“I can't get your songs out of my head, or your hair out of my room"
Was listening to 'things i wish you said' by Sabrina Carpenter yesterday and this line just really struck me hard and before I knew it I wrote this lil ficlet of CF Peeta in his feels a few nights after the victory tour...
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Another restless night. The third in a row since they stepped off the train back into twelve.
He woke with a start and like a reflex his hand had shot to the other side of the cold bed. Her side.
But it isn't hers. This bed only belongs to him. Nothing is “theirs”. Not back here where everything is real.
He proposed to her just a few days ago. But that’s not real.
What’s real is a fate that a younger version of him might have seen as a blessing. Marry the woman of your dreams or die.
They’ll probably both die anyway. Likely soon based on the terror behind her eyes that last day.
Death might be easier than pretending.
He wonders if the sham marriage will come with a marriage bed. Just for sleep. He needs to sleep. And it seems he can no longer find it alone.
He reaches for a pillow, gathers it in his arms. As if it was her.
How had two weeks created such a need? That its absence was now so debilitating?
14 days of pretending. Almost as many nights of…something else. He doesn’t want to try and put words to it yet. Ever, maybe. The feelings are more than enough.
It’s hard to explain what went on in that sleeping compartment. Because it was nothing. And still it was everything.
And he misses it. More than he’s ever missed anything.
Alongside his sleepless thoughts plays a song. He’s not usually one to have a tune in his head. But it’s been back there for days now.
It’s origin less than 100 hours away. Hours that could be years for how distant they seem now. Her head on his chest. A gentle hand drawing figure eights on his collarbone.
A quiet song on her breath. Comfort meant for him. Wordless humming that reverberated through to his bones.
He didn’t know the song. But wished he could hear the words. Kept himself from asking her to sing louder lest it break the delicate spell.
He attempts to focus only on the notes in his mind. Trying to hear her as if she were here in this room. But it only makes the longing for the real thing worse.
She isn’t even far. Just a hundred yards across the snowy green. He wonders if she’s lying awake now too. Listens hard in the stillness of the night for the faint whimpers that often come before she wakes with a scream.
But there’s only silence. Loneliness.
The moonlight through the open window catches a tiny glint on the fabric just in front of his eyes. Deep black against the faded green gingham.
It shouldn’t be. She’s never even been in this room. But she’s still here. Brought right to his pillow like a dandelion seed carried by the wind.
A single strand of her hair. They seem to keep popping up somehow.
The first one on a shirt from his suitcase had made him smile before he could stop himself. The facade of their star crossed love not yet fully washed from his subconscious.
The second, he spotted floating gently across the tile of the bathroom floor like it had just fallen from her head as she brushed it in the mirror.
Like a ghost of the version of her that stood so close when they brushed their teeth together in the tiny train bathroom he could feel her hip bone pressing into his thigh.
He’s tried to ignore the others. But tonight, in this fitful haze it feels important. A reminder of a sacred space where she got close enough to leave a trace.
He tries to pick it up but it does not lift clean off. The long, shiny black strand is somehow woven itself through the fabric like it was always a part of it. The way she is stitched into his skin now.
Tied together forever, but she will never truly be his.
A tiny fragment of the hair that had laid right under his nose just the same as they danced surrounded by strangers as it did when she slept in his arms. Hair that somewhere under the strong scent of capitol shampoo still smelled of the meadow on a spring day.
In the daytime it’s a little easier to keep the wall raised. Between his true feelings and the falseness that has become his entire existence.
Here in the dark he allows the small pleasure of his memories to wash over him. To recall the shape of her in his arms. Cold, bare toes on the calf he can feel. The shiver from the contact somehow reaching the phantom one he can’t.
So he falls into his idiotic routine. Conjuring her divine voice in his head. Quieting the jabberjays that squawk insecurity in his psyche. Tries to find sleep listening to her singing and saying all the things she never will.
I've noticed that in the hunger games, there's no other races aside from black people and white people, and even those aren't considered "races" from Katniss's pov like here's her description of Rue: "And most hauntingly, a twelve-year-old girl from District 11. She has dark brown skin and eyes, but other than that, she's very like Prim in size and demeanor." I understand that Collin's may have chosen to say "dark brown skin" rather than just straight up saying black but like I've always wondered why this was never addressed in Canon cause a lot of the characters from district 11 are black, and to me it's like "oh, okay, it's cause district 11 is in the deep south, that makes sense cause slavery and all" but then there's no other divide like that in the other districts. There's no "brown" people (ie: Indian, Hispanic, Native's like people who have brown skin) or asian (ie. East asian, south asian etc) people in Panem, like what "race" would they be considered??? Do they HAVE race??
It's not even like everyone in the capitol is white, though they could very well be and the movies just sprinkled in extra diversity, but like there has to be descendents of immigrants in panem right?? Panem wouldn't have immigrants since it's a closed off country (or maybe the rest of the world was destroyed we don't know), but there has to be some kind of system cause if Panem is based on THE united states of america, there wouldn't just be black and white people.
Come to think of it, Lucy Gray was played by a hispanic woman in the movies but her race is never touched on in the books, and Katniss is described as "Olive Skinned" in the books, but that could mean a tan white girl. I don't think it makes sense for Katniss to be Native American because lets be real, there are 3 million native american's currently in the united states out of the 340 million people in this country, if Panem is a shitty as they're portrayed, there probably would be a mass genocide of Natives since Natives usually live on reservations and they don't have room for res's in the 12 districts, I'm not trying to make up pre-panem fanfiction here, I'm just saying...seems like something the government would do. I do believe to some extent that katniss and a lot of her district 12 counterparts could've been "brown" especially since all the rich people in 12 were described as being fairer and blonde which is a pretty good representation of racial divide especially cause they're in Appalachia and the white blondes would've been the rich "settlers", but I think in order for them to be "Native American" they would have to be apart of the culture, I think instead the people from 12 are just descended from Natives.
And 11 is crazyyyy cause in the movies, you can see that not everyone in 11 is black, but then the children getting chosen in the books are almost always black. And we know the capitol can rig reapings, and we know 11 is one of the poorest despite being where the FOOD comes from, and we know that 11 has a history of "uprising". I believe that District 11 has been treated muchhh more unfairly than their even poorer counterparts Dist. 12, because of that large black population. Honestly "unfair" is too weak of a word, like we can pull from real life examples like Hurricane Katrina (natural disaster that could've been avoided if the government hadn't built weak levess RIGHT next to the poorest, blackest neigbourhood in New Orleans), you look at those videos, and you hear stories from Victims, almost everyone is black, imagine how much worse that can get when you have an evil dictatorship instead of George w. Bush. This racism is probably never picked on in the books because to them, as a society it's so NOMRALISED that it's like...not a pattern to anyone who isn't black that all the kids from 11 are black.
But my real question is, where is everyone else?? The USA is one of the most diverse nations in the world, if not the most, you're telling me everyone bounced after facism started taking over? I mean not EVERYONE can bounce, and they can't round up everyone and put them in concentration camps (ahem, ICE), there has to be some kind of leftover heritage from the immirgants that make this country great (or in Panem's case, MADE), or even just physical features in some people.
Anyways, if anyone has any theories can they let me know now cause I'm making a fanfiction and almost every OC I write is a POC so this would be helpful!!
My theory is that there is still quite a bit of racial diversity in panem, but (1) the "races" as constituted don't reflect the races that exist in our world, and (2) even if they do, Katniss would not have the language necessary to describe races of people in a way that is recognizable to us.
1) The setting of the books is an alternate future in North America. After huge natural disasters and great social upheaval, groups of people living in North America have been rounded up and then confined within the districts. Generations have passed by the time we enter the story from Katniss's POV. The phenotypes of the people in these different districts may be very similar to certain 'races' of people that exist in America today, or they may look completely different from any race we would recognize, due to racial mixing, natural genetic mutations, genetic mutations caused by nuclear fallout, etc. Another way of saying this is, if a person from a certain district appeared in front of you right now, they may look so different from any 'race' of people you know of that you might be unable to categorize them as belonging to a specific race that belongs in our world today.
2) When people say 'race is a social construct,' that doesn't mean that there aren't groups of people in the world that have shared ancestry and thus resemble each other. That is obviously true, no matter what society you're in. What it means is that the way we think about and categorize people based on their physical features is made up by humans based on our knowledge of history, society, geography, etc. For example, if you showed a person from a remote corner of the world who had never seen people of European or African descent a photograph of a white American and a black American, they would not categorize them as "white" and "black." They could obviously tell that there were differences between them; they might say, "this one has pale skin and blue eyes." "This one has dark brown skin and dark eyes." But they would not know what "race" these people belonged to, if they even belonged to different races, or what those races might signify in the society they live in.
This is how we see Katniss describing people in The Hunger Games. Katniss notices that people from different districts look different than the people in District 12, and she describes those differences. She describes different skin colors and undertones (olive, fair, ashen, dark brown, golden), different eye colors (blue, "Seam" gray, pale gray, brown, green), and hair colors. Katniss never used the terms "white" or "black" or "Asian" or "Indian" or "Hispanic" to categorize the people she meets or sees because she does not have the knowledge or language to do so. Katniss does not know what Asia is. Katniss does not know that a country or place called India exists/had ever existed, or what the people from such a country might look like. Katniss does not know about the history of the colonization of South America by Latin countries. Katniss has probably never heard the term "Native American" in her life, and would not know what one is supposed to look like. That does not mean that people with these features/from this descent no longer exist in Panem, but just that Katniss does not have the language or knowledge necessary to categorize these people in a way that is recognizable by us.
She does not live in our world. She lives in an oppressive dictatorship that deliberately suppresses information about the outside world or the history of the world, beyond the narrative that best suits them. Beyond this, I don't think 'race' comes up as a concept in The Hunger Games because it is not the primary way that people are divided. They are mainly divided based on address. Are you Capitol, or District? Are you from a Career district or an outlying district? Even within District 12, do you live in the Seam, or in town? That's why some people say that Katniss's race is "Seam." What Katniss knows is that people in the Seam tend to look the same, and that look is different than the people who live in town, and different still from the people who live in the Capitol or the other districts. Katniss is surprised when she meets a person from District 11 (Seeder) who looks just like the people from the Seam, except with different colored eyes. What this indicates to us, the readers, is that there is a group of people in District 11 that may be racially similar to a group of people from District 12, which would make sense if 12 and 11 are geographically quite close to each other. But Katniss does not have the knowledge or language necessary to express that concept, so instead we just get her surprise and description of Seeder as looking "almost like she could be from the Seam."
Honestly, I think it's some great subtle worldbuilding by Collins that reinforces how successful the Capitol is at suppressing information and controlling how the population of Panem views each other.
"I’m sure you’ve noticed that you have stronger competition from the lower districts this year than you normally do. That’s why you tried and failed to recruit Thresh.” I see Lyme’s eyes narrow at this, but I push on. “Only you can decide if it’s smarter to have one more strong competitor in the pack or fighting against it.”
Lyme considers me for a long moment, head tilted. Cato is quiet, watching her face; I can tell that he'll respect whatever decision she makes. “I didn't take you for a fighter at first glance,” she says, her eyes flitting from the bruise on my cheek to my bandaged hands. “And I still can’t tell for sure. But I want to give you a chance to prove me wrong.”
“What do I have to do?” I ask.
“Kill a tribute during the blood bath tomorrow,” she says simply.
It's back! Chapter 10 of of my Peeta POV rewrite of The Hunger Games, "A Piece in Their Games" is out now, in which Peeta gets pushed, receives an ultimatum, and struggles to maintain his identity.
I found out recently that some people don't like Thresh and this upset me. Because I think he's great. I consider him the Patron Saint of "Talk Shit, Get Hit."
Futher, I think there are a couple times in the text when Collins intentionally links Thresh and Katniss.
"If only I was his size, I could get away with sullen and hostile and it would be just fine!" - THG
Basically, he is who Katniss wants to be. And from what little we know of his home life, that is not dissimilar from hers either. The family that represents him in CF is a younger sister and a grandmother. A little sis and a sickly parent figure. Same as Katniss.
Also in THG, Katniss apologizes to Lavinia saying she wished she intervened when she was being hurt. "It was wrong," she says, very clearly, to sit and watch while someone is hurt. And Thresh is someone who does intervene when he sees something he doesn't approve of happening. He rescues Katniss.
Thresh must have been hidden, as Katniss and Gale were under their rock, but he chose to come out and face the danger.
“You said her name. I heard you. You kill her?” Another thought brings a fresh wave of rage to his features. “You cut her up like you were going to cut up this girl here?”
And while it is the mention of Rue that spurs him to action via anger, not Katniss's plight necessarily, he does disapprove of Clove's actions. And I don't think anyone would blame him if he killed Katniss and didn't ask her this,
“What’d she mean? About Rue being your ally?”
He's curious about what happened to Rue. I always assumed this was because he felt guilty he couldn't help her. (Katniss goes on about how Gale, Cato and heavy people can't climb trees. Thresh is the biggest. There's real reasons he can't be with Rue besides the fact that a 12yo has never won and she has to die for him to go back to his family.) So when Katniss speaks of singing her to sleep, he feels he is the one failed to help someone.
Conflicting emotions cross Thresh’s face. He lowers the
rock and points at me, almost accusingly. “Just this one
time, I let you go. For the little girl. You and me, we’re
even then. No more owed. You understand?”
And obviously, the most obvious reference to Thresh being similar to Katniss is both of them being concerned about "owing."
“I think we would like Thresh. I think he’d be our friend back in District Twelve,” I say.
It's interesting she says "our" friend and not "my" friend. She doesn't think he's like Gale, her friend. It's not that Katniss considers herself to have a lot of friends. He's someone both Peeta and Katniss would like and get along with, which I think is a higher bar.
"The boy never even glanced my way, but I was watching him. Because of the bread, because of the red weal that stood out on his cheekbone. What had she hit him with? My parents never hit us. I couldn't even imagine it. The boy took one look back at the bakery as if checking that the coast was clear, then, his attention back on the pig, he threw a loaf of bread in my direction. The second quickly followed, and he sloshed back to the bakery, closing the kitchen door tightly behind him."
Hi. Why do you think on the rooftop scene Peeta gets quite annoyed with Katniss especially when she tells him to care about what Haymitch says? Is it just the situation they are in or that while she means well, he isn’t going to follow that advice as he means to save her?
well at that point in the novel he’s fully and completely under the impression that he’s going to die and he’s trying to figure out how to maintain some semblance of dignity. he opens that convo with “i’ve never been a contender in these games anyway” and he has no reason to believe two people can survive — given what he knows about katniss, he figures she’s the one between the two of them who is more likely to go home. plus, katniss risked everything to save her sister. she cares about staying alive and has the skills to do it. he doesn’t have any of that. he didn’t volunteer. he’s never killed anything. he’s never had to survive in the wild.
i don’t think he’s “annoyed” so much as… he feels a bit condescended to maybe? idk if that’s the right word either. but it’s just sort of like… he thinks he’s dying and is trying to think of how he can make it worth it. and this girl who actually has a chance at living is telling him he can do it too, when in his heart he knows (or believes) it’s impossible. so when he says “thanks for the tip sweetheart” it’s kind of like an eye roll. like right, thanks, ill just find a bow and arrow like you and win it then despite not having any survival skills. thanks girl. i’ll just do that then.
idk if that makes so much sense but basically i think he feels like she’s being … naive almost? like assuming he has the same abilities and goals as she does, assuming he’s capable of half of what she can do. he kind of shuts her down because it stings, knowing she can actually think of surviving while all he can think of is how to die without humiliating himself.
peeta lying in bed on what is potentially his last night on earth: how do i find a way to retain my humanity and identity in a contest designed to strip me of it? how do i remain myself when i am a commodity that exists for the entertainment of others? what statement can i make to affirm who i am in my last moments? what does death with dignity even look like?
katniss lying in bed on what is potentially her last night on earth: FUCK peeta mellark!!!! god this guy sucks who does he think he is???? i fucking HATE peeta i hate him so much tomorrow i am gonna tell him right to his smug face how much he SUCKS!!!!! idk what i'm gonna say but it will be SCATHING i am gonna be absolutely BRUTAL he will never recover!!!!! my SICK BURNS will HAUNT him beyond the GRAVE he sucks he sucks so bad he's the worst!!!!!!!
Haymitch pushes Portia and Cinna away from him. “Enough, enough!” he says, glaring over at me. “I’m listening, boy. What’s this idea of yours?”
I glare back at him. “I need you to go to the Careers’ mentors and tell them I want to join their alliance,” I say.
It’s clear from their faces that I’ve caught everyone off guard. “But Peeta,” Portia gasps, “they’ll probably be hunting Katniss. Why would you join them?”
“That’s exactly why I want to join them,” I say. “The Career pack will be Katniss’s biggest threat. Being part of the pack is the only way I can guarantee I’m on hand to help her when they eventually catch up to her.”
Haymitch’s eyes narrow. I can see his brain working, although slower than usual due to the alcohol. “How do I know this isn’t just a scheme to protect yourself from her?” he asks. “How do I know all of this isn’t just a lie, a clever way to get rid of the strongest competitor in the Games?”
The others in the room look on silently as Haymitch and I stare at each other. What could I possibly say to convince him? He's seen me lie, knows I'm good at it. And he has no reason to trust me; we barely know each other. He's right to be suspicious of me. “You don't know,” I finally say. “Not for certain. And I can't make you believe me if you don’t. But I think that you do believe me. Because you were right, earlier this week. About the bread. I didn't give it to her out of the kindness of my heart. I did it because I couldn't bear to watch her die. I couldn’t then, and I certainly won't do it now.”
Chapter 9 of my Peeta POV rewrite of The Hunger Games, "A Piece in Their Games" is out now, in which Peeta strategizes with Haymitch, gets a makeover, and makes a confession.
could you draw another of everlark??? maybe one where he’s picking her up or she’s on his lap? ❤️❤️❤️ I adore your art! I cannot wait to see if you take my request! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️
I excuse myself and make my way to my bedroom, where I strip off my clothes and climb into the shower, still feeling jittery with adrenaline. I’ve finally figured out the right button combination to produce a simple stream of hot water, and I stand under it until my skin is a bright pink color and my fingers are pruny. I think about what I’ve just revealed, for the first time in my life. What I’ve promised to do. For eleven years now, I’ve kept my feelings for Katniss carefully folded inside my heart, restricting myself to eavesdropping on her exchanges with my father at the back door of the bakery and stealing glances at her during school or in the market square. Every time I considered approaching her, I’d been crushed under what felt like insurmountable obstacles between us; the strict class divisions between the Seam folk and those from town, which bred suspicion and resentment. The harsh punishment inflicted on those who dared to cross that boundary. My uncertainty over what kind of future I could offer her. More than anything, it felt wrong to burden her with my feelings when I already knew I wasn’t worthy of her love. But now . . . the beauty of telling her now is that there’s no expectation of reciprocity attached to the revelation. There’s no possible future for us, whatever happens in the Games. Either she dies, or I die, or we both do. So my feelings can’t be a burden to her; they can’t hurt her. And she must know, when she hears them, that I don’t expect anything from her. In a way, it’s actually the perfect scenario for my confession.
Chapter 8 of my Peeta POV rewrite of The Hunger Games, "A Piece in Their Games" is out now, in which Peeta worries about Katniss, comes up with a plan, and reveals a secret.
“Still think that’ll be useless in the arena?” Katniss leans against the edge of the ring, a smirk on her face. She followed along while I learned the moves, but opted not to spar with the trainer herself.
I roll my eyes and grimace at her playfully. “I suppose you think this means you’ve won our argument from the other day, huh?”
She smiles smugly. “I’m just saying, you pinned that trainer down pretty easily. Now imagine how easy it would be to pin me down.”
I can’t stop the images that flash through my mind, and I hesitate for just a moment; do I dare say it out loud? But I find I do dare. I feel braver than usual this week, maybe due to my impending death. “I’d love to give that a try,” I say with a light grin. I just stop myself from adding a wink, thinking that would be pushing my luck a bit too far.
The effect on Katniss is instantaneous. She freezes, her gray eyes searching mine in confusion, then a blush slowly spreads up her cheeks and she drops her gaze to the floor. After a moment she clears her throat and says in her usual surly tone, “Well, you won’t get to. It’s against the rules.” She straightens up and turns away from me. “Get your clothes on and let’s move on. Spears next?”
Chapter 7 of my Peeta POV retelling of The Hunger Games, "A Piece in Their Games" is out now, in which Peeta recalls that day with the bread; trains, fights, and flirts with Katniss; has enlightening conversations with Haymitch; and finally decides what he will do in the Games.
Imo, one of the MOST rebellious things Peeta ever did was camouflage himself during the first Games. From the beginning, that boy knew the Capitol's agenda (see: the convo on the roof) and was determined not to serve it. He also knew he was too injured to be of further help to Katniss. There could only be one victor, and his days (hours?) were numbered. So what did Peeta Mellark, male tribute from District 12, do in his final moments? He removed himself from the plot. He dug himself an unmarked grave and laid in it. He told the Capitol, "You can take my life but you CANNOT have my death." He literally and figuratively faded into the background of the Games. By camouflaging himself into invisibility, Peeta ensured his death would be the least cinematic in Hunger Games history, thus eliminating any use the Capitol could have had for it. In a way, he beat the Powers that Be at their own game. No wonder Seneca had no choice but to cheat change the rules.
you once mentioned you think peeta didn’t make any decisions out of love in the first book, why
My thoughts are more along the lines of Peeta wasn’t sacrificing himself in the first half of the book because of his crush. I actually think Katniss and Peeta are really similar in how they were approaching the two arenas (three if you want to count the squad).
74th Arena (mind) - Peeta does care and have a crush on Katniss but his decision to let her win is a result of him admiring her as a person and thinking she has the best shot to win for their district. Him deciding to help her is him making a statement in what he thinks is his limited capacity where he thinks he won’t win. He’s being just as purely practical as Katniss is during their first games. The section called the Games starts with Peeta’s confession, just because he wasn’t trying to stab Katniss in the back doesn’t mean he wasn’t plotting (in fact Katniss is right in a way, because if he hadn’t been caught wouldn’t the actual plan be run or stab the Careers in the back?). I would even say they both truly stop playing around with the romance at around the same point. He exchanges a story about his family, she exchanges a story about her family, he actually initiates a kiss and that’s when she starts feeling things. And everything from that point on is love and devotion.
75th Arena (heart) - this is where Peeta actually does everything out of love, and it’s the same as Katniss. They both have their warped justification probably where they think the other is more valuable to the rebellion but the core of if it is they can’t live without each other.
Squad 451 (soul) - Katniss and Peeta are perpetually between life and death mentally during this period where they’ve been dehumanized. Peeta trying to recognize what’s real and not real for his being and Katniss trying to understand her own judgement in the face of loss. They both keep their souls as they end the war refusing to dehumanize and succumb to what Snow and Coin wanted for them.
This may have been longer than what you wanted anon, I just have a lot of thoughts about how Peeta’s journey is the same as Katniss’s in some ways.
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