Force Smuggler

maysilee: who?

drusilla: my great-uncle

They play into the “meanest girl in town” for her victor edit and propaganda

She’s not sure how but when they watch the recap of the games she sees they’ve somehow spun her meanness and insults and cruel comments as something she was directing towards the districts instead of the capitol they make her seem every bit the one dimensional stuck up rich girl everyone believed her to be they make her seem like a traitor to her district

If people back home, especially from the seam, didn’t hate her before they certainly do now and she can see it in the way the tributes look at her year after year

It’s tough mentoring her peers in the early years, they see her as a traitor and then she realizes any hope of it getting easier is in vain because their children have grown up with the propaganda fueled stories about her

It’s the worst kind of propaganda too because it’s rooted in truth and there are some stories of behavior she’s not proud of but that she can’t deny, the capitol hasn’t exactly reinvented her image just twisted it and that makes it so much worse

Her parents and sister are killed, not even the merchant class kids want to associate with her, Asterid tries to comfort her but she can see how her reputation is damaging Asterid’s and she’s worried about Snow coming for her too so she wields that meanness again and pushes her away with awful comments about her and Burdock

Asterid sees through it but ultimately decides to keep her distance

When Katniss is born though a small box with a gold Mockingjay pin shows up on Asterid and Burdock’s doorstep and the same thing happens with a hummingbird pin when Prim is born

Peeta’s Mom had grown up telling him about Maysilee and how cruel and awful she was, how she thought she was better than everyone else, his dad seemed to have more sympathy but any defense he might have spoken his mom made sure to shut down by reminding her husband of all the names she called him too

When Prim and Katniss come home with stories from other kids about Maysilee and her cruelty Burdock simply looks to his wife and without looking at them she simply says that people are complex and Maysilee is no different

When Maysilee waits for them on the train all she can think about is all the horrible things they must’ve heard about her

But she’s surprised when she sees Katniss wearing that gold Mockingjay pin and she realizes very quickly that Peeta takes more after Otho than his mother

When it comes to the actual mentoring she’s even more surprised, usually the tributes, rightfully mistrusting of her, talk to her as little as possible or combat her advice and opinions at every turn or make snide comments about her being a capitol bootlicker until she snaps and inevitably says something insulting or mean and they say something to the effect of how their parents were right about her

But these two are fighters and aren’t deterred by her jabs, in fact, they can dish it back as good as they can take it and it actually becomes fun

She realizes Peeta reminds her of Merrilee

Despite the fact that it’s clear she is Asterid and Burdock’s daughter the person Katniss reminds her of is actually Haymitch and the familiarity of trading insults hurts more than she expected

MAYSILEE SLAPPED THE HELL OUT OF THAT BITCH!! LET'S GOOOOOOO!!

Something about Lenore Dove condemning Haymitch to stay alive.

—————

Haymitch and Maysilee have a conversation, after Chicory, Buck and Hull die, where she says, “one of us has to win.”

When Haymitch asks why she says that “one of us has to be the worst victor in history… (to) refuse to play their game.”

She continues, “we’ll make our own posters.”

She makes Haymitch promise it - that one of them WILL win.

He does.

And then he responds, “one of us paints the posters.”

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