarize yourself with the fictious creature called the Mockingjay. The book Ballad features the bird itself, whereas the movies mostly focused on it as a symbol of the revolution (Katniss).

But mockingjays are hybrid birds created when the Capitol's genetically engineered jabberjays (these were seen in the arena in Catching Fire torturing Finnick and Katniss with their lifelike screams) mated with mockingbirds and a new species came about. Thereafter they were associated with the rebellion against the Capitol as a symbol. Katniss says they were something of a "slap in the face" to the Capitol--a sign they didn't actually have total control.

This symbolism will be furthered when Katniss herself wears a mockingjay pin into the arena and Rue teaches her how to use them to signal to each other. And then it becomes a whole thing where Katniss "is" the Mockingjay and that's the title of the third book/third and fourth movies.

#the ballad of songbirds and snakes #tbosas #suzanne collins #the hunger games #the hunger games: catching fire #the hunger games: mockingjay part 2 #the hunger games: mockingjay part 1 #katniss everdeen #coriolanus snow #tigris snow #mockingjays #spoilers

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saenareveluv · 6 months

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˜”*°•.˜”*°• “ is this real? “ •°*”˜.•°*”˜

DID SNOW AND LUCY GRAY LOVE EACH OTHER?

I think his famous quote explains it all really ‘It’s the things we love that destroys us the most’ Notice how he uses the word ‘THINGS’ instead of ‘PEOPLE’ I think this is how Snow’s mentality has been since he was younger. Being born in the Dark Ages wasn’t easy for anyone: especially a small child in a dysfunctional family (refer to Tigris talking about Coryo’s father and Coryo stating how his mother died) He was raised in a hostile environment and was taught emotion is weakness. Having any attachment to people was weak (assuming the quote was said after the events between him and Lucy Gray) That ‘thing’ was that he couldn’t control her and more so, she held more power over him then he did her and it destroyed him.

They may have loved each other but this by no means was a healthy form of love (mostly contributed to the way they were raised/the circumstances of how they met) He loved the fact he could own her, control and claim her as his. The matter of the fact is pretty simple if you ask me: As we saw throughout the book, his thrust for power was small but evident at the beginning and grew as the story unfolded. Snow became obsessed with it and even spiralled out of control in the end. The simple answer is he prioritised it over everyone, even the woman he loved and it destroyed him.

I think the difference between the book and movie is due to the inner monologues in the book and if you only watched the movie (eliminating the extra context provided by the book) their love seemed healthier (as healthily as you can get for this series) But with the extra context of the book, showing what kind of person snow is: you see him for who he really is. The comparison reminds me of a celebrity’s self-directed documentary versing the exposé written about them (really bad metaphor but bear with me) Many of his inner thoughts are down right inhumane, helping Suzanne Collins further reflect the purpose of the book; Snow is never a good person but the world around him truly makes him the monster he becomes later in life. He developed this obsession with her due to this mentality and as her actions reflect, I don’t think she had that same connection. At best, she had more of a crush that was later shattered due to their unhealthy dynamic and Snow’s actions. At worst, Snow was simply a rebound for Billy and due to their circumstances when they meet; it was disguised as love, causing Snow’s paranoia to kick in and destroy what he thought they had.

I feel like he also saw her as somebody below him (her being Covey/district and him being Capital/son of the former president) He would always disconnect the idea of Lucy being District due to the Capital’s long time prejudice and he wouldn’t be doing that if he didn’t have those strong feelings for her. He always looked at people as how he can benefit from them (even his own family) and he saw many benefits from her but once she was no longer of use; and even seen as a threat, he saw her as a loose end. If they haven’t had so much emotional baggage that affected Snow’s mentality (obsession with power mostly among other things) they could have been happy for at least longer than they were (even if they weren’t endgame)

People who think Coryo and Lucy Gray didn’t love each other need to realise that love doesn’t have to be healthy to experience it. Love can be toxic and messy and can fuck you up real good. That’s just the part of to have love and lost. What he basically says in his quote, love can destroy you. His love for her wasn’t innocent and perfect but it was there. In the end he just loved himself more. You don’t spend 60+ years being haunted by someone you didn’t genuinely love. You also don’t marry someone you hate so that love can never make you feel weakness again. You don’t try to remove every reminder of them, you don’t and make the world forget them if you weren’t affected by them. And that’s the beauty of it all, the book shows love can come in different forms (no matter how dark and bad it may be at times) it’s shows everyone has their own story (the shift of perspectives between the Capital and the Rebels throughout books) The only people who can’t see or accept this are either too stupid or have no done their research.

JESUS CHRIST I TYPED A LOT sorry it’s like almost 1am and I have nothing better to do than ramble about these two cutie patooties. I need sleep but I need this movie on Netflix more. My brain isn’t braining properly so apologies for any mistakes. I am open to debates but I will admit, I never stop arguing so if u wanna debate lmk. If you want more 2am rants about this series, I can rant for years non-stop. Will I edit to add more babbles when I think of them? Yes but who cares

Anyways logging off I need sleep

#tbosas #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #lucy gray baird #coriolanus snow #rant post #theory #sleep deprived #love is dead #we die like men #unedited #fyp #saena.reveluv

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clatoera · 8 months

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Always Remember We're Burned for Better Chapter 19: Always Remember We're Burned for Better

Here we are. The TITULAR chapter. Only two more chapters follow this, one being the epilogue. We are at the end of the war. We have made it. We are just about at the end of this fic. It is absolutely wild we have made it this far together. I finally picked a title for the sequel, so thats cool. This is the longest chapter by far. It is the most important. They have been burned, and now it is time to find that it is for the better.

I have a LOT of emotions in writing this. I never imagined how it would feel to nearly finish the biggest fic i've ever done. And I'm feeling a LOT. Idk. I'm kind of sad about it?

title from The Great War. Also the titular chapter of the fic. Wild.

AO3

Masterpost.

As always, thank you to my friends. For your endless support and listening to me ramble. I literally cannot thank @ohhowwehavefallen enough. @kentwells who has essentially helped me restructure some things in the sequel already that i'm honestly weirdly excited for. @mollywog who was my first ever commenter who continues to read a story about a ship that she isn't even a stan for. @crookedlyniceperson my dear meme maker. @clarascrabarmy my nightshift angel who talked me off a ledge last week. And so so so many more. I am just.. yeah. Feeling a lot about this fic. It's been a crazy crazy ride.

And as we approach the end I just need to say thank you all.

Note: I do not own any of the Mockingjay content in italics, that all belongs to Suzanne Collins.

I'm like. On the verge of tears as I post this.

The banging at the door is incessant and alarming, more frantic than was usual in such a militant district. Compared to the festivities of the night before, with the wedding of Finnick and Annie, such a frantic rapping at the door pulls them from their comfortable position in each other's arms.

Cato doesn’t really move, shifting his face to bury it in Clove’s neck, pulling her body flush against his even more so than it already was. “Mmm, think they’ll go away if we ignore it?” He murmurs, voice muffled in the mess of hair between his lips and her skin. “Think we’re in trouble for missing breakfast?”

“Seems a bit more urgent than missed scrambled eggs.” Clove mumbles in response, pulling the thin cotton sheet higher up over their shoulders, no intention to greet the stale morning air beyond the warmth of their minimally comfortable bed. The two twin beds pushed together was a FAR cry from the comfort of their home, but they both knew they likely would not be returning to such luxuries for quite some time. She’s about to continue ignoring the banging, content to rest in his arms until something of worth drags them out, when the knocking both deepens in intensity and increases in speed. “For fucks sake,”

The banging does not relent, and Clove is reluctant unbury her face and push herself out from under the weight of Cato’s arm, which falls on the bed behind her hips with a dramatic thump. Her feet hit the floor as she rocks to a sitting position, and the cool underground air prickles the hair of her skin. She ignores the dull ache the cold introduces to her skeleton, the way her shoulders throb just deep to the planes of her skin. For a moment, she thinks about how this is going to feel in the winter in the mountains of District Two, before she remembers she will likely never step foot back in her District.

The violent outbreak in District Two eventually did turn towards the side of the rebellion, but not before sides were further divided, largely because of Cato and Clove themselves. Many of the loyalists did hear them, saw them for the children who were born, raised, and sacrificed to the games in their childhood, and took their pleas of reality. There was still a small camp, though, who dove further into their cause, citing Cato and Clove both as traitors to not only their home but their country. While it had ultimately turned out against the Capitol, the beliefs would remain. IF there was a District Two to return to, would they even be welcome?

The banging continues to hasten, and Clove actually sighs out loud as she searches for something, namely, Cato’s shirt, from the floor before slipping it over her head and shuffling closer to the door.

The exact second that she turns the door handle, the heavy metal door comes flying open as if it were made of cardboard and not steel, and Clove is pushed back into the room by the flurry of blonde that comes rushing in.

“They’re gone. Everyone is gone. Katniss, and Finnick, and their whole film crew and everyone is gone and It’s just us and Annie and Johanna and–” comes so fast that the words are nearly imperceivable by their intended audience.

“Good Morning to you, too, Glimmer.” Cato rolls to his back, now understanding that no, he would not be going back to sleep anytime soon. “Can you breathe between your words so we can understand what you’re saying?”

“You’re pleasant in the morning,” Another unexpected voice follows, as Marvel follows in the room behind Glimmer, rubbing his eyes as his socks shuffle along the cement flooring of the rooms. “I don’t remember you being all grumpy in the games.”

“You look ridiculous.” Cato snaps, before stretching his arms above his head, holding his head in his hands as they rest on the pillow behind him. As result the sheets slip lower, leaving practically his whole torso bared to the room. “Shirtless isn’t for everyone.”

“I was asleep!” He defends mildly, before stifling another yawn. “It’s like..five in the morning, give me a break.”

“Why are you waking us all up at five a.m. Glimmer?” Clove redirects, practically grabbing Glimmer by the shoulders, stabilizing the blubbering, pacing girl. She looks frantic, nearly mad even. “Glimmer! Words!”

“Everyone is gone.” Glimmer grabs Clove’s arms, digging her nails in with a panic. “They’re gone, went to the Capitol gone.”

Clove’s face must fall first, as the realization hits her far faster than it does the men. Her fingers tighten on Glimmer’s arms ,and she shakes her just a little. “This is…it? This is the end and they just…left us? They didn’t even want us to help–”

“Sure did!” Yet another voice enters the room, this time the snarky tone of Johanna sliding into the room behind the other four. “Thanks for waking the whole district Blondie- oh GOOD Morning.” She laughs the second she sees Cato in his sheet on the bed, clapping her hands together once. “We’re the leftovers, but damn, I’ll take it. Speaking of leftovers, Clove if you get sick of-”

“Johanna i’ll still fucking kill you.” Clove warns, a sharp edge in her voice that relays that no, she is not in fact even slightly joking.

“Okay hold on, why would they leave without us, we’re useful.” Marvel argues, crossing his arms across his chest, before he sits himself on the foot edge of the bed, far from Cato on the other side.

“How useful are you, really, Marvel?” Johanna taunts, before shutting the heavy metal door behind her, protecting the secrecy of their conversation. “I’m sure they gave Katniss a bow and Finnick a fucking trident, nothing like sending people into an active warzone with symbolic weapons. Did you all fail your readiness tests? I almost made it then they flooded the fucking streets… tried to send me back to the hospital and everything?”

“You can swim, what's that matter?” Cato pulls himself to a sitting position to join the rest of the group more properly. “You’d never have survived the quell otherwise.”

Johanna bristles but goes quiet, suddenly shifting her focus towards a rather interesting spot in the floor, when Marvel speaks for her.

“Back in the Capitol they uh..” He waves his hand around, gesturing something Cato nor Glimmer quite grasp. “With the water and the electricity, they shocked her.”

“Electrocuted.” She corrects, before raising her head to look around the room again. “Not that it matters now. I didn’t pass and clearly neither did any of you–”

“What test do you mean?” Clove cranes her head to look at Johanna, but does not move her hands from where she holds Glimmer’s arms down, noticing the way her wrists twitch to reach for the skin of her own arms. “They didn’t tell us about some test,”

“A field readiness test. To see if you were capable of handling whatever the Capitol threw out?” Johanna now sits on the makeshift king bed, a few feet away from Marvel but no closer to Cato to prevent the risk of Clove taking it as a move on him. “They must have considered all of you too big of a liability to even think about sending you out there.”

“Do they think we’re just..team Snow? After all they’ve done to us, after all we’ve said?” Glimmer shakes her head, disbelief at the lack of trust this cause has for them, after the repeated displays of loyalty they have all given time and time again. “They just think we’re not worth including?”

“I, for one, am fine with not dying in this war. We made it this far, besides, they would have sent us out there like idiots trying to fight a war with swords and knives. A suicide mission, really, if you think about it.” Cato announces, but the disdain on his face reveals to Clove that he’s a little bitter about missing his final chance at violence and bloodshed in the Capitol streets.

“We’re all dead anyway if Snow wins.” Johanna reminds them all, leaning back in Clove’s bed, stretching her arms out around her. “May as well watch the end of the world from a bunker. Aren’t you all tired of being used as little show ponies by both sides?”

“She fucking hates us, I can’t believe she didn’t want to exterminate us. She looks at us like we’re rats plaguing her district.” Clove says, but the way her eyes flit around the room shows she’s hesitant to even elaborate.

“Who? Katniss?” Glimmer cocks her head, narrowing her eyes like she wants to defend the symbolic girl herself.

“No..Coin.” Clove whispers, looking between them all as if she cannot believe they do not immediately agree. “She looks at Katniss like it, too. She doesn’t like us. Any of us.”

“Maybe it looks better for us not to even be there, then to turn for the Capitol and die for them.” Cato suggests, leaning back to prop his head up in his hand while his elbow rests on the pillow once again.

“She hates us. We might be dead no matter who wins.” Clove warns, and immediately, turns to face the rest of them. “We should get Annie, too. It’s not fair to leave her, especially if Finnick’s already gone.”

“I’ll go grab her.” Johanna volunteers, pushing herself back to stand. “What a wedding night, wonder how that feels to have your brand new husband choose war over you.”

“He might not have had a choice.” Glimmer suggests, knowing all too well how it felt to be a symbol of something against your will.

Johanna heads towards the door, pausing to look Clove over, pausing to bring attention to her bare thighs and legs that peek out from under Cato’s shirt. “You know, you have nice legs under all that crazy, Clove.”

“Go get Annie, Jo.” Marvel sighs, once again stifling an exhausted yawn “If we’re going to wait out a war in here, can you two at least put clothes on.”

“Awwww…don’t be jealous you aren’t getting any Marvel.” Cato taunts just as a pillow smacks him in the face.

——

They are kept in the dark on the status of the battle of the Capitol.

Perhaps the whole district, the whole world is, but it feels like the six of them are particularly cut off from the reality of the outside world.

The day itself is very…odd. No other term to describe it than weird, really. There are no overhead announcements of the change of a shift, nor announcement of mealtimes beginning. Maybe they are happening and the group of them are simply unaware, but after hours of, well, nothingness…Cato makes the call that he’s starving and he will be finding something to eat.

He's on his way back from the kitchen, leftover cake from Peeta’s creation the night before in his hands to serve as their snack, lunch, AND dinner, when he physically collides with Haymitch in the hallway.

The older victor tries to nod and go on his way, but Cato grabs him by the shoulder to stop him from running.

“Why didn’t they tell us?”

“She didn’t tell me, either, sunshine. Katniss isn’t one to give other people a heads up.”

“That's not what I mean and you know it, Haymitch. After all we did for them, they don’t even want us there when it ends?”

Haymitch gives a hesitant glance around, all too aware that the walls listened for even the lightest whimpers. “Plutarch wanted as many victors there as possible. Coin didn’t want anyone who could be seen as a Capitol loyalist-“

“We’re loyalists? Me and Clove, who literally have no home anymore as a result of this war? Glimmer, who risked it all to expose what they did to her? Marvel? Who doesn't even know what to believe? We’re loyal to Snow?” The thought is unbelievable to Cato, who has lost his home, his family, and everything but Clove to this war. Have they not given enough to show that they are anything but a threat to this new world.

“It isn’t me saying it, kid.” He gives another hesitant glance around. “Remember what I'm telling you right now, okay? About how she sees you all.”

—-

The four of them sit on the still unmade bed, the screen in the room turned on in case of any sudden update that has still yet to come. Johanna had ushered Annie out of the room not terribly long before, after the lack of update had sent her spiraling to something akin to a panic attack. Johanna insisted she just needed to be alone, and that she’d bring her back once she was more stable.

Clove’s head is on Cato’s thigh as he feeds her bites of the cake, her feet up against Glimmer’s legs where she is curled up under the blankets, head resting on Clove’s pillow. Marvel sits at the foot of the bed, distracted from all but the turquoise buttercream on the cake before him.

“Shame he’s from twelve, he could’ve made a killing in a bakery in One.” Marvel comments, swiping the left over icing off the plate with his finger, before shoving it in his mouth. “That kid can bake.”

“I’m not sure there's really going to be district divisions left after all this. You can go get some loverboy cupcakes anytime you want.” Clove teases, before accepting another fork full of cake. “If there's even a Peeta left after today.”

“Why would they send him? Isn’t he literally programmed to kill Katniss? Isn't that a liability?” Marvel questions, before full on just digging directly into the entire tier of cake Cato had brought back with him.

Something clicks for Cato, the words of Haymitch Abernathy combined with months of watching and absorbing the way things go down here. Everything is always intentional. “Maybe that's the point.”

“You think the point is to kill Katniss?” Clove raises a dark eyebrow, but props herself up on her elbows to get a better look at them. “Isn’t her whole point like…to represent the cause?”

“..but maybe she’s more symbolic dead?” Glimmer suggests, following along with what Cato is implying, tucking her blanket over her shoulders before snuggling deeper into the blanket. “...do you think we’re all more symbolic dead?”

“Honestly, I don’t know-” Cato is cut off when the TV actually flashes on for the first time all day, proudly displaying the Capitol seal before one Caesar Flickerman appears in a news anchor-esk desk.

“For fucks sake, how is Caesar still alive?” Clove groans, but pushes herself to sit beside Cato as the tv calls their attention.

“He’s the capitol’s favorite cockroach.” Marvel jokes, before he too turns around at the foot of the bed to watch whatever news Caesar brings.

“They’re alive.” Is the first thing Glimmer whispers, tuned out to the snide remarks on alliances and loyalty from Cesar, as she tunes in directly to seeing FInnick, Katniss, and even Peeta alive.

As Peeta grabs Katniss to throw her down, and some unidentified member of the squad pulls him off, a silence falls across them all. An uncomfortable silence, one that settles in the air and makes any word feel simply futile.

“Do you remember the night before the quell?” Marvel finally says, clearing his throat as he does so. There's something in his voice, something between realization and fear, and Glimmer is the first to recognize it.

“On the rooftop, yeah, why?” She follows up, and nearly reaches forward to grab his shoulder but stops herself, still, even in this end of the world moment, afraid of what he would think.

“Doesn’t this feel a lot like it?”

—

Two entire days pass without another update. Two turns to Three. Three turns to Four into Five.

It is five days later when they get their next news on the active battle in the Capitol. Ironically, they are in exactly the same space. Clove leaning with her legs and feet in Cato’s lap, who is sitting up against the wall that serves as the head board on their bed. Her head is across the bed, in Glimmer’s hands where the girl threads intricate braids through the length of her hair giving her something productive to do with her hands. The biggest change is that she now also leans on Marvel, who once again sits cross legged at the foot of the bed.

“What do you think will happen next?” Glimmer brings up, raking her fingers through the soft waves at the end of Clove’s ever growing hair. “Like..what's next for us?”

“I think the answer is supposed to be live happily ever after, if you ask Annie.” Clove snorts, but stretches her legs against Cato’s torso to get him to pick up her feet. “I honestly haven’t thought about it.”

“You haven’t thought about what happens after this ends?” Marvel questions, leaning back against the metal bar of the bottom of the bed.

“Why should I? Who knows what's left out there for us? District Two is literally ashes. I’m an actual orphan now, Cato’s probably also a war orphan. We literally probably don’t even have a home left for us.” Clove looks over at Cato, who is just nodding his head in disagreement. “Are we going to have to be drifters?”

“You could always just come stay with us for a while, if we even have standing homes. Otherwise we can all go hide in the mountains of District Two, living out of tents… it’ll be like we’re in the Hunger Games forever.” Marvel suggests, but his face twists up as soon as the words are out. “Scratch that. Not like the Hunger Games. I don’t want to think about those..honestly? Ever again. But seriously. We may all be living out of tents so–”

“I am not living out of a tent.” Glimmer scoffs, eyes rolling to the back of her head. “After all this, I deserve at least running water. And a maid. And a chef.”

“You don’t need a chef, Clove’s right there and homeless.” Marvel teases, but the concept does bring another pending issue to the front of his mind. “....do you think we’re going to have to get like…jobs?”

“Oh absolutely fucking not.” Cato chimes in, taking Clove’s foot into his hand and digging his thumb into the center of arch of her left foot and for a moment they are seventeen on the train to her games for the first time again. “We won the Hunger Games. Monthly stipends for the rest of our lives, remember? Have we not done enough?”

“They may not care about all that, if there's no games, does it even matter if we won them?” Clove questions, before she tugs her foot back out of his hand as he pressed his finger in, nearly kicking him in the process. “You asshole.”

“I am not getting a job. When I was little my mom used to say I could either marry a victor or be one. And I am one. Working retail in One was just never even on the table for me!” Glimmer sounds nearly scandalized at the suggestion, sitting a little straighter and leaning against her once-boyfriend. “Katniss should add that to her list of concessions. We keep our income.”

“It’s not like there’s going to even be that many victors left.” Cato points out, smirking as he goes for Clove’s other foot, holding her ankle firmly in his hand so she cannot pull away this time. “It’s the least they could do for us.”

They had destroyed their homes. Stripped them of their livelihood as victors. Slaughtered their families and their friends. A monthly stipend was the literal least that the new government could do.

It’s not like any of them really had employable skills, anyway.

The television crackles on against any of their will, and the Capitol insignia once again covers the entirety of the room in a bright, blinding light. The familiar anthem of the Capitol plays, and Clove is the first to scoff.

“I wish Katniss didn’t have dibs, I’d love to get my hands on Snow for this-” Clove starts, but her blood runs cold as soon as she sees what is being displayed behind him.

It is an image they are all too familiar with. As the anthem plays the holographic pictures of fallen tributes scroll on the screen. This time, though, the tributes are people they know all too well.

Finnick Odair. Katniss Everdeen. Peeta Mellark.

“No..no. no. no.” Glimmer shakes her head, disbelief quickly turning to agony as her own breathing speeds up and she falls quickly over the edge of her own emotional distress.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, is as chilling as the screams of Annie Cresta-Odair that echo through the depths of District Thirteen.

“They can’t be dead, there's no way they’re all just..gone.” Clove tries, but the evidence is in front of her. Of course there is a way. They are in an active battle ground with literal bows and knives and tridents. They were never intended to come out as victors.

Glimmer is beside herself, resolved to hyperventilating, body shaking sobs as the broadcast transitions to Snow.

“We should go to Annie..” Marvel suggests, but as Glimmer physically collapses against him he can’t find it in him to do anything but bring a hand up to her shoulders, as he had done all those years ago during Clove’s games. Johanna is probably with her, if the footsteps running through the hall and the two rapid door slams indicate.

Snow appears on their screen, and gives some speech about Katniss being a misguided girl.

“...I think we need to have another conversation.” Cato warns, leaning forward to grab Clove and pull her into his lap. “What do we do if Snow wins this?”

“I’m not living in a world with him in control, I can’t I can’t I can’t.” Glimmer cries, further digging herself into her ex-boyfriend's shirt, letting (or rather pleading) him wrap a single arm around her to give her any semblance of comfort. “I can’t go through it again.”

“I’m in no fucking hurry to get back in his hands, I won’t. He took everything from me. He stole who I am. I’m not living in his world.” Clove agreed, noticing the way she herself was also breathing rather heavy as a result of the news. Not to say she was panicking but..she also wasn’t far off. Her heart pounded, raced really, in her chest. After everything..she couldn’t survive in a world with Snow.

The screen is disrupted when Coin takes over, and gives an empassioned speech about Katniss as well. Her false emotion is obvious to them, who are all too accustomed to her fake niceties.

“She caused this! She’s the one who sent her in there with Peeta and Finnick and it’s her fault.” Glimmer blames, an arm at her waist the only thing that keeps her from lunging at the television in her rage. Coin is justly the target of her ire, as the loss of Finnick is like feeling the loss of a limb. They were the ones who went through it all together, and she is likely the one of the only ones who remain who have experienced the sexual abuse at the hands of elite capitolites.

“Lesser of two evils, Glimmer, lesser of two evils.” Marvel tries, but it is no use as Glimmer loses it yet again.

“Cato’s right.” Clove says, leaning back in his arms. “We need a plan if Snow wins, we can’t get back in their control.”

“What do you suggest, Clove? We hold a Hunger Games down here of the surviving victors? Just take each other out?” Marvel questions, not even slightly considering it. It’s preposterous to him, that they’d just be able to annihilate each other as if they had not gone through an entire war together now.

“I don’t know if we could do it.” Cato admits, shaking his head just a little as he pulls Clove properly onto his lap. “After all this..yeah we can take ourselves out but could we really kill Annie? Or even you , Glimmer, I'm not sure I'd be able to.”

“I couldn’t kill you.” Clove fully admits, tucking her head against Cato’s shoulder, wrapping his arms around her waist for him by grasping his hands. “I spent my whole life trained to kill you.. And I couldn’t do it. Not now. I couldn’t kill you, Marvel, even though you irritated the hell out of me when I met you. We survived the fucking capitol together. Glimmer… you are the closest thing to a friend I have ever had. I guess that makes you my best friend, doesn’t it? You have taken care of me for months down here. I can’t kill you. And God, Cato, you’re the love of my life. After all this shit, there's no chance in the world I’d be able to kill you so easily anymore. I don’t know what comes next if Snow wins…but come on. We can’t throw it all in so easily. We’re probably the only Career Victors left. We can’t give it up so easily.”

—

The war ends three days later. Formally, at least.

The television refuses to shut off, with mandatory viewing of evacuations and all cameras focused on the president's mansion an endless background noise.

Clove is laying on top of Cato, face tucked into his neck as he runs his hands over the small of her back absently. There has been a tension in the air ever since the conversation of the end of the world under Snow, and they had spent the majority of what could be their last days on earth alone with each other.

Go out with a bang, right?

Go out with a bang, quite literally, when the mandatory viewing of evacuations turns into a mass civilian bombing by the Capitol. Or more specifically a mass bombing of the capitol children.

“It’s like their own Hunger Games. Just..mass murder of kids.” Clove remarks from her place on his chest, tucking her chin against his sternum so she can look up at him. “Feels funny to see the games that way.”

A second bomb wipes out the camera footage as the bomb wipes out thousands more.

Neither think much of it. They had been broadcasting the mass deaths of peacekeepers and rebels alike for days. What is one more bombing, what are thousands more added to the death count.

It is not until an hour or so later, long after the broadcast has cut out, that a banging resumes on their door as it had days prior.

This person, though, does not wait for the door to be opened, and instead keys in a code from the outside that flings it open.

On the other side of the door is Haymitch Abernathy, a beanie on his head and a smile on his face for the first time maybe ever.

“It’s over!” He announced from the door frame, hand still grasping the handle. “It’s over.”

Clove raises her head first, and Cato’s face whips around to face the door. It is Cato’s turn to break into the ghost of a smile as he waits to confirm what Haymitch is saying. There’s no way the man had broken in that enthused if Snow had won, right.

“We won?” Cato calls out, grasping Clove’s hip under the blanket so intensely that it was sure to leave bruises behind.

“We won.” Haymitch narrows his eyes at the two of them, gesturing to the sheets that covered them. “If you two will disconnect from one another and get dressed, they’re going to fly us all out for the big execution of Snow.”

“...we’re invited?” Clove snarks, raising a dark eyebrow, but unable to stop the smile that is threatening to creep across her face. “What’s the occasion?”

“The war is over, kid. Everyone’s going.” Haymitch winks at them, and for the first time maybe ever, Clove recognizes him as another victor like herself. And maybe, just maybe, he sees them for that too.

The door shuts on them both as Haymitch hits Glimmer’s room next, as evidenced by the shriek they can hear through the wall at the announcement.

The reaction of Glimmer, or Marvel, or Annie, Or Johanna doesn't matter, not right now.

Not when Cato grabs Clove’s face in his hands, and pulls her up so that they are only inches apart, his thumbs brushing across the freckles that dance over her cheeks like constellations.

It is better than winning any fight, better than the night before any Hunger Games.

“It’s over.” Clove whispers, her own hands coming up to rest along his jaw, her thumb stroking over his cheek. “We won.”

“It’s over.” Cato agrees, the smile fully breaking out on his face now. They won. And if they have nothing else in the world..they have each other.

He pulls her face down to crash their lips together, and if he can taste the saltiness of tears he is kind enough not to mention it.

Seconds, Minutes, who knows how long passes before Clove forces herself to pull back just a little, just enough to catch her breath. Their noses still brush, foreheads still together, when she finally, finally lets out a sigh.

“We survived a war, Cato.”

“We always survive, babe. We always do.”

—

The flight to the Capitol is unlike any train ride or victory tour ever felt. It’s a moment of victory all its own, yes.

And yet, there is the feeling of unfinished business in the air. A war that is over but not quite.

It is also the longest a journey to the Capitol has ever taken, a far cry from the quick train rides from Two.

“Everything is going to change.” Clove warns Cato, sitting in their own little corner of the hovercraft.

“Maybe it’s for the better.” Cato suggests, lacing his fingers with hers as he crosses his ankles out in front of him. It was strangely reminiscent, sitting side by side like this, of being kids on their lunch break at training. Their entire lives have centered around anchoring the other, really. He nods in the direction diagonal from them, where caddy-cornered to them sit Marvel and Glimmer, in a position not at all unlike their own. They watch as Glimmer rests her head on Marvel’s shoulder and how he smiles down at her like she’s the source of all the light in the room. “Maybe it’s for the better.”

—

The first person they see upon landing is Effie Trinket who is back in her head to toe over the top regalia. Well. Some things change and some things do not.

“Welcome, Welcome!” She greets, a megawatt smile plastered across her pale painted skin. Even in her Captiol attire she is still not quite as outlandish as she had once been. There is a wig and heavy makeup, yes, but it is not at the level that an escort would have once been.

She had likely been brought out earlier, with Coin and Plutarch and other military stars. Still. It was nice to see a familiar face, with all the loss they were about to face.

“If you will all follow me, we have thrown together a little prep team of sorts! To get you all presentable for the execution. It’s a big day!” Effie leads them into the president's mansion, and Clove straightens as she is reminded of all the torment she faced in these very rooms. Cato notices– of course he does, they are truly two halves of the same soul– and instinctively wraps his hands around her just a little tighter.

“The other surviving victors are slowly coming in, there's not many left but!” Effie starts and it is the immediate scream of Annie Cresta that draws all their attention.

“Finnick!”

“Annie!”

Clove and Cato turn around just in time to see the two of them collide, when Annie wraps all her limbs around his shoulders and hips, as he holds her as if she weighs nothing.

“I thought he was dead.” Clove whispers, disbelief and even joy laced in her tone as she addresses the district twelve escort. “And Katniss and Peeta–”

“That's what they had us all thinking! But no! Katniss and Peeta, they’re alive as well. Katniss’s poor little sister, though, it’s truly tragic.” Effie puts a hand over her heart to show sympathy, but continues to lead them down the hall where various groups are being reunited.

“Prim is dead?” Cato pauses, and quite literally stops walking in his tracks. “How was she even involved in the war to begin, she's a kid–”

“The bombing. At the end. She was there as a medic.” Effie explains, though the tone in her voice indicates that something is, once again, being left unsaid. Something didn’t fit.

Cato and Clove share a look, one that speaks their agreement, that something is off and they need to discuss what exactly it is.

They pass yet another door and a flurry of blonde and sparkle catches Clove off guard. Her eyes go wide, and she nearly says her name, before a manicured finger comes to shush her.

“It’s a surprise.” Mouths Cashmere, where she stands side by side with her brother Gloss just beyond the door. Glimmer had clearly not seen them yet, but the shining smiles on their twin faces revealed to Clove they were all too excited to be reunited with their baby sister.

Clove felt the sinking feeling in her stomach, at the realization that there is no one waiting to be reunited with her.

Cato must feel it too, as he realizes that he likely lost his sister just like Katniss. He did not have a little sister any more to excitedly await the reunion of.

“Perfect! The District Two Room!” Effie announces, and leaves them at the door. “You two will be prepped soon. Enjoy the meantime!”

Effie cracks the door for them, and gives them each a knowing smile before she heads off in the general direction of what they can only assume is District Twelve preparations for Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch.

Cato takes the lead on pushing the door open with his fingers, and god is he glad he did when he feels Clove practically sink like jello in his arms beside him. He feels her before he hears her little gasp, and Cato is looking at her, missing exactly what stands beyond the door frame that is bringing his girl down. Clove, though, couldn't miss it if she tried.

“Well you two have looked better.” The cocky voice comes from just beyond the door frame, and Cato feels Clove’s hand slip from his just as he finally looks up to see who waits for them.

Brutus and Enobaria.

Their lifelong mentors.

“Enobaria.” Clove whispers, before she is moving as fast as her legs can carry her to cross the couple of steps between them. Immediately, she throws her arms around the woman’s shoulders, clinging to her as she did seventeen years ago when she was the only person in the world to find her worth comforting. And like she had seventeen years prior, Enobaria pulls her close, her hair finding the back of her head as it had so so many times in her childhood.

She is not just her mentor, no. This is the woman who raised her. This is who made her into a victor. It only took a war to see that.

“You’re alive.” Clove cries against her, as she buries her face against her shoulder. “You weren’t in Two, I thought you were dead.”

“Oh, we were there.” Enobaria promises, pulling Clove’s head back so that she can wipe at the tears under her eyes.

“You should have seen her, the day that interview with Peeta aired. I heard you in the background, and in no more than thirty seconds she was in my living room demanding we get involved.” Brutus admits, holding out his arms and scooping up the tiny girl, for the first time in her entire life showing Clove any semblance of appreciation and affection. “You had half a district coming together in your defense, kid. All led by Enobaria.”

He sets her back down, and no sooner do her feet hit the ground before Enobaria is back to hugging her.

“I am so so so proud of you. Both of you.” Enobaria promises, running her hand over the crown of Clove’s hair, pushing all the curled fly aways back from her eyes.

“I hate to say it and pad your already unmanageable ego, Cato, but I am too.” Brutus admits, running a hand over Cato’s head to ruffle his hair playfully. “I can’t believe you two joined a fucking war against the capitol.”

“We can’t either.” Cato admitted, brushing his fingers through his hair to settle the now fluffed blonde atop his head. “We didn’t really have a choice.”

“It was for the best, though.” Clove points out, practically hanging her arms around Enobaria’s shoulders as if she were still the little girl all those years ago. She can see the way Cato’s jaw is tightened, the way he is holding back a comment or remark of some sort.

“Do you know anything about Cato’s family?” Clove asks for him, eyes flitting between Brutus and Enobaria for any trace of an answer. “His sister..”

“We don’t.” Brutus admits with a disgraced shake of his head. “We were so deep on the other side of the district.. We don’t know much about anyone. But we do know that we’ve never heard them in the counts of the dead.”

Cato just gives a single nod of his head, looking to the ground so as to not show disappointment. This was something. They had someone left alive.

Clove lets go of Enobaria, immediately going to lace her hand with Cato’s, wrapping her other arm around his back before resting against him. It was always a comfort to him, just to touch her.

“I’m sorry, Cato.” Enobaria frowns, reaching out to gently touch his upper arm in comfort. “Victor’s Village is still standing. That's about it. But it's still there, and I think it’ll be livable within a few months. At least I hope. I’m going to One until it’s finished.” She gestures to Brutus with a nod of her head. “Are you coming?”

“I’ll go wherever I can get a Clove Kentwell breakfast. You know. The pancakes. With the chocolate chips.”

They unpack the rest of the realities of District Two while the prep team comes and dresses Cato and Clove.

Clove and Enobaria are dressed nearly identical, all black trench coats and slicked back hair. The difference relies in the bubbles down the length of Clove’s ever growing dark hair, versus the sleek straightened length of Enobaria’s.

Cato leaves Clove’s side only for the sake of being whisked off to get dressed himself, and by God Clove just about undoes all the hard work of the stylists the minute she sees him in that all black ensemble. The black button down is unbuttoned nearly to the middle of his chest, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

“You know, for all I hate this whole capitol thing, they always did make you look good.” Clove grins, stepping forward to wrap her arms around his hips.

“I did not miss seeing this.” Enobaria mumbles, tossing Cato’s black wool coat on top of Clove despite the appalled yelps from the stylists over Clove’s hair. “Can’t you two save this for literally any other time.”

Cato smirks, wrapping his arms around Clove’s hips before turning her in his arms so they both faced their mentors. “Oh you are going to fucking hate the bitch in charge of this new country, Baria.”

—

Cato is not wrong.

While they are all led into a conference style room, the looks of thinly veiled disdain are not hidden on Coin’s face.

She has since cut her hair, but that is about the only new thing about a leader in what was once Snow’s conference space. Different sides of the same coin, and all that.

This is all that remains of a pool of what was fifty nine victors prior to the quell. Fourteen of them.

Glimmer waves at them excitedly from where she is nestled between her siblings, and Finnick shoots them a million dollar smile from where he holds Annie’s hand atop the table.

Katniss looks cold behind her eyes, but nobody can say they are surprised. Katniss Everdeen went to the games and led a war for the safety of her baby sister, just to come out on the other side without her. Primrose Everdeen would never see the safety of the new world her sister had created just for her.

“We’re sorry for your loss, Katniss.” Annie offers in a soft voice, rubbing her hand atop Finnick’s hand. “Both of them.”

“Thank you.” Katniss said politely, but her gaze is trained on Alma Coin.

“Both of them..?” Cato whispers to Finnick, who sits at his right.

“Prim and Gale. He got dragged off right before the second bomb. He was shot right before it ended.”

Cato nor Clove offer condolences for that loss.

“I have invited you all here for several reasons…but first i’d like to announce myself as the interim president of panem.” Coin starts, calling the meeting to a start without bothering to announce she is doing so.

Cato is the first to shoot her a look of disbelief, followed by Clove and Haymitch.

“How long exactly is that?” Haymitch questions, echoing the confusion of every victor in the room.

“The people will vote when the time is right. I’ve called you here for a much more important vote.”

President Coin goes on about the execution of Snow to occur that afternoon, followed by an explanation of the trial of every peacekeeper, official, and capitol elite who was responsible for the war atrocities they had all faced. She targets Glimmer and Finnick with reminders of the abuse of the victors, and directs commentary on loss of life to Katniss.

“An alternative plan. A majority for can approve it. Noone may abstain. In lieu of these barbaric executions we hold a symbolic Hunger Games”

“You want to hold a Hunger Games, with the Capitol Children?” Johanna Mason clarifies, a deranged giggle escaping her.

“You’re Joking.” comes Peeta.

“Was this…Plurarch’s Idea?” Haymitch clarifies.

“It was mine.”

The admission is enough for it all to fall into place for the surviving careers. This is what Haymitch had meant, when he has warned him to remember how she views them. Every capitol atrocity..how easily that could be assigned to them.

“You may cast your vote.”

Peeta votes no, first. Citing the kind of mindset that started these uprisings as his reason.

Johanna is next, and with a laugh she votes yes, claiming she wants to see Snow’s granddaughter in the arena.

“Let them have a taste of it” is how Enobaria casts her yes. “After what they did to our people..Let me in the gamemakers room.”

“I agree. It’ll be the fastest game we ever have. These kids won’t be able to hold a sword.” Brutus gives as his yes.

“No. I vote no.” Annie dissents.

“Me too. Absolutely not. These kids are not responsible for the crimes of their parents. We have had enough bloodshed. I’ve been hurt as much as the next person by the Capitol. But we cannot keep punishing kids for the crimes of their ancestors. That's how we got to this point in the first place.” Finnick agrees with his wife, a firm and vocal no. “We need to end this. That's why we just had a war.”

“No. We need to stop seeing each other as enemies.” Beetee adds.

“We never got our chance to mentor.” Cato announces, wrapping an arm over Clove’s shoulders. “The things they did to Clove..If I could put their kids in the arena directly, I would. I’m not mentoring those ones though. I don’t want to see them win. Besides… I think we need one last game. Fuck yes.”

“What Cato said. I had my life ruined by Snow. They stole my identity. Fuck them.” Clove agrees, giving a firm nod of her head. “And what Enobaria said. Let them have a taste of how it feels to lose everything to the games. I don’t even want one of them to win. Absolutely Yes.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you all. Did we learn nothing? Did we stand up in those last games, did we fight this war for nothing?” Glimmer’s disbelief seeps into her voice as she looks frantically between her fellow victors, and hurt fills her eyes as she makes eye contact with her so-called friends. “What happened to no more children being sacrificed? I have been hurt as much as anyone by the Capitol..but I don’t want to kill their kids. How are we any different than snow if we condone and support the murder of children. That's what they are..that's what WE were! We were all kids when we won the games. We were children.. And shouldn’t we, as the adults who have survived it..want better for these kids. Shouldn’t we want better to protect our children? No. Absolutely not. I can’t believe you would support this.”

“I disagree.” Marvel admits, trying not to flinch when Glimmer recoils away from him in downright horror and disgust. “I have seen the things they did to you. They did them to me, too. I remember how hurt you have been. I remember what it’s like to be tortured in a basement, and I remember how it feels to hope you can hear your friend–” He looks to Clove, “Whimpering across the cinder block wall you share to have proof she is alive. Johanna is afraid of water. Clove lost her ability to defend herself. Annie lost her mind, and Peeta lost himself. And Glimmer, I lost you, because of what they have done to us. So you know what? Yeah. Fuck them. I say yes.”

She is glad to be sitting between her siblings, who each take one of her hands in their own.

“Noone else has the right to use our trauma and our abuse to justify further violence. I vote no.” Cashmere announces, making a point to shoot absolute daggers in the general direction of Marvel and the other careers.

“You don’t get to weaponize our experiences. Only we can do that. And I stand with my sisters. I vote no.” Gloss agrees.

“It’s down to Katniss and Haymitch.” Coin announces, shifting her eyes between the two remaining revolutionaries.

“I get to kill snow.” Katniss all but demands, and in that moment they know exactly which way her vote is going to go, and her yes will completely tip the scale in their favor. When Katniss votes “Yes. For Prim. “ it brings the vote to a solid 7 to 6.

There is a wordless exchange between Katniss and Haymitch, and there is murder in her eyes. Whatever is said is well understood by both players.

Haymitch holds the power to play peacekeeper or tip the scales and he does what he knows best.

Haymitch sides with Katniss. Notably, he does not vote yes, more so that he is with the Mockingjay in whatever she brings to the table.

“That Carries the vote. Excellent. We’ll announce the games tonight after the execution.”

—

“What the fuck is wrong with you.” Glimmer grabs Clove by the shoulder as she passes her room, pulling her out of the hallway and into the privacy of a guest bedroom. “Was all of this for nothing, Clove?”

“What the fuck is wrong with me? What the fuck is wrong with you? You were raped and beaten and horrifically abused by the capitol and you don’t want a little bit of revenge?” Clove snarls, ripping her arm out of Glimmer’s grasp. “You want to lay down and be remembered for what they did to you, or do you want to be remembered for getting back at them? Think like a career, Glimmer.”

“You don’t get it, do you?! She isn’t going to stop with the Capitol kids! What happens when it’s not enough for her for it to be the kids of Capitol Elites. What about when it’s kids of ex loyalists in the districts? When It’s the kids of careers? Or even just the children of victors, Clove? What happens then?” Glimmer peaks into the hallway, to be especially sure they are alone. “Clove. You and I both know that neither of us are going to have kids. We know that. We are never having children. But you know who’s at risk under this whole plan? Cato’s little sister. Any kids of Annie and Finnick.”

“Glimmer, it’s just one last game–”

“That's what they always say, Clove. But it won’t. It won’t. And then it’ll be us again. She hates us. You said it yourself. She hates us and we are no safer under this plan than we were with Snow.”

How can Clove refute that when she knows, deep down, that it is alarmingly and painfully true.

–

The knock on the door startles Katniss, who is catching the reflection of her Mockingjay costume for the last time.

Clove doesn’t wait for permission to enter, and slips in through the unlocked door. She waits along the wall, hands tucked behind her back. “I’m sorry about your sister.”

“Yeah, well, this is the least we can do for her, right?” Katniss slings her bow over her shoulder, before she turns to Clove. “This isn’t about Prim, is it?”

“We aren’t safe under her are we?” Clove whispers, fully aware that her words are probably treason and a one way ticket to her own execution. “This isn’t going to stop with one game.”

“No.” Katniss agrees, but does not vocalize which part. However, the look steely look when she locks eyes with Clove tells the other woman all she needs to know. “...do you still carry knives with you?”

“Of course I do, who do you think I am?” Clove rolls her eyes, but stops another snarky remark from coming when she realizes there must be a reason for Katniss to ask such a thing. “..why?”

“I’d just say to have them ready. You know. In case I miss.” Katniss suggests before straightening her Mockingjay pin for the last time.

“You don’t miss, Katniss.” Clove nearly laughs at the absurdity of it all. Katniss would never have made it this far if she were anything less than flawless with a bow.

That being said, Clove would never have made it this far if she weren’t born to throw a knife.

“Neither do you.”

—

Katniss leads the march out to the execution, followed by a line of Victors who have been wronged in some way or the other by the Capitol. Clove is on the Far right, Cato immediately to her left with their hands interlocked.

It is symbolic, as this whole thing is, that the remaining victors lead the march down the boulevard of the tributes, revolutionaries filling the stands on either side of their flanks.

“Bet you never thought we’d be doing this again.” Cato teases, giving her hand a light squeeze. When he turns to look at her face, hoping for any glimpse of a laugh, he catches the glint of something shining in her palm.

No.. there's no way it’s that.

“Bet you never thought we’d have survived a war before we turned twenty one.” Clove teases in response, rubbing her thumb over the back of his fingers. She is at the far end, and she cannot even see Glimmer, Marvel, Finnick, or Annie on the other side. Enobaria and Brutus walk in line with the two of them, and for the briefest moment, it reminds Clove of the end of a Victory Tour, when the victor is led to the President by her mentors and her team. Is this really all that different from that moment, anyway?

It is somehow both the longest and shortest walk of Clove’s life, seeing as every other time she had been on this particular stretch had involved a horse and chariot ride.

The end approaches as soon as it starts. Clove feels a tightening in her chest that stretches all the way across her back. It isn’t quite panic, and it isn’t fear. It is the kind of heart racing she felt in the beginning of every day of training, how she felt when the podiums rose in the hunger games.

It’s adrenaline.

Katniss is at the front of their pack, yes, but from where she stands on the far right end she has a clear shot at the president tied to a wooden pole. It’s less than 20 feet, there's no possible way Katniss would just..miss?

Coin is beginning her ramble about a shot to end all wars, about the end of tyranny, but Clove is focused on Katniss.

“Babe, what are you doing?” Cato whispers, noting the way she does not even look up to the president as she speaks, nudging her with his shoulder.

She does not budge.

“Mockingjay. May your aim be as true as your heart is pure.”

Clove sees the decision the minute Katniss makes it, and suddenly she gets what she meant by miss.

This was her gift to Clove.

Katniss’s chin and shoulders tilt up at the same moment the handle of the knife slips from around Clove’s forearm and into her palm.

In the same moment that Katniss releases the arrow, there is a gasp of shock when it is not an arrow that pierces Snow’s heart but a knife that lodges itself right between his eyes.

Coin falls to the ground with an arrow to her heart as Snow’s skull splits in two.

He had taken this very thing from her, he had taken her aim and her strength, he had taken what made Clove Clove.

Two leaders were dead, the fate of Panem now resting in the unknown hands of democracy for the first time ever.

Peeta slaps something out of Katniss' hands, just as she is pulled away by guards. Clove lets out a laugh, throwing her head back as Cato is the one to grab her and pulls her to the side.

This is what all those countless hours of training with Cato had been for. To get Clove back.

And that's the thing about Clove Kentwell.

She never misses.

—

Clove does not face the same consequences as Katniss in the aftermath. He was scheduled to die– as far as it is seen Clove simply carried out a mission Katniss abandoned.

It is the victors who write a litany of letters in immediate support of Katniss Everdeen’s release. They write of tyranny and the horrors the country would have faced under Alma Coin, terrors that are not at all unlike the dictatorship they just escaped.

All together, there are letters from Cato, Clove, Marvel, Glimmer, Johanna, Finnick, Annie, and Beetee that are brought together in their undying, complete, and total support for Katniss Everdeen and her decisions that day. Victors will always support their fellow Victors.

“We’ll see you soon, in One?” Marvel checks the morning after the executions, leaning on the doorframe of the guest room Cato and Clove are currently packing their minimal belongings to leave. “Glimmer..hopefully she’ll move past all her issues with us all soon. You can stay with me.”

They do agree to go to One, first. The train doesn’t even stop in Two, all things considered, and from the discussions with Enobaria it would be futile to even stop. Their home was in shambles. They need time to heal before addressing the crumbled castles of their childhood.

“Come on, we get our own train car!” Enobaria reminds them as they stand on that train platform, Her own minimal luggage in her hands. “We won’t have to listen to Cash and Gloss lecture us until we arrive in the district, isn’t that a real treat.”

Clove cannot seem to will herself to take the steps forward towards the doors of the train. The last time they had taken them had been to this very spot, where neither of them had intended to come back. Even though they are not going home– and likely will not for many months– it was just the right side of unbelievable.

“It’s kind of crazy, isn’t it?” Clove looks to Cato, holding her hand out for him to take. “For the first time in our lives.. We can do anything. We can have anything. We can go anywhere in the world we want. Just..not home.”

“We’ll go home, one day.” He promises, before he bypasses her hand and instead wraps his arms around her shoulders. Cato rests his chin atop her head before kissing the crown of her hair. “We survived three Hunger Games between us. A little bit of post-war reconstruction has to be nothing, right?”

Clove snorts, leaning back in his arms as they take in the remnants of the Capitol together. “Yeah, but post war reconstruction involves us living with Glimmer and Marvel. We’ll be finding Glitter in our hair for the rest of our lives.”

“If the rest of our lives are a hundred years, I will be happy to smell like glitter and roses for all of them.” Cato promises, leaning down further to kiss her on the cheek more properly. “What do you think we do now?”

“....we live our lives?” Clove offers with the tiniest shrug, before she turns in his arms. “I love you. I don’t say it enough. But I love you, Cato. More than anything else in the world.”

“I know.” He promises his girl, leaning down so that their foreheads touched despite the massive height difference. “And I love you, too. But you already knew that.”

“You forgot something. You said we survived three Hunger Games, and reconstruction. But we survived an entire war, Cato. We survived the greatest war in Panem history.” Clove points out, before she laces her arms around his neck and rests them there.

“Will you two get on the train?” Brutus grumbles as he walks past, shaking his head in fake disdain. “You two never change, do you?”

“You may be adults who survived torture and a war, but I’ll still beat your ass if you have sex on this train.” Enobaria threatens from the doorway, waving her hand towards her. “Seriously, come on, I’m already tired of babysitting you two again.”

Clove laughs. Genuinely laughs as she leans back in his arms, taking a step back and nodding towards the train.

They pause in the doorway, giving one last look over the Capitol as they remember it. They’d be back, probably, but never quite like this. Never in the shadows of war. Not as the remnants of the teen tributes they still feel like they are.

“You know, how you said everything is going to change for the better?” Clove asks her husband, sliding her arm through his, resting her hand on the crook of his elbow as she rests her head on his shoulder. She lets out a content sigh, and smiles against his arm.

“Yeah?” Cato cranes his head down to look at Clove, at the girl who has quite literally been at his side for the last fifteen years of his life. And now, she’d be there for the next fifteen. The next fifty, if they were lucky. It’s about time that the odds were in their favor.

“I think you were right.”

#arwbfb tag #the hunger games #clato #cato and clove #clato fanfic #clove #clove kentwell #the hunger games fanfiction #cato and clove fanfic #glimmer and marvel #always remember we're burned for better tag

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