#marko mellark

[porchwood]

I know that you’re inspired by Gadge lately, but our recent Mellark brothers conversation has me craving Prim/Marko something fierce. A re-read of Torchlight will have to do... unless you’ve got something hiding in your drafts you’d care to share??? ;)

*blows cloud of dust off sad askbox*

Hello again, my friend!

The present Gadge-centricness isn’t an abandonment of Everlark (contrary to popular belief :/) - working on Strawberry Time inspired me to do “March Madgeness” on my blog, but once the month was up my eye was still being caught by Madge/Gadgesque posts so I decided to do “Madge Mondays” to confine the M/Gadge content to one day a week. That said, I know that’s still a lot of M/Gadge and I can see how it might be off-putting. :/

As far as drafts: the last fic I worked on was The One That Got Away (teasers here and here), a Madge modern AU inspired by a small but fierce handful of readers who ship Madge with Jude Tolliver (an OC of sorts - Rooba’s youngest son, a Mellark cousin who’s become a major character in Strawberry Time). I was ridiculously excited about it (it’s the first time in YEARS that I’ve written feverishly to get down the words in my head) but I honestly don’t think there’s enough interest to continue. :( That said, there are/were loads of side-ships on deck (including a bit of Primko), if that’s any enticement…

On the subject of side-ships: I can’t remember whether or not you’re following Strawberry Time, but Primko is a major secondary ship in that fic (and Prim is a pretty major character in her own right). That wasn’t the original plan, but as it’s a true parallel fic to WtM, there are all these little threads of plot and relationships taking place concurrently with Everlark in the woods, and of course Madge’s life overlaps quite a bit with Prim’s. ST starts the day after Torchlight (I actually made a little chart to keep track of what day it is in each story and what’s happening in each place because there’s WtM, ST, as well as two other potential fics that I need to keep track of!), so if you want to see what Primko have been up to since their New Year’s encounter, that starts midway through Ch 2 of ST. :) If you can steel yourself to read Gadge (and there isn’t a ton of overt Gadge in ST as yet), you should definitely check out ST (heck, just Ctrl-F for “Prim” and skip the rest, if need be!), especially as it contains follow-up content to Torchlight. :) Luka gets some screen time too - with hints regarding his mysterious sweetheart!

If you can’t bear the prospect of Gadge (or a Madge POV), there are little nods to (married, with children!) Primko in Embracing the Season, an Everlark (well, Peeta/Katniss - Primko is Everlark too! ;D) oneshot I wrote for last year’s Love in Panem Valentine challenge. Just nods, alas (amid a certain amount of Peeta/Katniss smut, so fair warning there), but fun ones, I think.

I can’t imagine writing Everlark in a “ship vacuum,” if you will - their lives overlap with so many others that there have to be at least nods to other pairings all over the place (and dear Lord, the WtMiverse is TEEMING with side-ships)! I wish I could crack through this current cloud of adversity and get back to writing fairy tale fics, because there’s all manner of Mellark brothers/Mellark side-ship content waiting over there. :(

Thanks for your ask and (dare I hope?) happy reading!

[porchwood]

can I ask when it occurred to Marko that the youngest Everdeen girl was his sweetheart? or did it, much like Finnick and Annie, creep up on him?

Oooh, what a fantasticquestion! Thank you so much for asking! :)

This will probably come up in a future chapter of WtM, actually.I’ve been thinking about writing a little related scenelet and I’ve actuallyexplored the development of Marko’s feelings a bit in Bearskin and Gold (my “ThreeBears” Marko/Prim fic), which is an out-of-Panem AU, obviously, but once I layout headcanon I really try to keep it consistent across my universes.

I think Marko has alwaysadored Prim, stemming back to when she was a baby and he was a chubby,oversized 9-year-old and her father brought her to the bakery. In my headcanonhe had this passionate schoolboy crush on a pretty classmate (Greta from thecreamery a.k.a. the dairymaid in other fics) but nothing ever came of it, and maybeon some deep level he knew they weren’t supposed to be together. All the whilePrim was around, being tiny and young and adorable, and they developed a playful,affectionate sibling-esque camaraderie (i.e., how they interact at theEverdeens’ in Ch 2 of WtM). 

Where the flip happened isactually an off-stage moment from Ch 2, when Prim gets her new coat and boots andwants to show Vick and Rory and Marko follows her around the neighborhood at amodest distance to make sure no one bullies her, throws dirty coal-snow at her,etc.. I realized recently that Marko must have been the one who picked out thatcoat (with some input from his brother) because Peeta was busy preparing thehamper of food and it all got delivered first thing that morning. Things subtly, unconsciously started to shift in Marko’s heart and mind while hewas making that decision (thinking of Prim and what she might like, envisioningher in the coat), but the realization truly struck when he saw her runningaround the Seam in her beautiful new coat, still being playful, endearing Primbut looking older and elegant and even beautiful and BOOM: there’s his girl.His sweetheart. (A bit like Finnick and Annie, now you mention it!) How in theworld is this supposed to work?? Mellarks are supposed to fall in love young(with a sweetheart of the same age!) - so DID he? he wonders. Has he lovedPrimrose Everdeen all her life?

Thanks to having been a huskychild and not especially beloved by his mother, Marko doesn’t see himself asmuch of a catch (he doesn’t realize he’s Armie Hammer – shh!!! – that he’s “allthat and a bakery to put it in” :D), whereas he knows that Prim is a catch and ahalf. She’s pretty, wise beyond her years without losing her compassion, smartas a whip and building her own goat’s milk business, complete with deliveringkids, at the age of 12 (actually before that, even!). He’s acutely aware of theirage difference – maybe more so than she is - and has no intention of trying to take any sort of advantage; on the contrary, he feels like the honorable thing would be to steerclear and let her find a suitable sweetheart her own age, but of course heloves her and wants to look out for her and frankly, Prim’s not interested inboys her own age so that was never going to happen!

Their camaraderie continued anddeepened when Prim and her mother moved to town (Marko making mini pies for herlunches, Prim making Marko shaving soap as a playful hint to shave off his winterbeard, the pair of them sharing hot chocolate out the window after supper) and of courseeverything came to a head on New Year’s (in Torchlight). Prim is much older andwiser than her years and I suspect she’s been suppressing her feelings to acertain degree as well, but New Year’s gave the first tiny glimpse that maybe,just maybe, this crazy thing is mutual and they were both catapultedtoward that tight, breathless moment (I’m feeling that way right now justthinking about it!) when you realize that the person you like likes you back. They’re both still a little uncertain and suppressing their feelings (especiallypoor Marko, who’s afraid he’s in love with a child who has all kinds of better,younger, more exciting prospects) but with Prim hitting menarche in the midstof a major life reboot and freedom from her older sister’s care/surveillance – not tomention what may or may not be happening with Alyssum and Janek ;) - she’sgaining a fierce determination to go after what she wants and devil take whatthe world thinks! ;) Which means there may or may not be a headstrong declaration/confrontationon the agenda for these two!

On a crazy sidenote: whilethis is absolutely NOT where things are headed in WtM (well, it might be, justnot this soon!), I honestly think that Prim could be a 13/14-yr-old bride in anAU and make it work, in part because she’s so resilient and wise but alsobecause Marko is so incredibly patient and gentle and understanding. I’veactually thought about writing a fic where she gets married at 14 - to Marko, ofcourse, and in a society/era where young brides are the norm – in part to cheekily floutconvention (there seems to be this magic unwritten rule that Prim needs to be16 to do anything with a boy, though I’ve seen fics where she’s sexually activeat 14 or even younger?!) but also to show that it could WORK. She’s not quiteas grown-up as she thinks she is at this point in WtM, of course, but she’s alot more grown-up than the world around her understands, including her poortormented sweetheart!

[porchwood]

Oh my, lady. Between Torchlight and the pics of Armie Hammer, I may be ready to transfer my loyalties to a new Mellark man. (blasphemy?). Fortunately, I don't have to choose ;-)

That’s mostly your own fault, my dear. ;D You were the one who poked that plot bunny with a stick - and you were also the first person to whom I confessed my Armie!Marko headcanon. (Had you not told me that said fancast was “fabulous,” I might have crawled under a rock and forsaken Prim/Marko for a very long time!)

That being said: I’m crazy-happy that you liked it (and him)! :D The eldest Mellark brother always gets the short shrift, but when I got the idea for A Many-Petaled Rose, somehow it was unthinkable that Prim would get together with Luka. She needed the huge, golden, bear-like brother - and that was the beginning of the end. ;D Before that, I didn’t ship Prim with anyone, and now I feel like I need to create ways for her and Marko to be together in ALL the plot bunnies!

And there’s no blasphemy (or, indeed, shame) in loving multiple Mellarks, as I suspect you know. ;D They’re all so uniquely irresistible (if I may say so myself) - and you’ve barely met Luka! I have great things in store for him in Act 3 of WtM, if you’re curious…