Katniss Everdeen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stillplaying) wrote2013-07-16 03:00 pm
stillplaying) wrote2013-07-16 03:00 pm
Entry tags:
16th Game [video]
[She's spent the last week hiding. Skipped guitar lessons with Teddy and archery lessons with Henry, barely showed her face in public. Most of her time was spent in the far reaches of the woods away from any areas she knew Sokka might hunt. When she could bother going on her forays. But in the past week, they hadn't felt quite the same. She hadn't been able to lose herself in the hunt as she normally did. Not when there was a fear in her belly that she might see him.
At least Gale had been smart. He'd put that space between them by moving to District 4. This town was too small. It lacked that space she had had in Panem. And because they had been so damn open about their relationship at Prim's party... People knew. So many people knew.
If there was one thing that Katniss couldn't stand, it was humiliation. She didn't want to see their pitying looks. Hear their echoed apologies. She had already had to go through that once. When she had lost Peeta, when her heart had truly broken. This? This didn't hurt as much. No, it was the mortification and the self-disgust that really bothered her now. At least she hadn't been so stupid as letting herself fall in love. But if it had gone on longer? If he hadn't had his death penalty removed, would she have?
Better to have them all hate her, despise her, than pity her. At least that she knew how to deal with, felt as if she could accept. Because they'd be right not to like her. All of them would be right. This likable girl her friends thought she was? That was a lie, only a part of whatever charisma it was she held over others. And today? Today seemed like the perfect day to do just that.
Effie's last post remained fresh in her mind as she turned on the video recorder in the journal. Her hair was neatly braided in its custom side braid. The mockingjay pin pinned high on the chest of one of her nicer blouses, displayed where everyone could see it. She stared resolutely at the camera for a minute before she nodded.]
Today, back in my home of Panem, would have been the first time in seventy-six years that a reaping of contestants for the annual Hunger Games would not have occurred. As many of you know by now, every year, on this day, the names of two children from each district - a boy and a girl between the years of twelve to eighteen years of age - would be selected to fight to the death in an arena days later. The Hunger Games served as entertainment to those who lived in the Capitol. People like Effie Trinket who didn't know better. An honor to those in the richer Districts, the ones favored by the Capitol. For the rest of us, it was a punishment, a reminder of the cost that came with rising up against our government.
[She took a deep breath, lips pursed together for a quick second as she remembered. She spoke without thinking. Determined, she only realized later, to take the heat off of Effie for her suggestion of games here in Luceti. Her mockingjay wings twitched behind her. But once she started speaking again, the words tumbled out. She held her gaze steady, grey eyes showing all the emotion her stoic expression hid.]
Many of you were angry when Effie suggested the idea of gladiatorial-like games here in our prison. But Effie was only acting like everyone else here, trying to make the best out of a horrible situation. Looking for something that would make her feel more at home. Just like the rest of us. You have no right, no right at all, to judge her for that. You don't know our world. You don't know what it could be like.
The 75th Hunger Games, the Quarter Quell, were the last official games held by President Snow and the Gamemakers. But they weren't the last Hunger Games. Because after the second uprising ended, after we won, the surviving victors of previous Games met. There were only seven of us left. Me and Peeta. Our mentor, Haymitch. Johanna, Enobaria, Beetee, Annie. We were given a choice by President Coin - the new leader of Panem, the leader I executed in revenge for my sister's death. One last Hunger Games, this one played by twenty four children directly related to those who held the most power in Panem.
I think the way the vote fell was obvious. Peeta and Beetee and Annie voted no. The better of us. Johanna and Enobaria voted yes. And Haymitch and I? We had the last votes. But he's as unlikable, as bitter as I am. I suspected how he'd vote. And I voted to kill those Capitol children anyway.
I am not a good person. Maybe... maybe I thought I could change. Maybe I thought I could put all this behind me. The Captiol, the Hunger Games, Peeta... But girls like me don't deserve to be happy. They don't deserved to be liked. Or loved.
So do yourselves all a favor and think before you make a judgement about someone. Because as wrong as you are about Effie? You're just as wrong about me.
At least Gale had been smart. He'd put that space between them by moving to District 4. This town was too small. It lacked that space she had had in Panem. And because they had been so damn open about their relationship at Prim's party... People knew. So many people knew.
If there was one thing that Katniss couldn't stand, it was humiliation. She didn't want to see their pitying looks. Hear their echoed apologies. She had already had to go through that once. When she had lost Peeta, when her heart had truly broken. This? This didn't hurt as much. No, it was the mortification and the self-disgust that really bothered her now. At least she hadn't been so stupid as letting herself fall in love. But if it had gone on longer? If he hadn't had his death penalty removed, would she have?
Better to have them all hate her, despise her, than pity her. At least that she knew how to deal with, felt as if she could accept. Because they'd be right not to like her. All of them would be right. This likable girl her friends thought she was? That was a lie, only a part of whatever charisma it was she held over others. And today? Today seemed like the perfect day to do just that.
Effie's last post remained fresh in her mind as she turned on the video recorder in the journal. Her hair was neatly braided in its custom side braid. The mockingjay pin pinned high on the chest of one of her nicer blouses, displayed where everyone could see it. She stared resolutely at the camera for a minute before she nodded.]
Today, back in my home of Panem, would have been the first time in seventy-six years that a reaping of contestants for the annual Hunger Games would not have occurred. As many of you know by now, every year, on this day, the names of two children from each district - a boy and a girl between the years of twelve to eighteen years of age - would be selected to fight to the death in an arena days later. The Hunger Games served as entertainment to those who lived in the Capitol. People like Effie Trinket who didn't know better. An honor to those in the richer Districts, the ones favored by the Capitol. For the rest of us, it was a punishment, a reminder of the cost that came with rising up against our government.
[She took a deep breath, lips pursed together for a quick second as she remembered. She spoke without thinking. Determined, she only realized later, to take the heat off of Effie for her suggestion of games here in Luceti. Her mockingjay wings twitched behind her. But once she started speaking again, the words tumbled out. She held her gaze steady, grey eyes showing all the emotion her stoic expression hid.]
Many of you were angry when Effie suggested the idea of gladiatorial-like games here in our prison. But Effie was only acting like everyone else here, trying to make the best out of a horrible situation. Looking for something that would make her feel more at home. Just like the rest of us. You have no right, no right at all, to judge her for that. You don't know our world. You don't know what it could be like.
The 75th Hunger Games, the Quarter Quell, were the last official games held by President Snow and the Gamemakers. But they weren't the last Hunger Games. Because after the second uprising ended, after we won, the surviving victors of previous Games met. There were only seven of us left. Me and Peeta. Our mentor, Haymitch. Johanna, Enobaria, Beetee, Annie. We were given a choice by President Coin - the new leader of Panem, the leader I executed in revenge for my sister's death. One last Hunger Games, this one played by twenty four children directly related to those who held the most power in Panem.
I think the way the vote fell was obvious. Peeta and Beetee and Annie voted no. The better of us. Johanna and Enobaria voted yes. And Haymitch and I? We had the last votes. But he's as unlikable, as bitter as I am. I suspected how he'd vote. And I voted to kill those Capitol children anyway.
I am not a good person. Maybe... maybe I thought I could change. Maybe I thought I could put all this behind me. The Captiol, the Hunger Games, Peeta... But girls like me don't deserve to be happy. They don't deserved to be liked. Or loved.
So do yourselves all a favor and think before you make a judgement about someone. Because as wrong as you are about Effie? You're just as wrong about me.
video [filtered]
[Grim, wry amusement skews his smile. Well done.]
...‘tis far more than can be said of many, I'm sure. [Or so he is willing to wager of Luceti and so many of it’s smiling, happy people. People who bury deep and deny their darkest thoughts, he muses, thinking themselves above and uninfluenced by them.]
There is a beast within us all, my dear. It aches for recognition of our singular accomplishments; it burns deep with jealousy when another is shown more love -- [The word curls his lip like a rotten piece of food.] -- than it believes they deserve; it hungers for flesh, to taste and to take when we cannot; and it clamours for blood when one has wronged us.
[He smoothly spreads his hands, his tone as cool and mirthless as his gaze.]
In the end... if even your dearest friends cannot take you for who and what you truly are, then perhaps they are no longer worth your time. ‘tis far to better be hated for what one is than to be adored and appreciated for what one is not.
video [filtered]
It was so, so much better to be hated for what she was rather than to be liked for what she wasn't. Sokka hadn't really liked her. What had been between them hadn't been real. It had all been pretend. She had been used, appreciated just for her body and for her willingness to... to believe in his lie because she had wanted to feel desired.
But she didn't want that anymore. Nothing fake. Nothing fake ever again.]
It's what I'd prefer.
video [filtered] tw: a graphic image?
He hadn’t rued giving the pious countrymen of Valachia greater reason to fear and despise him. They had decided he was a threat from the start and created a monster, panicking when it had wheeled on them first. And there was no going back. He had embraced that path of destruction in place of forcing himself to forgive those who had and would never see anything but a strigoi in him, a creature in league with the devil.
But they were right, weren’t they?
He was a devil who could tear into someone in a vengeful fury without a shred of regret. He had done it for years. And more than a small part of him had enjoyed it. The pleading screams; the adrenaline pumping and powering him forward; the coppery tang of blood as he'd lick clean the edges of his blades.]
For your own sake... I should hope you do not come to regret your choice.
video [filtered]
[But there was a hint of bravado in her voice, of uncertainty and of fear. She could do this. She could push everyone away. For her own sake. For theirs. And she wouldn't regret it. Drafts would suddenly have far less risk so long as she protected Prim. The disappearance of people from this place, the shifts.
It would all be a lot easier if she just didn't care. And if they didn't care about her in return.
It'd be the smart thing to do.]
video [filtered]
[No mockery, no praise. There is nothing left to say.
And so he intends to leave her to her business in the way he has often wished to be unpestered by those thinking they knew what was best for him. How could they?]