chassis was district 6's first victor. she won the 20th games. before winning, she was part of a gang in district 6.
district 6's second victor was named vin! i don't have a last name or many details about his games yet. he is autistic, and it is widely considered a shock that he won.
also including some drawings of wellie (my girl) and sabine (aka female morphling). district 6 girls my beloved!!! they deserve so much better!!!
“Time, mystical time/ Cuttin' me open, then healin' me fine/ Were there clues I didn't see?/ And isn't it just so pretty to think/ All along there was some/ Invisible string/ Tying you to me?
…Something wrapped all of my past mistakes in barbed wire/ Chains around my demons, wool to brave the seasons/ One single thread of gold tied me to you”
Katniss Everdeen & Peeta Mellark (Everlark) - Sweet Nothing (actually so difficult to pick one for them bc they’re so Sweet Nothing/peace/Guilty As Sin coded)
“Industry disruptors and soul deconstructors/ And smooth-talking hucksters out glad-handing each other/ And the voices that implore, "You should be doing more"/ To you, I can admit that I’m just too soft for all of it
They said the end is comin'/ Everyone's up to somethin'/ I find myself runnin' home to your sweet nothings/ Outside, they're push and shovin'/ You're in the kitchen hummin'/ All that you ever wanted from me was sweet nothin'”
Haymitch Abernathy & Effie Trinket (Hayffie) - Cornelia Street
“And I hope I never lose you, hope it never ends/ I'd never walk Cornelia Street again / That's the kind of heartbreak time could never mend/ I'd never walk Cornelia Street again
…You hold my hand on the street/ Walk me back to that apartment/ Years ago, we were just inside / Barefoot in the kitchen/ Sacred new beginnings / That became my religion, listen /I hope I never lose you/ I'd never walk Cornelia Street again”
Haymitch Abernathy & Maysilee Donner (Haysilee) - Call It What You Want
“I want to wear his initial/ On a chain 'round my neck, chain 'round my neck/ Not because he owns me/ But 'cause he really knows me/ Which is more than they can say
…I never learn, at least I did one thing right/ I did one thing right/ I'm laughin' with my lover, makin' forts under covers/ Trust him like a brother, yeah, you know I did one thing right/ Starry eyes sparkin' up my darkest night”
Cato & Clove (Clato) - The Alchemy
“Cheers chanted 'cause they said/ "There was no chance trying to be the greatest in the league" / Where's the trophy?/ He just comes runnin' over to me
Touchdown/ Call the amateurs and cut 'em from the team / Ditch the clowns, get the crown/ Baby, I'm the one to beat / ‘Cause the sign on your heart / Said it's still reserved for me / Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy?”
Female Morphling & Male Morphling (The Morphlings) - Labyrinth
“It only feels this raw right now/ Lost in the labyrinth of my mind/ Break up, break free, break through, break down/ You would break your back to make me break a smile
You know how much I hate that everybody just expects me to bounce back/ Just like that/ Uh oh, I'm falling in love/ Oh no, I'm falling in love again/ Oh, I'm falling in love”
Lenore Dove Baird & Haymitch Abernathy (Haydove) - This Love
“This love is good/ This love is bad/ This love is alive back from the dead/ These hands had to let it go free, and / This love came back to me,
This love left a permanent mark/ This love is glowing in the dark, / These hands had to let it go free, and / This love came back to me”
Finnick Odair & Annie Cresta (Odesta) - Mine (this one was literally a toss up between Mine & Our Song)
“Do you remember, we were sittin' there by the water?/ You put your arm around me for the first time/ You made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter/ You are the best thing that's ever been mine
…Braced myself for the goodbye/ ‘Cause that's all I've ever known/ Then you took me by surprise/ You said, "I'll never leave you alone"”
Here's a wip of part of the vignette series I am working :) would love feedback/opinions!
The 58th Hunger Games came too soon. Time moved differently once you were a Victor. Or maybe it stopped moving altogether-- unless Via was in the Capitol, where they monitored her drugs and kept her just functional enough to maintain a schedule, she might as well have been on another planet. A planet where time didn’t matter.
Via Kowaski had been an infrequent user before her Games. Like most in District 6, she knew the way morphling sang in your veins. Her mentors hadn’t tried to stop her, they encouraged it even. Neither had her father-- the only family she had left, who hadn’t once looked her in the eye since she won. Everyone knew this-- floating through time-- was becoming of District 6 Victors.
Still, the Reaping felt too soon, even with the sweat slicking her skin as she sat on the stage basking in the summer sun in the city center. Nausea lapped at her stomach. Maybe she should have taken another burst, just a little, to blunt the edge of the comedown. Vannan had made her promise sobriety, but in this stiff-backed chair, staring out at a sea of 80,000 faces of District 6, sobriety was the last thing she wanted.
They all looked at her-- hope flickering in their eyes, reassurance reflected back at her. And Via knew exactly what she looked like: thinner than before, eyes glassy, stare vacant. Surely they were thinking, if she can do it, so can I.
The escort, a man whose speech had always run just a shade too fast, reached into the bowls and plucked a name from each.
Run me over with a truck, she thought as her eyes finally settled on their tributes.
Children. They were always children-- that was the point. But the pigtailed girl and big-eared boy looked impossibly small. They couldn’t have been much older than ten, though the Treaty of Treason required them to at least be twelve. Runts of the litter, maybe, their bellies likely fuller on Victor Parcel deliveries than at any other time in their short lives.
Via thought about those parcels. They were the only thing that made her prefer sobriety anymore. The bright faces, the giggles, the hesitant hands reaching out. The older folks in the city, her father’s age, always thanked her with a kind of reverence-- but it was the little ones who undid her. Chubby cheeks stained with candy, fingers clutching new toys, laughter ringing through the crowd. That was when she smiled-- truly smiled-- for the first time since her Games. It had to matter. If it didn’t, then nothing she had done, nothing she had survived, was worth anything at all. She wanted to be sober for those moments. She wanted to remember them. She needed to remember them.
But right now, Via really wished she could float off somewhere else.
She led the procession of Victors back inside the Justice Building. As the doors closed behind them, Lisbon caught her elbow, steering her onward. It wasn't either path she had been on before: they didn’t head to the sitting room where families said their goodbyes nor to the office that dealt with automobile work assignments. Instead, Lisbon guided her up a grand staircase to a second-floor hallway gilded in Capitol opulence, stopping at a pair of heavy double doors.
Vannan fumbled at the handle, trying twice before his clammy hands found the strength to turn it. Via nearly scoffed. He was the one who demanded they all stay sober until the tributes either died or won, and here he was, shaking apart in withdrawal.
The door finally creaked open to reveal a broad, wood-paneled office. A single stately desk dominated the center, flanked by four smaller metal ones with their own seating areas.
“Mayor’s office,” Vannan muttered, as though explaining it would make the space feel less suffocating.
Via furrowed her brow, uncertain why she had been brought there. Lisbon released her arm and slipped easily into step beside Vannan, as if this were familiar. Routine. Via trailed after them, skeptical. No one had mentioned anything about this in the afternoon’s schedule briefing.
They stopped before the wall opposite the Mayor’s desk. An art installation sprawled across it: a lattice of turning gears, half of them driving a series of clocks that marked the hours in each District and in the Capitol, the rest grinding uselessly for spectacle.
For a moment, the three Victors simply stood there. Via’s eyes lingered on the clocks. She had always been drawn to any scrap of information about the rest of Panem. Ordinary citizens of District 6 never saw such things-- knowledge of other places was reserved for managers and train operators. She had been neither, just another pair of hands in the automobile factories, welding gas tanks. But victory had its perks. If you knew where to look-- or who to ask-- sometimes you could learn more than they wanted you to know.
Vannan coughed, then dug into the deep pockets of his trousers, searching for something. Lisbon had coordinated their outfits, as she always did, determined to keep them ‘in fashion’. Via let her, she always let her. Lisbon always chose pieces that covered more skin than any Capitol stylist ever would, Lisbon remembered that Via was still just eighteen.
For the Reaping, she had dressed Vannan in dark gray trousers-- too long, bunching over his shoes-- and a crisp, pale-gray shirt. She and Via wore matching dark dresses with thin straps and sagging waists, the hems tugging at their ankles. Morphling-chic, the Capitol called it. And no one dressed the part better than Lisbon.
Finally, Vannan drew out two small gears. He turned them over in his palm, inspecting them closely before giving a short nod.
“Both 12T,” he said. His mouth twitched into a smirk that slipped away almost immediately. “Pulled the right ones first try this year.” He nudged Lisbon lightly.
She exhaled without humor, shaking her head. “Let V do it.”
Vannan turned to Via and extended his open palm. Two 12-tooth gears gleamed dully against his skin.
“Put them on the wall.”
For a heartbeat she just stared, hesitant. Then she took them. They felt heavier than they looked-- tiny, but weighted like stones. She turned them between her fingers and the symbolism assembled itself: two gears, one for each tribute. Twelve teeth, one for every year they’d lived.
The wall wasn’t just an art installation. Beyond the clocks, beyond the turning cogs meant only for show, it was a living machine-- a memorial that never stopped grinding. Time measured, time consumed, time turned into spectacle. The useless gears mirrored their own lives, always turning but going nowhere, locked into a system that would keep moving with or without them.
“Where’s mine?” she asked quietly.
Vannan didn’t hesitate. He crossed to the far side of the wall, to a cluster of gears he knew by heart. He tapped one on the edge. Seventeen teeth. She didn’t need to count to know that.
Via followed him. Without a word she pressed the two small gears into place so that all three touched, meshing with the rhythm of the machine.
When her hands dropped back to her sides, Lisbon’s fingers found her shoulder, giving a small, steady squeeze.
Via watched the two new gears begin to turn, swallowed by the larger system. A wave of nausea rose in her throat-- not from comedown, not from withdrawal, not from sobriety. These kids were going to die, and the machine would keep turning.
