Its Too Early For This

It’s too early for this😭

I have a headcannon that it was Peeta's mother who used to decorate the bakery's cakes before him.

She learned it as soon as she married the baker, and is kinda good at it.

Maybe that's why she's so picky about the cakes Peeta makes. "If I had done it..." is what she always says when is about to criticize him. But the truth is that the boy is so good that it's difficult to find something in his cakes to complain.

Peeta took his mother's artistic essence. She is good at crafts, always painting the bakery sign with elegant calligraphy, decorate them with flower designs.

Mrs. Mellark would be a good artist if it weren’t for her complete lack of imagination. For her the books are nonsense, and the illustrations are children’s drawings.

That’s why she didn’t let Peeta draw too much when he was growing up. “go do something useful.” She said “You will not learn to knead bread making doodles.”

She never wanted to be a baker, she never wanted the life she chose, but she knew it was the only way. Her father was a drunk, her mother was neurotic

She didn't choose her husband out of love. She chose him because he was stable, because he was disciplined, because he could be a good father. She didn't have children because she wanted to be a mother, but because she needed more hands to work.

The first was planned, the second tolerated, the third an accident.

After the games, when Peeta returned home, limping and with deep-set eyes. She went to visit him a few times in the victors village.

Peeta's house wasn't organized like she taught him to leave his room. Was a mess. His room was full of pages with scribbles, tubes of paint amd unfinished paintings. Art and more art, everywhere... Mrs. Mellark didn't even know that her son still painted. After he became a teenager, was good at hiding who he really was from his mother. She never saw him draw again, but the truth is that the little artist she tried to repress so much never stopped drawing.

Drawings of landscapes and places, many doodles from the small bakery where he grew up. Drawings of people, neighbors, customers, many drawings of the hunting girl. Peeta paints her much better than she really looks, without marks, without scars, without the frown she has. For Mrs. Mellark, it's just another sign of the madness her son has fallen into.

To the woman’s surprise, she find some drawings of herself, all unfinished. Peeta always seems to stop drawing when he get on her face. Lots and lots of unbedded scribbles of herself. She has always preferred to be feared than loved, to be the tough guy when her soft husband doesn’t have the courage to discipline his children. But it pains her to see that her husband’s drawings at least had the decency to be finished before being thrown into the pile of forgotten scribbles.

Peeta. Her youngest boy. Weak like his father, sentimental, scared, soft. She was perhaps a little heavy on him growing up. She saw how very fragile he was when he was little. He wasn't like his brothers, Peeta was always an outsider. And she always saw that... So she doesn't even try to scold him for the mess in his house.

After he came back to the games she could only see in him the small, scared boy who always tried to hide under her skirt when he was young. And with that memory, comes all the times she pushed him away and told him to become a man. That a six-year-old boy shouldn't cry like a soft girl.

But Mrs. Mellark regrets nothing, even if the memories make her uncomfortable. Was because of that he won the Hunger Games. She taught him to endure, she turned the weak boy into a grown man. She never apologized for that, even though her son hates her forever.

She didn't visit him much in the victor's village, but one of the few times she did, Peeta thought she would fill him with complaints about the dirty house. But she just does said:

"It's not because you're crippled that you have to stay inside this house all day, go sunbathe and open the curtains." And then she left a fresh loaf of bread on the kitchen table and when home.

That was it.

One of the last interactions Peeta had with his mother before she died. Buried under the rubble of the bakery that she fought her entire life to maintain, with the children she raised to become respectable bakers. Men enough to take care of their wives and children. Everything she fought for her entire life was left in ashes and the only one of the boys left was the one she never thought would prosper.

Peeta misses her sometimes.

He thinks his eldest daughter looks like her grandmother a bit. Big blue eyes and dimples on her cheeks. He sometimes thinks he even forgives his mom, not all the time, but sometimes. Peeta misses her discipline and resilience. Sometimes he wants to hear her voice telling him to stop whining and come back with his head held high.

Perhaps the only lesson she taught him and stuck with him until the end is that the Mellarks never give up. Every morning, they wake up early, turn on the oven and work until sunset. That the Mellarks are never content with little, that they never accept mediocrity.

So he teaches his children to lift their heads after a defeat, to try again after they fail. Because The Mellarks never give up.

I can't believe Polities invented haunting the narrative

me: *listening to epic the musical* oh wow this song is very sad i dont know how this could get more sad

polites: this life is amazingg

me: AUGHHH

Ya know, you could just stab me, I think it might hurt less

Some Hard Promises Angst

So I was sitting in bed minding my own business thinking "So what if Jack had more left of his brother than just a photograph?" and it led to this.... well, whatever this written hell counts as. Enjoy the shitshow.

(Also haha enjoy the play on the Hard Promises title in here)

---------------------------------

“Hey, kiddo! Look who I got back!”

The young boy in front of Jack smiled… or, Jack could only assume he had. He could only hear the boy’s voice. He didn’t want to look- he knew what he’d see if he did. He’d had this nightmare before. Instead he looked at anything else- the small stuffed horse in his hands, the walls, the cheaply made wooden furniture and the locked doors and barred windows. The edges of the scene were fuzzy, like a dream, but just nostalgic enough in some sick way to make his skin crawl. He hated how he felt for this place, for the people in it- and for the people who never made it out. The dull walls of the refuge that surrounded him, stained in blood that realistically shouldn’t be there, both comforted and tortured him. He didn’t look down, even as the kid begged him. 

“Francis!”

Jack felt sick. He hated that name. He hated the person who it belonged to.

“Francis, you got him back!”

“I know… I know, Michael.” Jack forced a smile. He hated Francis Sullivan, and his life, and his name, and his family. But he couldn’t bring himself to hate his little brother. What kind of a big brother would that make him?

“Will you keep him safe for me? So Snyder doesn’t take him again?” 

“S-Sure. I will.”

“Do you promise?”

Jack didn’t want to. After what happened, it was a hard promise to make, even if he’d technically made it in real life before the accident. But he sighed. “I promise.”

Jack had to shut his eyes tight when Michael hugged him. He smelled the blood. He felt it on his clothes. He remembered every detail of what happened to his brother. But that didn’t mean he wanted to see it again. He never wanted to see it again.

“Francis, why aren’t you looking at me?” Michael whined.

“Stop.” Jack begged.

“Francis, come on!”

“No!” Jack yelled, opening his eyes. 

-

“JACK?!” 

Jack sat up, breathing so heavily his chest hurt, instinctually smacking the arm off of his shoulder that was shaking him. 

“Jack?! Ow- I- Are you okay?”

“Crutchie?” Jack shook his head, running his hand through his hair. “I- I’m fine… what time’s it?”

“It’s really early, I’m sorry! You were crying in your sleep-”

“I wasn’t.” Jack sighed. “We’ve been over this. I just have allergies, remember?”

“Okay… just- are you sure you don’t want-”

“I’m fine, Crutchie.” Jack snapped. He hated how cold he sounded. How scared he was. He wanted to talk about it, he did. But he didn't want to be a burden to Crutchie. What kind of a big brother would that make him?

“Alright… Goodnight, Jack.” Crutchie said quietly, a hint of coldness in his own tone. Jack supposed he deserved it, even though it hurt. 

“Night.” He responded half-heartedly. 

Once Crutchie was gone, Jack cautiously pulled a loose brick out of the wall, and retrieved a small stuffed horse from inside it. He turned it over in his hands, looking it over. It was far from perfect anymore, it was all dusty with rips and tears, and blood stained over what used to be the white muzzle. It was trash, really, but Jack couldn’t bring himself to put it away.

He promised he’d keep it safe, and he wasn't about to break that promise. Not the last promise he'd ever made to Michael- what kind of a big brother would that make him?

- 

Jack marched into the lodging house shamefully, flanked by cops and Pulitzer’s workers, avoiding the gazes of all the boys who used to be his brothers. He didn’t want to come back here himself, he’d begged for someone else to do it, to retrieve his things for him so he wouldn’t have to face everyone. But for some sick reason Pulitzer had insisted he go himself.

“How can we be sure you have all your… belongings, if you don’t go yourself?” The voice still rang in Jack’s ear, mocking and taking pleasure in what clearly was Jack’s pain. 

Jack didn’t care about his clothes or his bedding. He hardly cared about the money he’d left. There were only two things he really came for. But when he reached inside the wall, he felt sick to his stomach.

The first thing he felt was toy stuffing. 

Fighting a rising panic within him, he pulled out the remnants of what was once a small stuffed horse, now in nothing but a few sorry shreds and a head separated from the body. Nobody in the lodging house knew why he cried that day, nor why he even had it in the first place- to them it was just a meaningless stuffed horse, one that happened to get caught in the crossfire of their anger when they searched for the photograph of Jack’s family.

To them, it meant nothing.

But to Jack? It meant the world. He felt worthless, useless... he just wanted to shut his eyes and cry. But he didn't even feel like he deserved to do that, not in front of everyone. For all he'd done, after Michael and now Crutchie and Race and the rest of the boys, it just now hit him that he'd failed as a big brother.

He’d broken his promise.

Currently reading Postern Of Fate: A Tommy&Tuppence Mystery by Agatha Christie and MY LORD. These two idiots walked in and thought they would be my comfort couple and you know what? They were right. I love them so much and I would die for them.

THIS

ok last Wingfeather post (for tonight) I promise--

but I absolutely think that one of the main reasons I love the books so much is because of Janner, and how perfectly I feel like he encapsulates the experience of being an eldest sibling, especially in the midst of a somewhat-fraught family situation. before reading Wingfeather, I had never in my life discovered a character who seemed to feel the way I did about life with younger siblings, especially in my early teens. the way he struggled so much with the burden of responsibility, loving his siblings so dearly but sometimes chafing under the burden of care he felt like he could never escape--it was so real to me. especially the desire to be free of responsibility coupled with the shame of even wanting that sort of freedom. being so proud of being called "mature" and "leader" and "protector," yet sometimes inwardly raging against the fact that I could never make any mistakes without potentially dragging my younger siblings down with me, that I could never truly be my own person because I often felt more like Their Sister than I did Myself.

I remember saying to at least one person, I think it was my mom, "I have never read anything that so thoroughly understands what it's like to have siblings and be the oldest. this author just understands it. even the ugly parts that you don't want to admit to." I was completely in awe. I had never felt so seen.

and--I don't want to give away any spoilers for people who haven't yet read the books or who want to have the show as their first experience of this story, but--there's a moment in the fourth book where Tink gets to have a extremely special experience... an experience that Janner has always longed to have. and Janner is denied that privilege altogether. and I have such a vivid memory of pausing the audiobook while lying facedown on my bed, complete darkness all around me, far past the time I should've been asleep by, and sobbing. and it's one of the few times I remember genuinely crying because of a book. (I want to say a lot more about that moment in the series and what it means to me, but I'll have to do that in a separate post sometimes, because I cannot possibly avoid spoilers if I say anything else.)

I guess all I'm trying to say is--something about Janner's deep desire to be seen, to be known, to be understood for who he is and not only the role he plays, to receive the love he's always longed for from a father he's never been allowed to fully know, his constant struggle between a desire to lead and protect and his yearning for independence and freedom--all of that spoke so deeply to me when I first read the series, and even now I can feel the echoes of those emotions in how this story left its imprints on my heart. and I'm so excited for all the people who may find, for the first time, their own stories echoed in this series about three kids in a fantasy world overrun with toothy cows and birds with belly-buttons and singing dragons and slavering fanged lizards.

dammm shawty u so fiiineeee. u so fine I would make radical sacrifices for you in order to change my life and become a better man. i would examine and eradicate my vices, striving to provide you safety and security in my love for you, and the physical and emotional home i am working to build for us and our future. hey shawty