Double Rec: 'Grow Together' and 'Letters From The Sky' (Katniss/Peeta)

Post-Mockingjay fanfiction is a pretty big trend that is sweeping the Hunger Games fanfiction world, with all types of authors having a crack at picturing the canon future for our beloved Panem residents (myself included!) Although there are a lot of the standard "Real or not real?" one-shots, thg authors are also branching out and writing really believable and unique takes on life after Mockingjay. Most of these fics follow the time gap between the last chapter and the beautiful epilogue, but there are also a few wonderful exceptions to this too! I had originally planned this to be only a double recommendation, recc'ing my two current favourite Post-MJ fics, but I got caught up in a vortex of reading ridiculously excellent fan fiction the other night, so I've decided to list all my other favourites here too with pros and cons for each.


Grow Together
Author: Miss Scarlett 05
Summary: Pre-epilogue Mockingjay. How Katniss and Peeta slowly pick up the pieces and begin again. 
Review: "Tdhbcidpqoda,sdnqwod." Seriously. That's what my brain does when I see that Scarlett has updated this amazing fic! Grow Together is currently my favourite piece of fanfiction, for several reasons. I like this author keeps Katniss in character, and how she brings the two star-crossed lovers together. They hurt, they heal, and they learn to ask for help from one another. There are many brilliant scenes where you can just feel dread creeping up on you because you know something's wrong with Katniss or Peeta, and they're going to freak out. That's what I love most about this fic - it makes you feel.  The pacing of Grow Together is nice and slow, currently charting their progress through months after the war as they recover. I think Miss Scarlett 05 also does something a lot of other authors forget (or decide not) to do - she has Katniss and Peeta constantly harassed by the media, Capitol audiences eager to see them in love and recovering so quickly, something which is not realistic (Oh, bless the ignorant Capitol citizens!) I enjoy that in this fic there are a wide cast of characters and plot points. It's one of the few fics that you can currently follow and become obsessed with. I'm so excited to see where the story will take us!
Excerpt: I catch my first glimpse of made-over Peeta when he comes in the front door to collect me. He must have been swayed by the team's opinion as he's dressed in a soft-looking white long sleeve shirt. Like me, he's practically been dipped in skin gunk. Before I realize it, I'm grinning at him. Seeing Peeta without his scars makes him look put back together. He looks more like the boy who introduced me to dipping pieces of bread in hot chocolate. He looks like he did before, without the constant reminders of pain and war. I have enough reminders. I really don't need anymore.

The in-demand makeup team has an afternoon appointment, so they depart in a flurry of hugs, sobs and warnings to use conditioner.

Peeta and I walk to town, where the crew has selected an appropriate background for the shot. Black X's are marked on the spots we're to stand on and crew members are directing townspeople away from our location. We're to stand in front of where the old justice building used to stand. The rubble has been cleared away, a foundation poured and the first skeleton of a wall has gone up.

Peeta runs through his lines one more time and put his note cards in his pocket. The red light on the camera blinks on. Cressida starts the countdown just in time for Peeta to have a seizure on live TV.

EDIT: Letters from the Sky, as well as the rest of hgfan1111's lovely fics, have sadly been pulled. We're leaving the review up - trust us, it was a wonderful story!

Letters From The Sky
Author: hgfan1111
Summary: One of these days they'll know they are truly free. Until then, the battle continues. Post-Mockingjay, disregards Epilogue. 
Review: Letters From The Sky is a complete multiple-chapter fic that encompasses the breadth of Katniss and Peeta's lives immediately after the last chapter, and after the time seen in the epilogue, too. It has a lovely pace for a fic that goes over quite a large timescale. There's a very sad chapter with Haymitch that made me really realise how much I loved this story - I don't want to say much and be spoilery, but I'll say that this fic is very touching. This excerpt is from a crazily intense chapter that will floor you.
Excerpt: "Don't look, Katniss. Please don't look. You don't need to see this."

The room is torn apart, just like the kitchen was. The lamp is on its side, but the shade has been knocked away, leaving just the bare bulb. It rocks back and forth on the wooden floor, casting strange, long shadows on the walls. Peeta is crouched in the corner of the room, watching me intently. He's clasping his hands tightly in his lap and I'm reminded sharply of the handcuffs that he forced me to leave on him in the Capitol.

"Don't look," he pleads again and bows his head.

But I can't stop myself from staring. Peeta's nightmares—or what I assume plays through his mind in the bad moments—are vividly recreated on the walls, painted right over anything that might have been there. Paint is splashed about, on the floor, on the ceiling, and all over Peeta. The colors are bold—reds, blacks, blues, and bright oranges. They smash and swirl together in a way that makes my head spin. The faces in the portraits are distorted versions of people I recognize. Finnick, Gale, Haymitch, Snow, and even Prim.

It's the last one—fresh paint still drips down toward the floor—that I find myself unable to look away from. My sister's face is perfect. Every feature is represented just as I remember her, but twisted in pain and anguish as flames consume her.

Now, a list of Post-Mockingjay/Post-Canon fanfictions that I am honoured to recommend because they're just so darn good! Each author puts their own spin onto what might have happened to a bunch of our favourite characters.NB#1: I've recc'd infamous ones like Recovery and Relapse before on Nightlock - I tried to find unknown or unappreciated fics for this post. NB#2: If you know any Post-MJ fics that I haven't mentioned, let me know and I will add them/stalk the crap out of them.


Out of the Night: An Interview with a Mockingjay by athousandwinds
Why You'd Love It: Come on, who hasn't imagined Katniss doing a tell-all interview years later? athousandwinds took the plotline straight out my musings and did something splendid with it.
Why You Might Not: Forty-year-old Katniss and Peeta. Some people have trouble reading aged characters (although you'd hardly call that ageing, but whatevs...)


Backscatter by sprat
Why You'd Love It: You get to see Katniss' kid being smart. Features a cool Haymitch. Finishes on an intriguing idea that I have been pondering for some time about the version of the world Panem is situated in.
Why You Might Not: Not for Haymitch haters (...are there any?) or people who don't like seeing Peeta going into hijacked-mode.


Ashes and Flame (Every You and Every Me) by freneticfloetry
Why You'd Love It: A lovely, sweet set of short scenes of life after the war from Peeta's point of view. There's emotive descriptions of Katniss in regards to painting and colours. Very prettily and poetically written. I *love* their daughter's name in this fic.
Why You Might Not: It leaps forward in time. Uhm...you might get iffy aout Annie and Finnick's son's name? Idk. Not much to complain about with this one.


i'll set you up against the stars by oh_la_fraise
Why You'd Love It: You get to see Katniss as a mother interacting with her daughter, from her daughter's point of view! I find her point of view really refreshing, and it's so so so different to everything out their. I like how oh_la_fraise portrayed them acting as parents. 
Why You Might Not: Katniss and Peeta not telling their children much about their part in war. The daughter's name is Prim. (Although I like this fic enough not to really complain about it.)


Happy Reading!
~Little Miss Mionie