February's Author of the Month: be-nice-to-nerds

Hey, guys! Sorry for the lateness of this post... but I do have a great author to recommend to you all, and that is the marvelous be-nice-to-nerds!

Looking over BNTN's work, the first thing that strikes me is how detailed her version of Panem is. This author knows exactly who each tribute was in the 74th Hunger Games, how many victors District Three has had and exactly how they won their Games. These details give BNTN's stories a lot of depth. Also, she is amazing at delving into characters' emotions in a subtle but touching way. To show you what I mean, here's an excerpt from Beetee and the Bomb, about the famous D3 victor after the end of Mockingjay:

They say that there are only seven Victors left. Beetee refuses to believe it. Doesn't want to. Wiress is dead, he can accept that. He saw her die. But Johan? Marchessa? The other two District Three Victors are far too smart to not find an out.
They have to be. 

…

When no one else knows what you've been through, the Victors form your family.

Wiress and he were incredibly close, in a purely platonic way. It was just the two of them for a decade before Marchessa won her Games, and something like that forms a lasting bond. She was bursting with ideas but wasn't able to express them properly. They all learned how to fill in the gaps she couldn't put to words, but Beetee better than all of them simply because he has (had) known her the longest.

Johan (is? Was? He doesn't know) the youngest of the four. He was the only one to bring a non-Victor into their little circle of houses in District Three's Victors Village. Mac fits right in with the rest of them, and while Beetee can't really judge, the two females say they can easily see what Johan sees in him. 

Not many outside of District Three know that Johan's gay. He doesn't mind telling people but doesn't bring it up unless they ask. His reasoning is that specifically stating his sexuality leaves more room for prejudice than if he just treats it as normal. None of the others go around telling people that they're straight, do they? 

Marchessa is (because really, she of all people would have found a way to stay alive) small, cynical, and chillingly intelligent. She's arrogant about her abilities to the point of alienating all those she believes beneath her because of their alleged idiocy, but the arrogance is often not without reason. Frustration with her situation grew fast on her; she is closed off and slightly distant with the others, but she is still one of them. 

Beetee knows she was spying for the Capitol. He also knows it's nothing personal – Marchessa's too jaded and bitter to believe in the ideology like the other three did, and had been through too much to let morals get in the way of self preservation. 

Seeing what Coin's been doing, he's beginning to think maybe her cynicism was right. The Capitol and District Thirteen are really only two sides of the same coin.

A Portrait Of The Mechanic As A Young Girl

A Portrait Of The Mechanic As A Young Girl tells the story of Wiress' Games and the emotional journey ventured throughout. It's complete and has been revised. The summary is clear and simple: 'How Wiress grew up and won her Games', yet the story is anything but.


A Portrait Of The Mechanic As A Young Girl is one of the most refreshing and interesting fics I've ever come across in the Hunger Games fandom. The author, shellebelle, goes to great lengths to flesh out Wiress as a character, as well as the world and era that she lived in. The minute details are the best: Wiress' acceptance of her dad's mental instability, the way she reflects on the female neighbours saying goodbye to her, her obvious love for school, her awe at everything in the train being so clean. These little things help to manifest shellebelle's deep characterisation of our favourite mechanic. The reader finds themselves, at the beginning of the fic, with Wiress as she stands for the Reaping, and immediately we get a clear image of her: strong, reflective and intelligent.

How did I get here? 

As I turn, facing all of my peers and teachers at the reaping, I can't help but feel disbelief. Sure, I have been preparing myself for this eventuality, but I still can't believe I'm up here. That I'll go 
there. 

To the Hunger Games.

I can feel myself starting to panic, but I close my eyes and recite the things that I know about myself in my head: My name is Wiress Mihos. I am fourteen years old and I am in the Mechanical Engineering Program in the District 3 school. My father is insane. My mother has disappeared. I'm a genius and a Mechanic and an Inventor. And now, I'm the newest Tribute for District 3.

Somehow, a blunt retelling of the facts is most helpful in calming myself down...

When I was younger, I loved school. I'm sure a lot of kids would say that, but for me, school was a haven. It meant everything to me. Everything.

This fic is encapsulating on so many levels - a glimpse into the characters' we know and love (and hate!) pasts is one brilliant feature. Wiress' relationship with Beetee, her mentor and District Three's Victor, is awesome to read.

This fic has many heart wrenching moments, as the books do, where the protagonist feels a sense of hopelessness; as a reader, you really do connect with Wiress. There's no shortage of Capitol-inspired horror within these Games - and the depths of the sadistic mindset in Panem is shown in full glory before the Games even start. There's a horrible (yet brilliant) moment in Chapter Five where Wiress realises the Avox serving them on the train is actually her mother. It's brutal - but gives an indication as to what lies in store for poor Wiress.

And then the Avox woman comes back to bring coffee, and I look up at her without thinking to thank her (even though I don't have to).

...it would be a cliché, and most untrue, to say that I look up into my own eyes. Her eyes are brown, and mine are green. But there is my mouth. My cheekbones. There is my hair, my thick, black, stringy hair, though hers is shot through with grey. Her hair seems the only thing that is aged, as her face is largely unlined, but for a few lines of sadness at the mouth, of weariness at the eyes. And I can see in her expression that she is as dismayed as I am that I'm here.

“I...” But no. I can't talk to her. I can't talk to her and she can't give me any answers because they cut out her tongue and now I know, I know where she is but it gives me no comfort, and no answers.

It's all too much. I burst into tears (all the acknowledgment I can give her) and run from the room, locking myself in my room and weeping. But thinking, always thinking, because I can't stop, and pacing. Back and forth, back and forth, like a caged mutt.

There's no way they didn't know she was my mother. As soon as I showed up, as soon as they took my picture and signed me in, they had to know. I always knew I resembled her, because everyone who'd known her said so. But I had not realized just how much that was true.

How could they not know? What do they want from me? My thoughts chase themselves around in a circle until finally, I sit down on the bed, with my arms wrapped around my legs. There's nothing I can do. There's nothing I can do but continue with my training, continue doing what I must.

I have no other choice. There's nothing at all I can do for her. And the thought of that is awful.

To conclude, A Portrait Of The Mechanix As A Young Girl is a wonderfully unique Hunger Games fic. It explores a minor character's personality and past with depth and ease - and it shows that every Hunger Games is a horror story in itself. I love how differently this storyworld is portrayed. It's a must read!

~ Little Miss Mionie