You Can’t Take Bread!

In Unmasked, Peeta's stepfather/father is just some guy named William Thackeray. There was no intentional basing of the Unmasked character on a once living, real human writer. Any similarities between my William Thackeray and the William Makepeace Thackeray of Vanity Fair fame are pure accident. I am aware that I do not create in a vacuum and so readers will see connections where I do not intend to make connections. My writing is undoubtedly influenced by any number of things that I am not immediately aware of, but in this case, there was absolutely zero intent to draw any kind of parallels or inspiration from William Makepeace Thackeray and his life.

It is literally impossible for Thackeray to be Miranda's biological father. Thackeray dies when Peeta is 10 years old (chapter 11). Peeta is around 24 or 25 when he marries Katniss, 14 years after Thackeray dies. In chapter 18, when Haymitch tells Katniss about Miranda's existence, he tells her that there is no way to know who Miranda's father is, and that she would be nearly 8 years old by then. Which means Miranda was born 6 years after Thackeray dies.

In that same conversation, it is heavily implied that Nancy, Peeta's mother, wound up turning to prostitution as a means of income (and Peeta hints that he knows his mother did so in Chapter 11). Miranda's father is truly an unknown. Nancy herself doesn't even know who Miranda's biological father is. In my head, Nancy is past the mental or emotional ability to care for a child when Miranda is born, hence why Miranda winds up in an orphanage (chapter 33). Just like she gave Peeta to the Marquis to raise, hoping he'd be able to give her son a better life than she could, she gave up Miranda with the same hope (slightly worse odds of success with Miranda having a decent future in the orphanage, but the woman was desperate).

On to Spellbound...

The definitive future coven members, as it stands right now with 39/?? chapters posted, are as follows: Katniss, Prim, Annie, Mags, Madge, Cinna, and Gale. You have already met two other future coven members. I am not revealing who they are yet. There will be no under aged/children members of the coven. Katniss, Madge, and Prim were never technically members of their mothers' coven. You have to be an adult to be a full fledged member. Now, baby witches can be under the protection of a coven... so do with that what you will in terms of speculation about the girl from the store, etc.

Louisiana is actually a pretty big state and New Orleans is a big damn city with a large population and a LOT of visitors. Peeta was not in Louisiana at the time of the fire, nor was he in the area when Katniss's family was forced to flee the state. I will neither confirm nor deny at this time whether or not Katniss and Peeta truly first met in Whitley or if their first true meeting was in Louisiana.

Peeta's familiarity with Madge has more to do with vibes than it does with him actually having met her before, if that makes sense? Madge wouldn't be the only fortune teller/tarot reader/witch in New Orleans at any given time lol. Katniss would not have been in Louisiana for years by the time Peeta goes to Mardi Gras with his brother, so there was no accidental meeting between them at that time either.

Katniss has no noticeable southern accent anymore because her mother would have rigorously trained it out of her once they got to Whitley. Another means of making her daughter blend into their new surroundings. Also, just fyi, I live in the deep south (not Louisiana but point still stands) and Mr. kdnfb was raised here. Not everyone around us (Mr. kdnfb included) has the stereotypical thick southern accent. My father in law does, his two sons do not. At times, they'll say a word or two that makes it obvious and you can hear the accent, but it's not always thick and persistent, despite what Hollywood would have you believe. Mr kdnfb can absolutely lean into it tho. Make it thicker on purpose. Long winded way of saying that Peeta didn't hear Katniss's accent because she doesn't really speak with it anymore.

I do place Mr. Everdeen as having some distant Cajun roots in this story.

Alright, here we go. This is somewhat spoilery, but honestly I feel like most of this is something one could deduce from what I've already posted, so I don't feel too bad about it.

In terms of Mrs. Everdeen and her feelings towards Katniss... all of the above. Literally all of the above. Mrs. E is in awe of and terrified of the level of witchy power that she witnesses Katniss wielding. Katniss's abilities are also, to a noticeable degree, emotionally influenced. In other words, certain emotions and emotional connections of Katniss's amplify what she's capable of. So Mrs. E moving them far away from most other witches, limiting Katniss's contact with them, and then binding her powers in Whitley were all done as protective measures -- to hide Katniss from Coin, to make Katniss less conspicuous to their new neighbors, to keep her power under wraps -- at least until Mrs. E could figure out how to teach Katniss to deal with that level of power. But yes, Mrs. E was scared of her own daughter, to a certain degree.

Katniss's self esteem issues do influence the bindings and spell workings that Mrs. E did in the name of protecting Katniss, and... here's a huge spoiler hint... reminder that Mrs. E needed Katniss to build the hedge around their house in Whitley. The hedge that serves as physical barrier between the rest of the world and their garden... the place where they grow the herbs they use for magic but also there is a fire pit and space large enough to draw a pentagram and cast spells do you get where I'm going with this??? Katniss had to perform that bit of magic. (cough cough maybe she had to do some of the other magic too cough cough).

Mrs. E was being a straight up hypocrite telling Katniss not to do blood magic when she was doing it herself. Part of it was trying to protect her girls from what she might view as her own follies and part of it is fear of what Katniss wielding blood magic can potentially yield but yeah... She wasn't wrong in the warnings she gave Katniss, but I mean... there's always a risk that you're gonna set your kitchen on fire when you cook and yet we still cook meals and sometimes they are exquisite do you get what I am saying here????

There were definitely some suspicious neighbors in the south painting their ceilings haint blue after living next door to Finnick and Annie for any decent amount of time. If they were asking anyone for protection of some kind, it would be Annie.

You have not seen the last of Pearl. She will make reappearances for Reasons that I am not yet at liberty to disclose. Also the story Peeta tells when he names her that involves a gray pearl, not a white one.

Dr Kayla is going to cause all kinds of issues, but that's because she is an agent of chaos who will be fascinated by the absolute bounty of living plants (and mushrooms) surrounding the Everdeen house and she is naturally inclined to want to know EVERYTHING about someone who has a um... green thumb...

I haven't published anything yet and while I do intend to use the Kiera Dean Fairbanks pen name should that ever happen, I simply do not know. Alas, unlike Madge, I cannot foretell the future.

As I understand tumblr's current for of security measures, you can send asks to the inbox only if you have a tumblr yourself. I currently have Anonymous asks allowed so you can send them anonymously to me. Messages, or DM's, which can be done more privately, are also restricted to tumblr users only. I personally have an additional security measure in place where only people who I follow can initiate a private message thread with me. If YOU have messages enabled for all tumblr users and I message you, then you will be able to message me back from that point forward. So if you've been trying to message me and can't, it's because I don't follow you here on tumblr :/ Sorry.

Hope this answers all of your questions!