Velvreene 's backstory in your fics? Does her sister have down syndrome?
Hi! I'm actually excited about this ask as I have a few thoughts about Velvereen's backstory and I never really got the chance to really share them before.
In my fics, Velvereen's backstory is that as she was growing up her family owned a chocolate business in the centre of the District whose small businesses were established/well-connected enough to do personal business deals with Capitol businesses/families as well as providing products en-mass to the Capitol. Therefore because of that, her family is on the wealthier side. Her father's side of the family had owned the business for generations and they had luckily managed to keep ownership of it during the Rebellion and it's aftermath when some of their neighbours lost theirs for one reason or another (mainly due to Capitol interference). Her father is the current owner after her grandparents passed away during the Dark Days and she was expecting to take it over one day.
Her mother's side of the family though, came from a different part of the District altogether, in a heavily-populated poorer area that specialised in making the luxury materials that the Capitol used such as the fabrics, and her name is a nod to her mother's heritage.
For me, the main part of her backstory is her sister. She's a couple of years younger than Velvereen and is her only sibling. She does have an intellectual disability (I had never nailed it down which disability exactly other than she had one) and when she was reaped for the Games, Wovey did remind Velvereen of her, however her sister's disability is more severe than Wovey's as while Wovey would be/is able to live an independent life and take care of herself, Velvereen's sister will always need someone to take care of her.
Velvereen loves her sister a lot, like there is nothing she wouldn't do for her. She helped to take care of her sister as they were growing up, included her as much as possible and was completely willing to keep taking care of her when their parents did die. And admittedly even though it's never come up a whole lot as Velvereen doesn't tend to get that much pov focus in my fics, her sister is what motivates her arcs and the choices she makes in several of my fics. Examples include:
In future chapters of 'Can't Catch Us Now' (when I do get back to that) Velvereen was going to struggle a lot while out in the woods, not really because of the tough life, but more so because she has to work through what feels a lot like guilt to her for basically abandoning her sister now by not returning to District 1 and the knowledge that she won't see her sister again for a long time, if ever, and how her sister is possibly coping with her being gone as she wouldn't be able to understand.
And in both 'An Old Style Of Escape' and 'District Unity, Solidarity And A General Desire For Chaos,' Wovey and how she reminds Velvereen of her sister is what influences her decisions to a) not take her chances and run during the bombing and stick with their escape plan in the case of the former fic and b) to go back to free the tributes when she does successfully escape in the latter.
To be honest, Velvereen is probably one of the ~3 characters whose backstory has remained the same no matter what kind of fic that I'm writing.
That's it! I hope you liked it!