Military Fics (AU Army, Combat, World Wars, Soldiers)

The wonderful MJ requested we scour forAU military/soldier/army Hunger Games fics, in particular Military!Peeta. I find this quite timely as tomorrow is Anzac Day in my home country Australia, where we commemorate soldiers from Gallipolli and beyond.

I decided to branch out a little bit on this request (don't I always?) because the feminist in me loves a solider!Katniss, too. Quite a number of these listed have been recommended before in various segments and posts, but never under the one theme. This is why there aren't any reviews under the fics (as we've reviewed countless of them before). We hope you all enjoy - if I don't mind saying, this list is pretty damn comprehensive!

Trigger warning as the linked stories do make reference to wars, terrorism, injury and death associated with such wars. Please note that any racist language used in comments will be deleted.

Image: Mediamacaroni.com 

The Civil War (American)

A House United by shesasurvivor
The bloody Civil War is over, but the battle is far from won. As North occupies South, Katniss Everdeen tries to keep her plantation home afloat, now empty except for herself, her mother, and her sister Prim. When Union soldier Peeta Mellark is quartered at the Everdeen home, she struggles to put up with the intruder as best she can. It doesn't help that he's so helpful, so kind, and possesses no small amount of charm. (See also: Santa is a Yankee.)

What's So Civil About War Anyway? by icbiwf

Panem, Pennsylvania, 1862: When all of her trading partners in town leave to join the Union army, Katniss Everdeen supports her family the only way she can: by enlisting to serve herself. Hoping desperately to avoid anyone from home who might recognize and expose her, what happens when she's assigned to the same company as the boy with the bread?

Knot Your Fingers Through Mine by monroeslittle
AU. Peeta and Katniss and the American Civil War.

The Deadliest Sins by pompeiigraffiti

In the fall of 1917, German soldier Peeta Mellark receives devastating news about the woman with whom he fell in love.

I Envy The Thy Love by Solasvioletta

In May of 1864 Peeta Mellark makes a solemn promise to Gale Hawthorne on the eve of battle, but can he keep it? Historical fiction set during the American Civil War. Piece-in-Their-Game Award Winner- Best Historical Fiction. 

When Johnny Comes Marching Home by shesasurvivor 

When her family was killed, innocent victims caught in a skirmish, Johanna cut her hair and joined the rebel army seeking revenge. Now she's a captured POW in a Union prison. While she waits for freedom, she finds companionship in an unlikely place.

World War One

Stories of Us by Ameiko
AU. Katniss never imagined that The Great War would change her life in the secluded PA woods, but

Image: makingthemodernworld.org.uk

it did. She also never imagine that crippled soldier Peter "Peeta" Mellark could heal her heart.

Nothing Can Keep Us Apart by WolfPatronusTeamPeeta-and-Dean

Peeta and Katniss live in Canada. Peeta goes off to fight in WW1 and Katniss is back home, praying for his safe return. They write letters to each other. Will Peeta make it back? This story is devoted to everyone who made a sacrifice in war.

In Name Only by Izzy Samson

In the midst the Great Depression eighteen year old Katniss needs a miracle. Her Papa is dead, Mama has just been hauled off to the asylum, soon she'll be evicted, and Prim put into the child's home. WW1 Veteran, Peeta Mellark, gives her the means to save Prim, he offers to be her husband 'in name only'. The only hitch is; Katniss thinks she loves him.

Image: Wikipedia Commons

World War Two

The Blind Date by malibustacy

AU, Post-WWII Chicago. Katniss as an ex-Rosie the Riveter, Peeta as a soldier returning home. Romance ensues. Major AU, historical, and sometimes OOC. May get steamy eventually.

Sins of the Father by Streetlightlove 

WWII army chaplain and POW Peeta Mellark returns from war to take an assignment at a small parish. He soon discovers war is much less complicated than what awaits him in this sleepy Connecticut town.

Furlough by PeetasAndHerondales

Peeta, Gale, and Finnick are sailors on furlough before shipping off for WWII. Comedy ensues when they run into feisty night club girls Katniss, Johanna, and Annie. One crazy night filled with fun, fights, and love affairs!

Titanium by MockingCody

Gale is a soldier, Madge is a naval nurse, here they both are stuck on an island dealing with their friends, and working, while a evil dictator plots an all out world war. AU - Gadge - Slightly based off of Pearl Harbor.

Cold War

Walls Meant to be Broken by OlaWrites

During the Cold War, The Berlin Wall was built overnight to separate Western and Eastern Berlin. Many from each side were on the wrong side at the wrong time. Katniss Everdeen was one of them. During her unexpected stay, she meets Westerner Peeta Mellark who extends his friendship to her and maybe something develops between them, against all odds.

Image: boomerslife.org

Vietnam War

United We Stand by xoxoeosvugirl

Hunger Games set during the time of the Vietnam War. It's 1963, and Peeta is drafted into the war. Meanwhile, Katniss reluctantly volunteers as an army nurse. How will the two survive in their new surroundings?

War in Afghanistan

Hope & Sacrifice by LibertySue

Injured Marine Peeta Mellark returns home from Afghanistan a changed and broken man looking for refuge. An Everlark story of love, redemption and hope.

Semper Fidelis: Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum by Falafel_Waffel

The events of September 11th 2001 seen through the eyes of Corporal Katniss Everdeen. (And it's

Image: Va.gov

sequel, Semper Fidelis.)

Iraq War

Coming Home by davis32

Sergeant Katniss Everdeen hasn't been home in three years since her best friend and fiance Gale Hawthorne was killed in Iraq. But when the baker's son starts hanging around will she find love again. (And it's sequel, Fighting to Come Home.) 

Thank you once again to MJ for emailing in. If you'd like to request a type of fic, email us at nightlockrecs@hotmail.com. 

Interview with FernWithy!

We're excited to present to you our interview with FernWithy, renowned Hunger Games and Harry Potter fanfiction author. We hope you enjoy what FernWithy has to say - and some cool facts they have to reveal about their stories! 

Little Miss Mionie: Hi Fernwithy – thanks for doing an interview with Nightlock Recs!

FernWithy: Thanks for asking me!  It's nice to say hello in a new fandom.

What drew you to the Hunger Games books in the first place? What do you love about them?

I'm a youth services librarian.  For the longest time, I kind of yawned and said, "Yeah, whatever, those books sound kind of interesting, but they're never on the shelf and, yadda yadda yadda."  Which, for the record, is the same thing I said about Harry Potter until I swallowed the first three books whole and had to have everything else immediately (alas, it was just before the three year summer).  With HG, the first book didn't catch me quite as hard, but I kept hearing about how good Catching Fire was, then I heard rumors about Mockingjay that didn't make sense (they made much more sense in the context of the book), so I finally broke down and bought CF and MJ.  And read them in a day.

As to what I love, it's what I love about so many of the fandoms I'm in -- how completely based it is on love.  Not just the romantic kind (though this was the first romantic triangle that didn't irritate the heck out of me), but the love between sisters, the love between mentor and tribute, the love between friends.  Another thing I really loved was the twist in MJ that the rebellion was now tied up with a really nasty counter-government, as bad as what they were trying to escape, and our point of view character was so caught up that we could only observe it at a sidelong glance.

Another thing I enjoy just about the fan writing part of it is how meta it is.  If you've been around fandoms for a while, you get the response to the Hunger Games.  You know people are writing tribute fic, and cosplaying in the arenas, and wondering who should play whom in the inevitable movie.  And at the same time, it's a critique of it.

You’re quite a respected name in the Harry Potter fanfiction corner of the fandom, one of the few to win so many awards and to be housed at the Sugar Quill. So, what made you make the move to Hunger Games fanfiction?

I'd been writing HP fic for years, and I was starting feel like I was repeating myself.  I was stalled out on my second James Potter novel (though I love the idea -- they played the Triwizard at Beauxbatons, and James went with the contingent but wasn't chosen... and someone is trying to sabotage it).  I decided to quickly try a few HG short fics (starting with Peeta, my favourite), because the voice is so different, and it was so refreshing to change up the style and the vocabulary and the attitude that it was like getting a shot of straight caffeine to the brain.   I did a quick succession of short fics, then decided to get my feet wet with the nine chapter "The Final Eight," which was Delly watching the Games from the time they were down to eight tributes until she gets Peeta re-socialized.   Then I was going to switch to Peeta for Catching Fire, but he's on stage so much in canon that it would have been one long skirting around re-writing canon scenes.  Then I struck on Haymitch, and I fell in love with his voice. I'm still in love with his voice.

What would you say are the positive and negative differences of the two fanfiction worlds, both in terms of fanfiction tropes and reception?

Obviously, with magic, there are a lot of places HP can go, where HG is kind of limited.  Prophetic dreams, studied powers, etc.  There's also a lot more sense of the past in HP, the connections that we know exist in canon.  These are all around Harry, even when he doesn't ask about it.  Katniss is disinterested in the past, and no one feels much need to share it with her.  She has no idea about the history of her world or anyone in it, except the vaguest sweep of things.  ("Yup, there was a big disaster.  Everyone in the world is dead except us, and now there's a dictatorship and the Games.  I need to catch dinner now, thanks.")  This isn't a flaw.  It's just a style of narration, and a very interesting one as a writer, because you kind of have to look around corners to see what's going on.

One thing I've noticed is that HG readers have seemed less prone to correcting me. There's a kind of editorial culture in HP fandom -- Britpicking, spell-checking, etc -- and I've gotten really dependent on reader comments at my blog for betas.  All the sudden, I'm seeing silly typo mistakes and timeline gaffes sneaking in that I should have caught before I put stories into an archive.  I need to look out for to/too mistakes and things like that a lot more.

Let’s talk about your most popular THG fic, The Narrow Path. What inspired you to write it?

The Narrow Path is the Haymitch-POV on Mockingjay, and it was a follow-up to the Haymitch-cam on Catching Fire, which was called The Golden Mean. I was originally going to switch voices again -- again, with Peeta; that never seems to work out for me! -- but by then, Haymitch's voice was completely stuck in my head, and I really wanted to have a closer look at Thirteen.  (I did finally get a Peeta point of view on the time between CF and MJ in House of Cards, a pretty violent story about his time in the Capitol.)  One of the main things I wanted to do with Narrow Path was to expand the last two chapters of MJ, and really get a look at what was going on right after the war, when Katniss was completely out of it.  Most of part 3 (the final nine chapters) of Narrow Path is chapter 27 of Mockingjay.  There were things I was uncomfortable with, even after Katniss precluded Coin's reign (to put it mildly), and I wanted to kind of get a look at Paylor and how the government was going to be formed and run.

How do you get into Haymitch’s character and portray his voice so well?

Woody Harrelson's intonations in the movie helped a lot in getting the rhythm of it.  As to the character, I've spent a good deal of time around alcoholics in my life.  I never met my grandfather (who died when I was one), but I've heard a lot about him, and in some ways, the way I do Haymitch is a tribute (so to speak) to him -- a man who's way too smart for his own good, constrained by circumstances, and given to extreme self-medicating.

Why did you decide to set the fic over the events of Mockingjay?

I’ve always liked alternate POV fics on canon events, just kind of hopping from head to head to see what's important to one person, while it's totally irrelevant to another.  I did this in HP with OotP and HBP (Shifts, from Remus's POV and Shades, from Tonks's), and it's the way I started with the series here -- Delly observing the events of the last half of THG.  It's often where I start out.

 What has the reception been like to the Effie/Haymitch relationship?

Very muted.  Which is fair, it's a pretty muted ship in my story -- Haymitch himself doesn't really know what's going on with it, though probably everyone in a thousand mile radius of him did.  People have been glad they got together in the end.  I think the whole ship is summed up, for me, in Haymitch realizing that there's nothing wrong with being in a relationship that comforts him without it being full of drama.  Of course, not being full of drama generally means that there's not all that much to write about!

 The AU scenes in the final chapters, with the main characters destroying the arenas, seemed very canon and very cathartic. A lot of authors write the arenas as being tourist hotspots in post-MJ fics. Is that what you’d hoped for in Mockingjay?

I dithered a little bit over whether or not to show it or have Haymitch involved in it (all Katniss tells us in the epilogue is that all the arenas were completely destroyed, not how it came about or who was involved in it), but when I was coming to the end, I realized I was just sort of circling around, not connecting the action to anything before it.  Showing the destruction of the arenas was a way to take it full circle, to show that it was time for them to walk away, to leave the Games behind.  That's why the last image before the epilogue is of the three main characters turning away from the burned out 74th arena.  It's really over for them, and they can go on.  I think that, yes, I might have liked to have seen more of a definitive closure to the Games plot, but, on the other hand, I kind of really like the minimalism of the end of MJ in Katniss's POV.

Your Post-MJ fic, “The Four Decisions”, follows in a growing genre of fics portraying Katniss and Peeta having children. What drew you to writing your own version?

One too many people making a comment along the line of "Peeta forced Katniss to have children when she didn't want to."  In The Four Decisions, I wanted to get into how I read those events, which was that Katniss had been utterly and completely terrified of having children, but was finally able to let go of her fear.  The four decisions of the title each involve whether or not to implant a five year birth control device.  The first time, they're both terrified (and very young). The second time -- at five years -- Peeta's giving it serious thought, but Katniss is nowhere near ready, and is running away from herself as fast as she can.  The third time -- ten years -- Katniss foolishly decides to just jump into it without addressing her fears.  The final one, they've both grown up a lot, and they deal with the fear, and finally make a conscious decision on the subject.  Then they have their first child.

What do you find appealing about writing canon-compliant, main character fics?

It's the challenge -- what could be happening in the background so unobtrusively that the regular POV character wouldn't notice, but would fit in well enough that it seems like of course that must be happening?  (At least for the length of time the reader is reading.)  The world building is a kind of reverse engineering.  We know X is so about the canon world.  What would cause it to be that way, and what other things would that give rise to?  Basically, I'm a canon geek -- I'm deliriously happy with questions like how the District Twelve economy works (who shops at the bakery enough to keep the Mellarks in business???) and where each district would have to be.  (Thirteen is pretty much stuck in central Ontario, near Barrie, since that's the only graphite mine in North America.  A week's walk, at sixteen hours a day of walking, couldn't have D12 much south of Pittsburgh in Appalachia.  Which fits the weather we see, so, hey.) Erm.  Yeah.  That's just where my brain tends to go. 

Do you think you might branch out and write more alternate universe, minor character, fanon pairing stories? 

I'm not much of a shipper one way or the other.  If a romantic relationship seems to make sense in the plot, I'll try to make it work like any other plot element, but it's rarely a reason I sit down to write something.  My take on AUs is sort of a jigsaw puzzle effect -- if I pull apart canon into its constituent pieces, what new shape can I make with them?  I haven't really done a full one since I was writing in the Star Wars fandom (what if Amidala survived... and went to stand at Vader's side?  I did that with my friends ami-padme and Alderaan21, and it's still one of my favorite things I've worked on.).  If I did an HG AU, it would probably be along the lines of, What if Katniss never found out that Coin ordered the bombing?  Would she have been genuinely behind a Capitol Games?  Another one someone suggested, based on a fear I had Peeta have in Golden Mean, is that instead of the Quell of the victors, they Reaped a close relative of every victor -- and Katniss ended up having to mentor Prim, against tributes mentored by Peeta and Haymitch (as well as all fifty-six other victors).  That tends to be my sort of AU -- what happens if I pull out this piece?  Will everything come tumbling down, or will it just make a really scary new pattern? 

Do you have any new fics in the pipeline?

I just started The End of the World, a Haymitch Quell fic.  Mostly, I wanted to go back and actually spend some time with his girl and his family, and with Katniss and Peeta's parents.  This one's coming a little more slowly.  Eventually, I may go really far back and look at the Dark Days, or even before.  The history of Panem really interests me.  How did it come about after whatever disasters befell the world?  What was it like before the first rebellion?  Was it always a dictatorship, or was that a response to the district revolt?

What are some of your favourite fics that you’re reading at the moment?

I actually tend not to read much in a fandom I'm writing in -- I have a morbid fear of accidentally absorbing someone else's idea and thinking it's canon, only to find out that I've stolen it from another fan writer.  I'm more likely to read nonfic, like the Mark Reads take on the series (I love Mark Reads), or various essays around the web.  I'm obsessed with fan art, though, and have several favourite pictures at deviantart, like MiaSteingraeber's Peeta and JZXL's Katniss magazine covers (contrasting the rebel myth with the Capitol myth).

Before we go: do you have any things you’d like to let your readers know?

First, I want to thank my first constant reader in HG, ETNRL4L at Archive of Our Own.   She pretty much single-handedly brought up my stats enough to get noticed there!

Okay, random fun facts.  I do little short pieces that people ask for on my blog sometimes, so I have some future-fic. 

I named Peeta and Katniss's kids Pearl and Charlie (Charlie is the real name I gave Caesar in House of Cards). Pearl is obsessed with Cinna's notebooks as a child, and ends up a fashion designer in reality, just as her mother pretended to want to be.

Jo and Gale never do get married, though by the time their son is thirteen, they've at least stopped pretending that they aren't dating. 

In The Narrow Path, I have Peeta spend time helping Haymitch with the refugees... what isn't seen is that one of them is Snow and Caesar's granddaughter, Prisca, who he knowingly passes through under a fake name and sends on to live her own life in the districts.  He does not tell anyone except Gale, who is not thrilled with him. 

At the time of the epilogue, Delly Cartwright is mayor of District Twelve, and Gale is president.

Those are the only ones I can think of at the moment. :D

Thanks for talking to us, FernWithy!

Thanks for asking!

~ Little Miss Mionie

like a fortune sold + The Grandmentor

Hey tributes! Today I'm recommending to you two fics from my well-documented fave category of THG fanfiction, post-Mockingjay! Squee!

like a fortune sold by letters and liars
Summary: (none)
Why? The Katniss/Gale/Peeta ship! Like a fortune sold has that lovely, poetic running style of prose that's wonderful to read. This fic has a great cast of all of the characters you want to know are okay after all the stuff that happened to them.
Why not? Not one for those who don't like implied-amorous-threesomes.

The Grandmentor by silvercistern
Summary: "Sweetheart, don't you wanna talk to your mom or Annie or something? Or Johanna? Or literally any woman? I don't know what you expect me to say." Adventures in child-rearing from the perspective of everyone's favorite drunk. Final installment of The Ashes of District Twelve series.
Why? This is a realistic take on the post-Mockingjay years. I love love love that it is from Haymitch's point of view - silvercistern really fleshes out Haymitch as a character once again, which is great as Haymitch is sort of left to the wayside in Post-MJ fics. I could read this over and over again.
Why Not? If you weren't a fan of the broken characters Suzanne left behind, you mightn't like watching them break a few more times. Also, Haymitch haters (are there any?!) are out.


Happy reading!
~ Little Miss Mionie

*Edited 8/8/12 to include correct summary.

Complete Tearjerkers

If you were to meet me, you'd probably notice that lately I'm a mess. It's alright, it's all cool. But with this comes to mind exactly what my next batch of fic recs will be. 

This month, I'm bringing you two complete tearjerkers. Two stories that up and caught me by surprise and made me ugly-cry in a way that I haven't done since John Green's The Fault in Our Stars.

So nestle up close, grab your favourite brand of liquor (if that's something you do), and read something that will drop your jaw and make you grab for the tissues. 

Title: Forever Until

Author: lieselmemingers

Summary: "When Peeta is diagnosed with a terminal illness, Katniss must learn to let go."

Rating: M (Obviously, major character death)

Rec'd because...

Oh, boy. I just read this fic like an hour ago and I still have the red marks on my face. I highly recommend this story if you're in the mood for something that is incredibly well written, highly-evocative, and paced so delicately that it gets inside you and claws at your heart. The best part is that it's not written with the focus of death, but with survival and rebirth as the main undertones. Just read it, okay?

Title: The Good Wife FF.net / AO3

Author: Silvercistern

Summary: "You're an awful wife, sweetheart." He's said worse, and so have I, but something about this, maybe the fact that this is the second time I've been told the same thing in one day, makes me burst into tears. Katniss discovers that being married is hard.

Rating: M
Rec'd because...

Okay, so maybe this one didn't get me to cry until the very end, but when it did, boy did I bawl like a wee babe fresh off the mother's teet. Honestly, this fic comes crazy recommended because not only is Silvercistern like magic with words, but the story is also part of a three-part series (The Ashes of District Twelve) all with outstanding outtakes and additions. Like Annie to Finnick, it creeps up on you.

The Bun is Really in the Oven - Cherrypit8 Request

In any fandom, there always seems to be that one nagging 'What If' moment that seems to latch onto any and all reader's and fanfiction writer's minds. In THG fandom, we've got a lot of them. For example, we've got the 'post-Mockingjay epilogue fill in'; we've got the 'Prim in the Games'; and we've got the 'nobody dies', to name a few.

All of these 'What If' moments have a plethora of stories that are magnificent, practical, and filled with detail that we, as reader's, felt were moments of particular interest.

So when Cherrypit8 came to us at Nightlock and asked, "What about the 'Katniss is really pregnant fics' like KaKaVegeGurl's?" - we thought, huh, now there's a 'What If' that's hard to track down.

With that in mind, we went on a mission: Find the Katniss-is-knocked-up stories that give depth, quality and justice to a storyline that can be a pretty difficult one to write simply because, well...


Hormones. Characters change with hormones, okay?

Now, I'm not saying this mission was easy. There's a lot of fic-diving going on when you're looking for a particular story angle. We trudged through a few difficult-to-read stories and by no means should this list be considered the final word (*cough* We are open to suggestions!)

Without further ado, here's some completed "Katniss is really pregnant" stories, just for you Cherrypit8:

Title:  Running Right Into the Fire

Author:  Julia101

Summary: "You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him you know." Haymitch is right. What other boy could still love me after what I've done? What other boy would still stick by someone pregnant by another? Katniss/Peeta/Gale

Rating: M

One Line Rec:  Taking a spin on the Gale train, this fic takes the 'What If' and turns it around a bit, leading the reader down a pretty heartbreaking road.

Title:  Missing a Part of Me

Author:  lovelyladybug5

Summary:  One night before the Quarter Quell changes Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark's life forever. When Peeta is captured by the Capitol, Katniss turns to Julian, Peeta's brother, for help getting the boy with the bread back, and for help with two big changes.

Rating: M
One Line Rec: Though I'm not a fan of the formatting (warning, italics in use), this story has a pretty decent plot to follow, using Peeta's brother as a significant character to add depth and a creative twist to the general idea.

Title:  Will He Remember - WIP

Author:  batbaby

Summary:  What if when Peeta is rescued, he finds Katniss to be pregnant and draws out his memories?

Rating: M
One Line Rec: A good story with solid follow-through, it's still a work in progress so we'll have to wait to see how it ends.

Title:  It Isn't a Trick FF.net  / AO3

Author:  lollercakes

Summary:  It isn't a trick, she is really pregnant. A spattering of ficlets around the idea that Katniss is indeed knocked up. Launched from a prompt by lillian raven over at the kolms Girl on Fire ficathon.

Rating: M
One Line Rec: This story takes a variety of POV's and uses them to provide a full-circle telling of a pretty tragic event that spans not just the Quell but into the Epilogue as well.

Hope you enjoy these and please, let us know if you have any others you'd like to add to the list!

Much love, Polkapop


Post-script: I'll do my best to link up any recs I give with AO3 or other sources due to the crackdown on M rated fics over at ff.net, just an fyi. I could only locate It Isn't a Trick on AO3, please let me know if any others are cross-posted. 

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (Katniss/Gale, Katniss/Peeta)

Title: How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
Author: jacyevans
Summary: AU - Katniss kills President Snow, and his granddaughter participates in the seventy-sixth annual Hunger Games. Everything changes. Everything stays the same.
Ships: Katniss/Gale, Katniss/Peeta

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is a tragic and moving AU fic. It shows a different side of the ending of Mockingjay from when President Snow is overthrown. The basic premise is  that Snow's granddaughter is thrown into a final Games, which does go ahead - but this fic goes deeper than that. Jacyevans uses it as a way to make her characters express things they didn't in canon.

There is a sense of horrible revenge in the air, that Coin and everyone else on the rebellion's side is just as blood-thirsty and ruined as the people they fought against as the Games are set up for the final time. Characters are eager to watch Skylark Snow die. With Coin not immediately dealt with by Katniss, this horror continues.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Plutarch’s voice carries through the streets, echoing off of the empty houses, “May I present the victor of the seventy-sixth annual Hunger Games: Skylark Snow.”

Skylark raises her face to the sky, throws back her head. A hovercraft blocks the sun overhead, and she climbs onto the lowered ladder, letting it carry her up and away, out of the arena and into safety.

Into President Coin’s waiting hands.

She laughs, because she can’t do anything else, lets her arms fall to her side. Her blood slides in soaking rivulets down her legs to drip onto the floor.

What does it matter? She’s dead anyway.


Jacyevans shows a final parting of Katniss and Gale, and Prim being mourned; Buttercup makes an appearance and Peeta and Katniss continue on. It's got so many canon elements which are changed into quiet moments that really make it feel like the series has come full circle.


“We survived," Peeta says quietly, standing at her side. "Real or not real?”

Katniss glances at him, watches his lips twitch into a smile. My name is Katniss Everdeen, she thinks. I am seventeen years old. I live in District Twelve. This is what I fought for.

“Real,” she says, and takes his hand.


How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is a carefully transformed alternate take on the last few chapters of Mockingjay; I'm sure some of you would even preferred this more nicely rounded off version. It's heartbreak all over again with a simple sentence structure, and it is wonderful.


Happy reading!
~ Little Miss Mionie

The Storm (Peeta/Katniss)

Hot off the press! Today I'm bringing you a seriously newly completed fic (like within this week). I've been waiting for it to finish so I could share it with you!

Title: The Storm
Author: lollercakes
Summary: Peeta was returned to District 12 too soon. How does he handle a relapse of his hijacking?
Word Count: 31,224
Warning: Mature themes are present here.

Recommendation:

There's a lot of things I can say about this fic, in addition to saying it's one of my favourites. Typically I find a lot of the post-Mockingjay fic to be relatively similar in their plots. This isn't always a bad thing as we all know the epilogue left a lot of space for expansion. But this one takes a different approach as the reader finds Peeta to not be almost recovered from the hijackings but instead still suffering heavily.

The strength of this story is not in new plot points or unknown surprises (though there are some good ones), but instead in the quality and feeling of the writing. From Peeta's POV (which is a rarity in itself) the reader is drawn into the maddness of the hijackings while viewing Katniss' depression from the outside. It's a heavy story and the writing style makes for a fluid and relatable connection.

Also, the writer incorporates both Haymitch and Gale in ways that flush out their characters and bring moments of attachment to them.

Overall, I'm recommending this fic because it gets to you. It's quiet and steady. It isn't a happy-go-lucky-everything-is-fine story. It sneaks up on you. Hope you enjoy it like I did!

Haymitch Fics

I know, I know, I have a list of Primrose fics and erotica fics to recommend you all - but over the last week I've stumbled across three awesome Haymitch centric fanfictions that I enjoyed so much! And in honour of the character posters coming out today, well, I thought I'd celebrate.

All right, I’ll make a deal with you. You don’t interfere with my drinking, and I’ll stay sober enough to help you.

- Haymitch Abernathy

Battle Scars by ladyofspring
Summary: Haymitch never doubted that Effie Trinket would find a new place in the world.
Why? The Haymitch/Effie pairing, and the way ladyofspring portrays it, is just fabulous. Angst and fluid chemistry between at its best.


Here's the Smell of Blood Still by athousandwinds
Summary: Thirteen things that Haymitch remembers, and twelve things he'd rather forget.
Why? Dark, deep and moving snapshots of Haymitch's life. The second last line of dialogue kills me every time.


Through A Mentor's Eyes by huckin-cupcakes
Summary: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins written from Haymitch Abernathy's point of view. Because I've always wanted to know what Haymitch was thinking/doing.
Why? It shows Haymitch's experience of watching Katniss and Peeta's Hunger Games. We've all wondered (so wonder no more!)


~ Little Miss Mionie