Ardyn Leaf

Still a bit more than 48 hours to submit your fic

You can submit your stories up to 23:59 on the 24th of December CET time.

You need to post your story in our collection (LINK HERE)

Just for submitting your story you can win an illustration by Laura Barcali.

I’d like to ask you to please include the following guidelines (in blue) in your fics as “notes at the end”:

Do you want to participate in our challenge and win an Everlark drawing?

If you are a participant or reader, you can try to guess who the author of each of the stories is. Just write a comment in each story guessing the writer. You will get 1 point for each writer you guess. If there’s a tie there will be a drawing among the finalists. (Deadline: Until the 1st of Jan when works will be public). Artist @andretries

If you are a participant or reader you will get 1 point for each comment (different from the author one) you leave on each fic! Be aware that comments will need to be different from one fic to another; be creative and show your love to writers and artists!! (Deadline: 15th January). Artist @little-lynx

Katniss's tracker jacker stings are parallels for the three paramount injuries across THG

cheek = Peeta's weal from his mother

knee = Peeta's leg amputation, no it doesn't say her left leg but guess what I mcfreakin found

Katniss says it at the end of Mockingjay:

“But his arms are there to comfort me. And eventually his lips. On the night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me on the beach, I know this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale's fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that. So after, when he whispers, "You love me. Real or not real?" I tell him, "Real.”

So let’s explore “What ifs” and send your fics on how Katniss and Peeta would have ended together without being reaped, or if only one would have been reaped, or if there were no games… or any other “if”

Pairing: Everlark

Type: Fan Fiction or Fan Art.

Words: between 500 and 15,000 words (drabbles, one shots or short multi chapter are welcome, we would like to have submission completed although it isn’t mandatory)

Theme/Prompt: Canon Divergence “This Would Have Happened Anyway”, set in D12

Deadline:

1. You can confirm your to participation until Dec 10th (in Tumblr or by email [email protected]) and you will be granted access to the collection to submit your work.

2. You can submit your fics up to December 24th (CET time!)

3. Collection will be live December 25th as anonymous

WELCOME to another year of the Season of Hope Fic Exchange for 2022! We’re excited to welcome everyone to sign up and join in on the fun!

The Hunger Games Season of Hope Holiday Gift Exchange is open to all four books (OG trilogy and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), medium (books, movies, etc.), pairing, character, etc. If you’re interested in writing or drawing for THG, please consider joining us!

How it works:

You tell the universe what you want to read (or look at!) and what you are willing to write/offer in return. Sign-ups will close on December 1, 2021.

You get matched with someone who wants to read or write that thing.

Write or create through December 24.

Fics are submitted, then revealed anonymously on December 27.

On January 3, names are dropped and you find out who wrote your gift.

We’re doing this on A03 again, so you’ll need an account there. Please contact us if you need assistance signing up for an account.

Dates:

Sign up from now until midnight December 1th

Write-write-write until midnight December 24th.

Works revealed midnight, December 29th.

Creators revealed January 3rd.

Other details:

Hunger Games Fandom only, please.

Pairings not just limited to Everlark!

At least 500 words.

Don’t reveal your identity once you have you pairing! Please wait until all creators have been revealed before sharing which work is yours!

Please feel free to anonymously interact with your assigned author while we are waiting for stories and authors to be revealed! Fun anon messages are a great build up to the event, and can add some additional holiday joy. Just please be sure to keep your identity a secret until January 3rd!

How to Sign Up

Though I know Finnick is awake keeping watch, it's so silent in Tigris's basement that you'd think everyone in the entire world is asleep. Everyone, that is, except me.

I don't sleep well anymore. Nightmares are nothing new, but ever since my time in the Capitol, my brain doesn't stop. There's no shutting it off. Between real memories and manufactured ones, the slideshow is perpetual and the loop is constant.

The pain and chafing from the handcuffs helps. It brings me back to the here and now. And, when that doesn't work, I've taken to pinching myself. If I can feel it, I'm here. If I can't, I need to do something to bring myself back.

The realest I've felt was just hours ago in the tunnels, when Katniss kissed me. I know, for a fact, that that was real. I can still feel her lips on mine, I can still see those gray eyes looking deep into mine. I can still hear her asking me to stay with her, and my own voice making her a promise - always.

Snow took me from her. He turned me into this awful, animalistic weapon not only to hurt her, but to kill her. Sometimes, I don't even feel human.

I don't deserve her anymore, if I ever did. That's the thought that crosses my mind when I have both feet planted on the ground. The ones that cross my mind when I'm hallucinating - those are much, much worse. I squeeze my eyes shut tight and will them away; the last thing I want is to let them infiltrate my mind as I'm trying to remember something good.

Kissing her. Her mouth on mine, her hands on my face. It was familiar - we've done it a lot. But there are two memories our most recent kiss brings up that are more visceral than any other. First, the cave. Then, the beach.

I can't walk myself through either memory chronologically yet. I just remember the setting and how I felt. In the cave, I felt the unbearable fluttering of a crush. On the beach, what I felt was much more powerful than that.

I run my hands over my face and sit up, blinking through the low light only to find Katniss's eyes on me. I flinch, having not expected that, and she looks away.

"Sorry," she mutters, staring at the floor.

We aren't too far apart. There's nothing between us except for a cold, hard, stone floor, but it might as well be a million miles of hot lava. I wonder if I should try to bridge the gap; I wonder if it's even possible. I wonder if it's even something she wants.

But she kissed me. That couldn't have been meaningless, could it?

"You kissed me," I state, voicing my thoughts aloud. I've found that I don't have much of a filter anymore. What I think becomes what I say, whether I want it to or not.

"Yeah," she says, wringing her hands.

"Why?" I ask.

She takes a deep breath and stares at the ground for a long time. The silence stretches on and on, so much so that I wonder if she plans on ignoring me. But, eventually, she says, "I don't know."

"Oh," I say.

Then, we're quiet. I have too many thoughts in my head, too many for a single one to break through and become verbal. And I can't read her mind for the life of me.

But then, she breaks the silence. "I guess I do know," she whispers, then lifts her head. When her eyes meet mine, the expression she wears is soft, yet determined. "To bring you back," she says, keeping her voice low. This is a conversation meant just for us. "To bring you back to me."

I go rigid when she shifts onto her hands and knees and begins to close the distance between us. With every inch she covers, I grow more anxious. I want her near me more than anything, but it's also what I'm most afraid of.

I don't want to hurt her.

"Did it work?" she asks. She leans against the same wall that I'm leaning on and looks at my hands, still cuffed.

"I don't know," I murmur, trying to relax.

She inches a little closer, then tips her head up and kisses me while holding the side of my face. Her fingers are tentative and graceful on my cheek, and her lips are timid at first. Gentle, wondering, cautious. But then, as I return the gesture, she takes a deep breath and kisses me harder, like she's sure of what she's doing.

"I need you here," she says. She pulls out of the kiss but keeps her hand where it is, stroking my skin with her thumb. "I need you here with me."

"I'll try," I say, nodding shakily. "I'm trying."

She lifts her other hand to old my opposite cheek, then kisses me again. I close my eyes and melt into her as she melts into me, then allow myself to let lost in how it feels to kiss her. Something deep, deep inside me is reminiscent of the beach, something powerful and heady, something like need, something like want, something like love.

When our lips separate, she rests her forehead on mine and stays there. I can feel eyes on us throughout Tigris's basement, but I don't care. Let them watch. Let them know.