Peeta Mellark

WARNING: TORTURE, SPOILERS, BASICALLY BAD BAD NEWS.

A high-pitched scream woke him up. Peeta blinked rapidly, trying to clear the haze that surrounded his vision. He tried sitting up, and that's when his torso slammed directly against the cold metal strip that kept him down. There was something about dreams. Sometimes there were facts that you just knew to be true, but when you wake up later, you wouldn't be able to recall why. At this moment, Peeta knew for a fact that the woman kissing him didn't love him. She was using him, seducing him, but he didn't even care. It was Katniss for mercy's sake.

The next few seconds were a blur. When he opened his eyes again, his shirt was unbuttoned and pushed aside and Katniss stood over him, back straight, lips pursed. A flare of light and then he sees it. The knife in her hands, positioned over his heart not with the precision of a surgeon, but with the desperation of a murderer who's finally caught her prey.

The last words he heard before the knife plunged and Peeta sat up, panting and sweating in his lofted bed in the Men's Barracks of Gebo, was accompanied by a careless, unattached voice:

"You said it was mine."

1. Player Information
Name: Spencer
(I know, I know, this isn't Isis. I will let folks on Plurk know. I'm going to go by Spencer from now on.)
Username: flyawayblackbird (plurk), isisceles (aim)
Current characters in ToS: Spock
Reserve: Link

2. Canon Character Information
Name: Peeta Mellark
PB: Alex Pettyfer
Journal: frostyoutodeath
Age: 20

Appearance: 5'7", 160 pounds. Ashy blonde hair falls in waves over his forehead, his ocean blue eyes are easy to trust, even easier to love, and his smile is always gentle and forgiving. Shaped by years of hard work, Peeta’s body is strong. While he doesn't show it off, the extremely observant will be able to tell that one of his legs is artificial, and he cannot position it as naturally as a normal limb when sitting on the ground.

History: Link here. Here’s also a brief summary of important events in Peeta’s life:

- First day of school: Peeta’s father pointed out Katniss, and the boy immediately fell in love.
- The Reaping: Peeta was selected, along with Katniss, who volunteered for his sister, as the two tributes from District 12. She had never even spoken to him until now, but he was sure she was set on killing him if she needed to.
- The 74th Hunger Games: Peeta revealed his love for Katniss on national television. He tried to keep her alive in the games, nearly dying himself. But when, at the very end, he realized that Katniss was just pretending to love him to win over the crowd, his heart was shattered. This is when Peeta lost his leg.
- The Victory Tour: Peeta proposes to Katniss as a show for Panem, and as an effort to please President Snow, who has threatened to kill their loved ones if Panem isn't convinced that the two star-crossed lovers are in fact in love. The proposal is beautiful, but Peeta had always wished that if this day did come, that it would have been real.
- Quarter Quell: Peeta volunteers to go instead of Haymitch, swearing to himself that he will protect Katniss to the best of his ability. Later, Peeta is captured by the Capital and tortured into believing that Katniss is a mutt and that he must kill her.
- District Thirteen: After being rescued, it takes Peeta a very long time to come to control himself again. He shrinks away from Katniss, he wants to help but can’t, and he feels useless. Peeta prevents Katniss from taking the nightlock pill, and she bites his hand instead. 
- Back Home: Peeta and Katniss are married. They’re helping each other through the nightmares, and maybe one day in the future, they’ll have children. The Hunger Games, as anyone can imagine, has tortured Peeta as a person. He suffers from having had the experience, but no matter the obstacle, Peeta fights to maintain who he is and who he wants to be. Therefore, in many ways, even after everything, he is still the same, caring boy he was back in District 12.

Ultimately, Peeta can’t hate Panem too much, it gave him Katniss. But to have lived in a nation that held the Hunger Games, his view of it isn’t too bright. Even when the new government took over, Peeta was appalled that they wanted to hold one final Hunger Games, using the children of the previous government so that Districts could seek revenge. This was their idea of justice, and while Peeta could understand why, he couldn’t agree with it.

Powers/Talents: Peeta is a good baker, and an extraordinary cake decorator. His skills frosting also translate to his skills in camouflage and painting, the former he does when trying to survive, the latter he likes to do in his spare time. Peeta is very strong for his size, was a wrestler in school, and has had brief training in hand-to-hand combat in addition to the experience he's gained by being thrown into an arena to kill other children. But ultimately, his ability to hold the attention of a room and gain their empathy is his finest skill of all. It's not even as if he tries either. Peeta is such a genuine, kind, endearing person that his words have the right effect, simply because he's being who he is.

Personality: While his family was considered privileged in District 12, Peeta Mellark never believed that he was above any other human being, including those who have tried to kill him. He is one of few people who are genuinely caring, and unless in a truly dire situation, will never resort to violence to resolve a problem.

In front of an audience, Peeta is lovable and charming. He can pick exactly the right words to win a crowd over, and he persuades them to laugh and cry with him. Off stage, Peeta is the same person. He goes to great lengths to care for others, and thinks of everyone else’s concerns before his own. But this doesn't mean Peeta is a pushover. The baker's son is ready to defend himself if he needs to, but he’ll do all he can to prevent conflicts from getting there.

After the Quarter Quell, Peeta was captured and tortured by President Snow. While he can now maintain control of himself most of the time, Peeta still spends more nights than not screaming and yelling, scared that he’ll lose sight of himself, or more importantly, Katniss. When he’s awake, an appropriate trigger can cause him to be rash and violent, but Peeta now wears a sharp metal bracelet on his left wrist to help keep himself grounded in reality. If the episode is tame, he usually grip the back of a chair, or a wall, for a moments until it passes. If it starts to take over, Peeta pushes the bracelet into his skin, and hopes that the pain will help him focus.

Why would your character be chosen? Because he's genuine, cares for others, is willing to throw his life on the line. He doesn't back down in tough situations and he is extremely eloquent.

How much does your character know about nonhumans? Nothing. He knows about genetically modified humans and he's met nonhumans in Bete Noire, but he never knew they weren't actually human. In the world he's from, there is nothing outside the Capital.

Why this character: Peeta’s inherent goodness is something that I really see as a reflection of a younger, more idealistic version of myself, and I miss it. His ability to choose the right words in front of an audience is an ability that I enjoy emulating, and I look forward to trying to imitate his charm in my tags. Also, since I'm currently playing Spock, Peeta allows me to speak with other characters in a way that Spock cannot. Namely, he can openly care about how others are feeling.

Past Game History: Peeta will only have vague memories of his time in Bete Noire, but the entire trip will feel foggy, and his memories of the place may never fully return. He'll remember living in a house with Katniss and Finnick, and he'll remember how he bonded with Johanna. He'll remember opening up his own bakery, named Dandelion. When approached, he'll also remember people that he met, for the first time, in Bete Noire, if they are also here in Niflheim. But there are a lot of painful memories from Bete Noire that he will not remember, such as Katniss dying and turning into a ghost, or of him having nearly killed her himself. For character purposes, his time at Bete Noire has not changed Peeta's personality, but coming with him, will be his previous network device which obviously no longer works in Niflheim. It's a small journal, and consists mostly of his paintings.

5. Samples
First-Person: Peeta's first network post.

Third-Person: Turning into a mutt or The wind down afterwards (just so not all of my examples are about drugs)

Third Sample: When Peeta woke up, Katniss was standing over his bed, her entire body naked and sparkling as if she had been dipped in fairy dust. 

Peeta averted his eyes, bringing his hand over his face to provide extra cover. He felt the slight tingle in cheeks esclate to a hot burning sensation and he knew his face was flush red. 

“What’s wrong Peeta?” she purred, her hands gliding over his shoulders. 

This couldn’t be her, Peeta thought to himself. And that’s when he spotted it, the briefest reflection from the bed, and then the ceiling. Everything seemed to be wrapped within a paper-thin coat of shiny plastic, and then Peeta knew that whatever this was, it was fake. Another hallucination or dream influenced by trackerjacker venom. 

As Katniss wrapped her hand around his and attempted to pull it down, it took all of Peeta’s willpower to keep it up. How many times had he begun to think of Katniss as a lover before he hurriedly pushed the thoughts out of his head, embarrassed to have thought of them in the first place? And now she was here, and she wanted him. But he didn’t want to see her this way; he didn’t want to allow some Capital induced dream to taint every interaction they would have in the future. 

But when instead of her palm, Peeta felt the soft smooth curve of her breast on his hand, his arm automatically drew back and Katniss found her in. Even in his dreams, her kisses were so sweet, and when he felt the rest of her body pressed against his, Peeta felt an involuntary rush of adrenaline course through his veins. The fantasy was trying to break him and he could feel himself cracking. 

He was still engulfed in her kiss, fighting internally over what he should do, when he realized that she had already tied his wrists together, and was fastening the rope to the bedpost. 

“Why are you tying me to the bed?” Peeta choked out, hardly able to talk. But he could imagine why. The dream was going to take this experience away from him. But her response was not at all what he expected. 

“Bed?” she asked, smiling as she finished her work. “What bed?” Then, Katniss pulled on the rope, hard. 

Peeta felt his body flying upwards, his torso dangling from his arms. When the upward motion stopped, he swung in midair until his back slammed against something rough and jagged. Peeta looked around. The bed was gone, and thick ropes that bound his wrists were hanging him off a tree. It was thick bark that had cut into his back.

Katniss was flying in the air, her body still naked, but a quiver of silver arrows was now tied to her back, and a matching silver bow was clutched tightly in her left hand. A glimmering liquid shine dripped off the weapon and Peeta watched as a droplet fell endlessly downward. He couldn’t see the ground, nor would he hear the splattering sound that he was expecting. 

When he looked back up, Katniss had already fitted an arrow into her bow. But she seemed to be debating something and changed her mind, taking the arrow out and dropping the bow out of her hands and into the void below. She flew towards him, drawing in for one last kiss. 

“I’ve never loved you. Real or not real?” she whispered into his ear. Peeta’s eyes widened, and before he had time to respond, Katniss had driven the arrow like a spear right through his heart. 

When Peeta woke up, his face was wet, his eyes puffy and red. He grabbed at the iron bracelet on the mantle until his fingers found it and immediately slipped it on, pushing the cold metal against his wrist until he started bleeding. It was his way of staying sane. 

Looking over at Katniss, he sighed. She was still asleep next to him, her body curled up beneath the covers. It’s been over a year now that they’ve been together, safe, and away from the rest of the world. They had conducted a real wedding ceremony, just the two of them last summer in July, when the sky looked beautiful and their small garden in the backyard was lush with vegetables. Of course they had sex. But for some reason, at night, his mind would forget, and every time he saw Katniss in his dreams, it was as if he was seeing her for the first time after she killed Coin. 

Katniss had told him once that when she had enough trackerjacker in your system, she blacked out and started dreaming through every single one of her worst nightmares. But what venom the Capital had put in Peeta during the Quarter Quell was long gone, and only his torturous memories remained. However, a little over a month ago, his nightmares had started evolving into what happened tonight, and Peeta never had the heart to tell Katniss. He wasn’t about to start today.

It was just over a year ago that Peeta became the face of the uprising. They had painted him as knight and dressed him up in shining armor. Beetee had even made him a sword and sheath to go with it all. But Peeta had hardly cared how he was made to dress, or directed to say. To someone who had lost the love of his life, none of it mattered.

Instead, what started spreading within him was an insatiable anger. Peeta had never wanted to kill before. Not even in the games, when the death of his enemies meant his own survival. But after Katniss was executed, he was never quite the same again. The gentle, boy with the bread hardened his shell, and all he wanted was to kill Snow.

The propos District 13 filmed from him and the other victors where nearly gold. Peeta weaved one analogy after another about the Capitol's responsibility for the death of every district's loved ones. At the right moments, tears ran down his cheeks as he recounted the life he was planning with Katniss, and their unborn child. But it was a life they would never have, and he knew that out there in the districts, year after year, more and more families had felt the exact same pain. He reminded District 2 that for them, it was a glorious to win the games, but an incredible dishonor when they lost. But more importantly, some must have felt an unforgettable amount of disgust many years ago, when at the end of the games, one child from their district had to slaughter the other, to claim the victor's title.

But all of that was over now. Coin had let Peeta stab Snow in the chest, right through his heart. And as soon as he pulled his sword out, Peeta knew that while he had slain the beast, part of himself had died with the blow. Perhaps it was the part that Katniss loved so much. That was six months ago. And since then, Peeta had nearly lost his purpose in life. Slowly, he had learned to enjoy little things again, and would on occasion find himself decorating a cupcake, only to throw it away a few hours later.

The only true respite he experienced, was during his visits with Finnick. Now that they were national heros, they were allowed to travel throughout Panem as they wished. These days, Peeta found himself spending more and more time in District 4 than at home. The pain he felt, the pointless of life, Finnick understood it all. And it was irreplaceable, the ability to be in the presence of those who understood.