Penfold_X's Fandom Journal

I bought a ridiculously adorable shirt at Shore Leave 37:

Save the Galaxy

David Nykl introduced himself to the entire audience one by one.

"I love being beaten up..."

I can't explain it, but I really love hearing about the little details of characters' lives. I'd love to read about your favorite characters' typical day. What does their bedroom look like? Do they eat breakfast? Work out? Have a chore routine?

For THG, if really like Divergence AU, or any other post-MJ happyworld. What is Finnick and Annie's home like? Does Haymitch secretly love his geese?

*lonely otter look*

*paws at your fic/meta pocket*

lorataprose sent me a link to a fan's sorting of the Hunger Games characters into the Hogwarts houses. She didn't like a lot of the author's picks, and I definitely agreed (Gale as a Slytherin? The man who turned down his One True Love's offer to run off into the woods in order to fight a seemingly hopeless battle for justice? Just because you don't like a character doesn't mean s/he is a Slytherin). That said, I tried to do better myself, but found to be challenging. What do you think?

Gryffindor
Katniss: Sometimes I have difficulty 'getting' Katniss (we meet her when she already has a mild case of PTSD, which only gets worse as the books go on, so she's unreliable, even about herself), but I think she's predominantly Gryffindor. She's very brave and daring (most people in Twelve don't dare to go beyond the fence, but she does it routinely from a young age, and if we trust her POV, she's the only or one of an extremely small number of non-Career volunteers). She's independent (doesn't need anyone to sit by her at school, is able to take on being head of her house at a very young age). She wears her heart on her sleeve ("Everyone knows my secrets before I do") and can get passionate when she feels something is the 'right' thing to do (eg, keeping Peeta out of/alive during the 75th). She's driven by her emotions a lot of the time, to the point she takes risks that others might think foolish (the shot at the Gamemakers, the play with the berries, walking out into the square in Two to try to make peace). Her protective nature (eg, toward Rue) could be interpreted as a chivalrous streak. She's loyal to her friends, expects loyalty in return from them, and heaven help you if you break faith with her, even for a good reason (eg, Mrs. Everdeen). And, well, she's not evinced any love of learning and she isn't terribly cunning.

Gale: I think this is really clear. Gale is brave, to the point of recklessness sometimes. Gale keenly feels the injustice of their world and has always wanted to do something about it, and is only held back by the need to take care of his immediate family. Like Katniss, he's brave enough to hunt in the woods when most of Twelve won't walk out past the meadow. When Gale shouts during the planning of the assault on the Nut that he'd gladly give his life if he were a spy, Katniss says she has no doubt he's being honest. But Gale probably couldn't be a spy because, like Katniss, everyone knows exactly what he's thinking all the time.

Cinna: Idealism. A seemingly inborn sense of justice. Courage to take certain stands, even though he knows he will likely die for them. He's clever about it, so he may have some snake or claw in him (especially given his creativity, which speaks to both those houses), but I think, overall, given his ability to tap into and bring out a sense of nobility, he's predominantly Gryffindor.

Johanna: I'm less sure about this sort. A girl who wins her games by pretending to be a frightened weakling sounds Slytherin-ish, but her cunning seems to have left her by the time we meet her in Catching Fire, where she's pretty blunt and brutal with everyone (her interview in the movie, in particular, is classic Gryffindor). It's implied that she's lost all of her family, probably as the result of resisting Snow on some point of principle. In Mockingjay, she's relentless (and very brave) about pushing herself to try to get over fears. Though she's burnt out and battered when we meet her, I think there's a hero under the damage.

Ravenclaw
Wiress: Almost stereotypically Raveclaw--the absent-minded professor, so lost in her own thoughts that she sometimes trails off in the middle of her sentences. Loves learning and is extremely creative.

Beetee: Very much like Wiress, but you could make an argument that there's a lot of cunning in a teenager who created what must have been a meticulous and deliberate trap that killed six tributes simultaneously. However, Beetee also seems to be perfectly happy to be off stage; he's got a central role in much of the work of the rebellion, but never evidences any desire to be the one calling the shots or to move himself into a political position in the new government. He may have a streak of Slytherin in his make-up (it's definitely part of my headcanon for him), but he seems to be mostly driven by his intellect and curiosity.

Plutarch: For all they're about a revolution, there isn't a lot of political theory in Collins' books. Plutarch comes closer than any other character to seeming to have some sense of the abstract concepts beyond 'I'm rebelling because the Capitol is starving/working me to death.' He also seems to be very cerebral (especially in the movie presentation), and for all his understanding of human emotion, can appear to not care as much as he should, or not have so much of a sense of the human cost of the rebellion.

Annie: This is something of a WAG, since we don't get to know Annie very well, but when lorataprose and I were talking about this many moons ago, we both had the sense that she belonged in Ravenclaw. It could be the way she seems to live primarily in her head, coupled with her quiet demeanor. I get the impression that, for all she's a career, Annie's reaction to her districtmate's beheading was partly due to her being less ready than a more practically oriented career would be for the reality of violence.

Hufflepuff
Prim: Animal-loving healer. Gentle, friendly, desiring to help others. Practical (e.g., in the Catching Fire film, takes over from Mrs. Everdeen when her hands are shaking too much to get the morphling into the syringe).

Brutus: There isn't a lot to work with in canon, but I think there are two types of kids who go into a career program: reckless daredevils (Clove) and true believers (Cato). If Enobaria is the daredevil of the 75th pairing, Brutus is the true-believing workhorse. Brutus isn't flamboyant (especially in the movie presentation). He's there to do the job that needs doing.

Mags: We don't get an awful lot about Mags in canon, so I may be overly influenced by fanon here, but I get the sense she's very community-oriented (she volunteers for Annie, probably thinking that it's worth sacrificing herself for someone who still has her whole life ahead of her) and practical (she does what she can in the arena to help out, plugging away steadily at what she can do instead of getting frustrated/emotional).

Peeta: I'm not 100% sold on any house for Peeta. As a sixteen year old, he decided that he loved a girl he almost never spoke to so much he was willing to die for her. I'm not sure if that's anything other than crazy, but maybe it's Hufflepuff? He's also warm, friendly, and likable. He seems to have a good sense of what works with a group. He's comfortable being the supporting player; he doesn't seem to have any desire to be the star.

Slytherin
Haymitch: It takes a lot of skill to be as impaired as Haymitch is (no doubt he's a genuine alcoholic) and still plot a revolution. He's great at determining what arena strategies are best for Katniss and Peeta, and even talks Seneca Crane into bending the rules to allow for a dual-victor scenario. Haymitch is more loyal to the plan/system then to individuals, but he does know how to strike alliances to protect himself and those he's taken on as his.

Finnick: A 14-year-old Career tribute? Ambitious. Certainly thought he was destined for greatness. More than his clever, showy arena strategy (where the others didn't realize 'he was the one to beat until it was too late'), I think his successful career as a spy points to Finnick as a snake. He's the anti-Katniss, able to conceal his true motives and use his beguiling charm to get Capitol citizens to reveal to him the dirtiest of laundry.

Rue: "Where's Peeta?" "Oh, he's down by the river..." Rue is one clever girl, using her size and her abilities well to her advantage in the arena. But her biggest triumph is making her alliance with Katniss, which might well have saved her (she could probably guess that Katniss would think of her as a substitute Prim and have a great deal of difficulty killing her, if it came down to it). She makes it oblivious to Katniss that she'd be a valuable teammate (with the trackerjackers and the leaves), and is cunning enough to neglect to mention to Katniss the one fact that might have caused her to pull away from Rue to go be with Peeta (who's down by the river alright, bleeding to death). And, if you take the movies for canon, during training, she stole a favorite knife from the biggest threat in the tribute pool, just to watch what he'd do (and enjoy how it played out).

So you know, D2, for Eibhlin, every household is a deadly weapon.

ETA: Eibhlin says keep your cabinet current. She can't blow up anything with hydrogen peroxide that's reverted to water.

Going through my books, trying to declutter--picking them up one by one, and placing them into piles for save, discard, donate. Was just about to post if someone wanted a copy of [redacted fannish title] when I remembered, the ending of that book sucks.

Just wanted you to know, peeps, I'm looking out for you.

Hard copies of books should be bundled with a digital version. I would pay a $3-7 premium for this service (depending on the size of the book).

I love thinking about the mechanics of the Hunger Games universe. Even before I was making up stories in my head about my favorite characters, I was intrigued by the puzzle of how this post-apocalyptic society functions. I've devoured all the metas I can find, and my reading preferences tend strongly toward the elaborate world-builders of the fandom.

Until recently, my favorite Panem map was Vanja1995’s (scroll down for some excellent reasoning for his district location choices). My few quibbles with his choices were that I located the Capitol in Denver, flipped the locations of Nine and Ten, flipped the locations of Two and Five, had Four a little closer to Louisiana, and figured the size of One and Three to be much smaller.

fernwithy's excellent essay and map have changed my mind on a number of points. I strongly recommend reading her essay, as she's noticed a number of points in the books that I think almost conclusively pinpoint the Capitol and Thirteen which, in turn, provide some strong hints about where several of the other districts are located.



Fernwithy's Map
( The Capitol )

( Districts Twelve and Thirteen )

( Districts Seven, Eight, Nine and Ten )

I also concur with her theory that, like Twelve, the urban districts are probably small, fenced in cities, and surrounded by a wilderness that the citizens are not allowed to enter. If the population of Panem is as low as Beetee suggests at the end of Mockingjay, it makes sense to concentrate the population where possible, in order to conserve resources such as power and gas. From the Capitol's perspective, it also makes the urban districts, which probably have a higher population and access to greater technology/potential weapons, easier for Peacekeepers to 'secure'. I think this 'security' is implemented not just to keep the workers from running off and trying to make it in the wilderness, but keep the urban districts from developing the natural resources around them. The more the Capitol controls access to crucial goods like power and food, the greater leverage the Capitol has to quell any attempts at rebellion, and ensure the urban districts cannot develop into economic rivals to the Capitol.

That said, there are a few areas where I have some different theories:


Penfold's version of Fernwithy's Map

District Three: I've got a massive amount of headcanon about this district. Although I agree that some of the districts are colonies created by the Capitol sending segments of its population (including refugees from around the world who sought more habitable land after the cataclysms and resulting wars, as fernwithy writes), I think several of the districts started as independent organizations of survivors (including some refugees) who were later absorbed by the Capitol, either through what was intended to be a mutual protection pact that devolved into a colonial-type relationship, or were forcibly annexed. I like this idea because I think it gives the districts a longer period of time in which to develop their distinctive cultures and genetic 'looks'.¹ I also think it's likely that survivors of the cataclysims and wars would concentrate in a few locations, rather than just one or two, because of how difficult it probably was to travel after what appears to have been a severe technological crash, and how relatively dispersed the population of the US is. Generally, I think the cities are better locations for survivor city-states, so, in my headcanon, Three, Six, and Thirteen were independent political entities before or concurrent with the founding of Panem.²

Regarding location, I don't think we get any real hints in canon, apart from the numbering of the districts, as to where they may be located, and the numbering may signify the order in which the districts were added to Panem, rather than their relative distance to the Capitol. Some areas are eliminated just because the canon hints seem to put another district there, but that still leaves a lot of empty space.

In this space, I chose Phoenix. It's the sixth largest US city by population; most of the top ten are either under water or beyond Twelve. Three doesn't have to be a very big city, but I think it helps if both the research and manufacture of almost all technology occurs there. Larger cities are also more likely to have some redundant systems that would help keep or get them running. I also like Phoenix because aerospace and technology are its major industries; if Silicon Valley is underwater, Phoenix might be your next best choice for that type of expertise. It's also got plenty of sunshine and nearby large, empty areas to put solar and wind farms (at least until the Capitol rips them out). And Phoenix is still close to Salt Lake City (at least as compared with Six, Seven, Eight, etc).

District Four: Don't have any real disagreement here just a couple of slight quibbles. First, I extended the district boundary back to encompass more land (and pushed Ten back to maintain a no-mans-land), in part to provide more room for canning/other processing or preservation and shipping facilities, and in part to make the district more comfortable. As Four seems to be on more positive terms with the Capitol than the non-career district, I think the Capitol might give them more space to expand and live comfortably, perhaps even to do some local farming. I also wanted to expand the living area in Four a little closer to Louisiana; all of the characters we meet from Four have Irish-sounding names, and New Orleans is the closest area that once had a large Irish population that I know of.³

District Five: I like fernwithy's placement of Five at Yellowstone, given the natural resources available, however, given the Capitol's choice to concentrate power generation in a single district, I think they'd be better off if Five is structured like the other natural resource districts, with a capital and multiple smaller settlements. I spread the boundaries out to encompass large parts of Wyoming and the Dakotas, in order to capture existing hydro facilities on the Missouri River, existing wind farms in each of these states, the shale oil in North Dakota, and plenty of open land where more wind and solar facilities could be built.

District Six: As fernwithy notes, we don't get any textual clues. I like Omaha, for practical and sentimental reasons. Omaha is pretty much in the middle of this vision of Panem, and would be a good location for bringing in goods from Four, Eight, Nine and Ten. Omaha was also the center of the First Continental Railroad, and in the Nineteenth Century, every major railroad served Omaha because of the Omaha Stockyards. It's still Union Pacific's headquarters. If the US has a railroad city, I think Omaha is it.

Of course, this is all just guesswork, but I love trying to work it out. Major thanks to fernwithy, who upended my thinking about the location of the Capitol and Thirtieth, consequently rearranging my speculation about most of the other districts. If you haven't read her Hunger Games fan fiction, I highly recommend it.

¹ Though, of course, no one knows how long Panem existed before the Dark Days, so if you postulate a very long period of time, you could reach the same result that way.
² But not Eight, because it is so bugnuts cold in Minneapolis (colder than Toronto!), and because of its relatively low population density.
³ Or the Capitol settled a bunch of Irish refugees there and the names have nothing to do with Four's location.

Title: Predator
Characters: Claudius, Eibhlin, Lyme (Gen)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violent imagery, a wee bit of foul language
Summary: Claudius doesn't know if he was born a killer or just trained to it, but he has no doubt what he is.
A/N: The ficlet is set in the chemistry 'verse, and as such cribs extensively from the work of lorataprose, especially Fixed to a Star and the forthcoming Divergence, Part II. No actions, thoughts, or other elements of this story are binding on lorataprose's 'verse.

( predator )