Peeta Mellark

PLAYER INFORMATION
Your Name: Al
OOC Journal: crotalus
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: Nope.
Email + IM: crotalusroleplaying@gmail.com | daiannecrotalus on AIM
Characters Played at Ataraxion: None at the moment, also apping Superboy this round

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: Peeta Mellark
Canon: The Hunger Games trilogy.
Original or Alternate Universe: Original.
Canon Point: Around the end of the third book, when he comes back to the remains of district 12.
Number: 056

Setting: A futuristic world, a country called ‘Panem’ in which 12 districts work for the Capitol. Around 75 years ago the districts had rebelled against the Capitol but lost the war. The Capitol destroyed district 13 (kind of, more on that later) and forced the other districts to participate in ‘The Hunger Games’. In these, a boy and a girl from each district are chosen by luck in the reaping (tributes) and they all fight to death until only one stands, the winner.

History: SPOILERS both in here and the Personality section.
We don’t know much about Peeta’s early background, except for the fact that it wasn’t all that happy. He was wealthier than most of the kids in the district since his father owned the bakery, but he had a very strict mother that didn’t hesitate to beat him up if she thought he deserved it and two older brothers that got the same treatment.

When he was 5, on the first day of school, his father explained to him that he had wanted to marry Katniss’ mother but she had chosen Katniss’ poor coal miner father instead of the moderately wealthy baker. When Peeta asked why he was told that when Katniss’ father sang, even the birds stopped singing to listen to him.

The same day later Katniss Everdeen sang for the class and Peeta understood what his father had meant. He’s been in love with her ever since.

Which explains why when they were around 11 and Peeta saw Katniss almost die from hunger on the street he burnt some bread so he could give it to her. Katniss could hear his mother beat him up for being careless. Peeta didn’t care; he wouldn’t just let Katniss die. While Peeta remembers this moment he never gave it the same meaning Katniss seemed to. That day Katniss had been ready to give up on life, but Peeta’s kindness made her stand her strong on her feet and be able to provide for her family.

Since apparently Katniss and Peeta didn’t interact much during their school years because Peeta hanged out with friends and Katniss was busy being antisocial, we don’t know much more of his infancy. This is the problem with having the books in Katniss’ point of view, I guess.

So, time skip until the 74th hunger games’ reaping. After Katniss volunteered for her sister, the male tribute happened to be Peeta. Each tribute gets a visit from their family and close friends; apparently Peeta’s father was sad and presumably his brothers visited too, but his mother didn’t seem to be really bothered by it. She told Peeta that at least this year the district had a chance at the Hunger games: Katniss.

Peeta totally agrees.

The tributes go to the capitol by train where they meet the man supposed to be their mentor: The only winner the district 12 had, Haymitch. Peeta wants to get to business right away, but their drunkard of a mentor is more interested in the end of a bottle than helping them. Peeta gets angry and punches him, and Katniss stabs a knife on the table to get his attention. After that, Haymitch decides to keep sober long enough to try to help them, since they seem to do have a chance.

During the games, the ‘sponsors’ are allowed to buy things for the tributes in the games. Since those tributes are basically people who like them, they obviously have to become likeable. Peeta doesn’t have a problem with it but Katniss isn’t exactly ‘likeable’ material. Their respective stylists (Peeta’s head Stylist is called Portia) make an awesome job at it since they impress everybody with black costumes that set on fake-fire, but it’s Peeta’s idea of defying the Capitol by holding hands during their presentation that gives them a roar from the crowd.

While Peeta focuses more on getting them to work on Katniss’ strengths she makes sure they also know Peeta’s, like his… well, strength. He gets a punctuation of 8 out of 12 from the gamemakers thanks to that.

And then come the interviews, where Peeta has no problem at all making people laugh and smile and instantly love him… and when he publicly announces he’s in love with Katniss Everdeen. Nobody saw that coming.

While Katniss is angry at him for making her look weak, Peeta and their mentor explain that what he did was making her look likeable. Katniss is still angry, but they manage to be civil and even have a meaningful talk about what it means to die while still being true to yourself the night before the games, on the roof.

And then the games start.

Again, the book focuses on Katniss so we don’t know much about Peeta until they find each other again. Katniss is surprised to find him allied with the Careers, the tribute trained since they become 11 by their districts to win the games. She even sees him kill a girl, and help them track Katniss herself. He convinces them to wait for her to get down instead of climbing up for her.

He’s obviously doing everything he can to keep Katniss safe, but she isn’t sure what game is he playing at this point. Eventually she releases some poisonous bees on them (Tracker-jackers) and kills one of them, even if she gets stung herself.

Peeta comes back for her and makes sure she’s safe, and this is where Cato, one of the carriers, realizes he’s been lying to them and cuts his leg.

Katniss eventually finds him camouflaged so well she even steps on him, and this is the first sign we get that Peeta is good at painting (in the book, anyway). By this time the gamemakers have announced that unlike any other game edition where there could only be a single winner, this time there can be two winners if they come from the same district… which means they have to take care of each other.

Peeta’s leg wound is pretty bad, and he gets blood poisoning even with Katniss trying to nurse him back to health. This part is very important to their relationship because, unknown to Peeta, Haymitch is using their sponsor’s food to basically tell Katniss she has to keep playing the lover angle. Peeta is truly in love with her and he assumes she is too, that she was just shy about it.

Cue lots of kisses to get sponsors.

Just when Katniss was about to give up on Peeta’s sickness, an announcement says that there will be something they truly, deeply need on the cornucopia (a place with lots of presents in the beginning of the games to try to trick the tributes into fighting). They both know it will be Peeta’s medicine in their case, and while he refuses to let Katniss put herself in danger for him she tricks him into drinking sleeping syrup so she can go get it.

She finally gets it and Peeta gets better. They hunt for food but Peeta’s leg makes it difficult, and they decide to go different ways and meet later. Katniss is terrified when she hears a canon announcing a tribute has died and runs to Peeta, but it was only another tribute that had eaten some berries he’d collected without knowing they were poisonous: Nightlock.

As they wait the other tributes keep dying until it’s just Cato, Katniss and Peeta. The gamemakers send them giant killer mutts with the eyes of the tributes that died on that year’s games so far, which is understandably terrifying.

In the end Katniss shoots Cato’s hand while he was headlocking Peeta and he falls to the mutts, who kill him. Katniss and Peeta wait for the speakers to announce them as the winners…

…but the announcement that comes instead is one saying there will still only be a winner. But they obviously refuse to kill each other so… what do?

Commit suicide eating nightlocks, obviously. Katniss suspects they’d rather have two winners than no winner at all, and she’s right as the game makers frantically make them stop and announce them the winners.

This though enrages the president, Snow, and Haymitch tells her to fake the nightlock thread was her being so deeply in love with Peeta that she would rather die instead of a rebellious act it was.

Peeta doesn’t know this though, he’s truly in love with her. So when he finds out… it breaks his heart.

Onwards to the second book. Half a year has passed, but we don’t know much about what Peeta has been doing because he has been practically avoiding Katniss for obvious reasons. We do know he’s taken on painting though.

However, they have to embark on the ‘victory tour’, a visit to every district so all of them can congratulate them (and, unofficially, so the districts can’t forget the power the Capitol has on them). Peeta and Katniss manage to get some kind of friendship back, and they even share bed on the train so Peeta can hold her and she doesn’t have more nightmares.

President Snow had warned Katniss that if he didn’t manage to fake that the suicide thread she pulled was because she was dumb with love for Peeta and not a threat to the Capitol her family would be hurt, and so would Gale’s. There’s apparently a rebellion arising and Katniss is the person they have decided to look up to.
So they have to keep playing the star-lover routine to try to calm them down. They even have to fake Peeta proposing to Katniss and she accepting in front of the cameras… which, of course, hurts Peeta badly. As Haymitch tells Katniss it isn’t that he didn’t want to marry Katniss, just not it being forced like this when she doesn’t love him.

Accidentally, both Katniss and Peeta (him with his speech on District 11 where he offered part of his earnings to the families of the tributes, since they had both helped Katniss at some point in the games) incite the rebellion some more, so Snow tells Katniss she hasn’t managed to fake enough to convince him, which probably means he’s going to go on with his threat to her family.

Katniss feels strangely relieved because that means she doesn’t have anything to tie her down anymore, so she, Peeta , Gale and their families can run away freely.

…That is, until the Third Quartel Quell is announced.

Every 25 years the Hunger games are a little special. The 25th Hunger Games had the district choose their tributes. The 50th ones, the ones Haymitch won, had the double of tributes. That year happens to be the one when the 75th will take place and Peeta thinks he’s going to have to mentor the new tributes… but it gets announced that year tributes will be chosen among the past winners.

District 12 only has three winners alive, and only one of those is female. So it soon becomes obvious Katniss is going to the arena again, and Peeta will either get chosen or volunteer for Haymitch to protect her.

They make sure Haymitch is sober enough to help them train, and they watch other years Hunger Games to get to know their rivals. They learn Haymitch used the force field around the arena (put in there so the tributes don’t escape) to win his games, which apparently didn’t sit well with the Capitol.

On the private sessions to impress the Game Makers Peeta paints Rue, the girl from District 11 Katniss buried in the arena in a whim of sentimentalism and Katniss hangs a doll of Seneca Crane, the past Game Maker that was forced to commit suicide (according the movies, we don’t know how he died on the books). They get high punctuations both.
During the interviews, Peeta is asked how will these games affect his future engagement with Katniss. Peeta says they are already married (a lie) and that Katniss is pregnant (also a lie), which brings all the ex-winner tributes together and has everybody in the districts and the Capitol weeping for them. Peeta is really, really good at saying the right things you see

So, the 75th games. I won’t entertain you with the facts but it’s one of the worst arenas yet, and Peeta almost dies when he steps into a force field. He would have actually died if it hadn’t been for Finnick, one of the tributes and Haymitch friends who performed CPR on him to revive him while Katniss was on tears.

This is apparently a very important moment since it managed to convince everybody she was actually in love with Peeta, even when she wasn’t aware of it herself.

We notice all the tributes are dead set on protecting Katniss and Peeta, even going so far as running into the traps if it means giving them time and keeping them alive. They are obviously aware they will be the heads of the revolution in the districts and need them. Peeta and Katniss talk about who should be the one dying after Peeta has given her a pearl and a locket eith pictures of her family and Gale, Peeta argumenting Katniss could move on and live with Gale if he died and that his family doesn’t really need him, Peeta. Katniss arguments that she needs him.

When they try to commence a plan involving wires and electricity (they being all the tributes that have formed an alliance with Peeta and Katniss) something goes wrong, as the triutes true plan was to keep Katniss alive and that’s why they separated her from Peeta. There’s a lot of confusion and Peeta kills one of the rivaling tributes in a fit of rage after he kills one of their friends. Everything happens so fast and in the end Katniss throws an arrow at the force field, making things explode.

The Capitol tries to catch them all, but Katniss, Finnick and Beetee(one of their allies) get saved by district 13, the rebels. District 12 gets destroyed as a warning.

Peeta ends captured by the capitol. His life sucks from now on.

No, like, really. He gets tortured for information he doesn’t have because he had no idea of the rebellions plans, he’s forced to appear on interviews to tell the rebels to cease the fire if he wants Katniss to have a chance of surviving once it’s over… the only good thing he’s able to do while he’s captured is warn Katniss in time that District 13, the hidden district where she and the rebels are hiding, is going to get bombed by the capitol. And get Katniss to accept being the ‘mockingbird’, the face of the rebellion that’s about to win.

And that’s not all.

Remember when he said, in the beginning, that he didn’t want the games to get changed? Well. At least it wasn’t the games.

It was Tracker Jacker’s poison, that attacks the part of the brain that causes fear directly before it kills you. They forced him to watch videos with Katniss on them as the injected the hallucinogen on him (obviously not enough to kill him), which meant he would be completely terrified of her and loathe her when they met again. The first thing he does is trying to kill her. He blames her for the death of his parents and friends, for… basically everything that went wrong. It’s very conflicting since most of his memories don’t make sense, as he himself says.

He’s very unstable, so he isn’t allowed to leave the healing hall at first. He isn’t sure what’s real and what’s not, he argues with himself… it gets pretty bad. Katniss goes as far as to not wanting to ever see him again, but Finnick calls her on her shit because if it was the other way round Peeta would be by her side, trying to make her remember and make everything better.

With time, Peeta does slowly get better. He still doesn’t get what happened and what didn’t, especially when it comes to Katniss. Simple things as to what color was the dress she was wearing during the interviews confuse him, and he still has moments of aggressively where he acts like a primal animal… but he’s also able to bake a wedding cake, and can even sit to eat with Katniss and other people and act with almost complete normalcy.

Even though he’s obviously not fit for battle they send him to the Special Sharpshooters, the group Katniss belongs to that has to infiltrate the capitol. Katniss isn’t dumb, she realizes he’s there because now that the rebellion is set and almost won they need a martyr, and she could very well be one if Peeta kills her. But Peeta is honestly getting better, and he tries.

They create a game called ‘Real or not Real’, in which Peeta will say something and then try to see if it really happened or not. Some of the things he witnessed are pretty harsh.

He isn’t completely healed though, and once they are inside the capitol and get into a fight something triggers him and he tries to kill Katniss. He accidentally kills one of their friends when he tries to protect her, and Peeta will forever feel guilty about it. He even asks to be left behind, to be given a nightlock so he can die… but Katniss refuses. They share some conversations about why is she protecting him now, and she says she’s protecting him as much as he’ll always protect her.

Since they are infiltrated they get into a few traps, like mutts that keep shouting Katniss’ name and want to kill her. They manage to escape, but not without losing people on the way. Peeta is very, very frightened by himself and what he could do, his thoughts and actions… and Katniss manages to calm him down and make some memories get to the surface by kissing him. She tries to gets him to remember he loves her.

He does.

After that they go on different ways, and the book once more focuses on Katniss. They win the rebellion… but at the price of Katniss’ sister Prim dying as she was taking care of the injured. We never get a full confirmation, but it’s very probable it was the rebels themselves that bombed the place she was in (along with a lot of other kids) with a Capitol’s aircraft so the few people that still supported Snow would believe he’d kill innocent kids to save himself.

Katniss kills the new President when she was supposed to shoot Snow and tries to commit suicide, but Peeta stops her. Her doctor manages to convince the capitol she shouldn’t get executed, just gotten back to district 12 and try to rebuild it. After a few months, Peeta ges back to the district to. He couldn’t go back before because he was being treated from his brainwashing.

He brings some Primroses for her, to remember her sister.

This is the point I’m taking him from.

Personality:
Peeta is extremely sweet and gentle. He’s had a hard live, but he doesn’t let that get the better of him and he still tries to become the best man he can be. He has a way with words and he always knows what to say to make people feel better, to get them to give the best of themselves for a cause.

He’s intelligent, even if he isn’t maybe exactly street-smart. He tends to believe there’s good in everybody and sometimes that has made him relatively easy to trick and use in some cases. He’s able to assess a situation quickly and take the course of action most beneficial to his ultimate goal (that usually being protecting Katniss or her family). He also doesn’t let anybody else get in the way of his plan once he’s dead set on it: He didn’t care if Katniss wouldn’t have approved of him dying for her on the 75th Hunger Games to save her, or how he used his love for her or their fake wedding and pregnancy to make sure she won people’s sympathy.

He’s a very determined guy and while he isn’t manipulative per se, he knows what buttons to press at a certain moment and he isn’t afraid to do it when the situation calls for it. Peeta also doesn’t particularly care about what other people might think of him as long as he gets what he wants- He allies with the Careers on the 74th Hunger Games without telling Katniss to make sure they wouldn’t hurt her, he asks for their mentor to train them separately without thinking what Katniss might think of that and he goes so far as to ask the rebellion to stop if it gets her to safety. He knew they would call him a traitor, he knew Katniss herself would maybe think that… but as long as it meant she was safe, Peeta couldn’t care less.

Like I said, his end goal in mind is usually keeping Katniss safe and secure.

He’s been madly in love ever since the first day, but instead of making him weak that love has made him stronger. He let his mother hit him because of some bread he had burnt if it meant feeding Katniss, he was able to survive two Hunger Games… love gives him a goal and a reason to fight. Without his love for Katniss he’d just be a smart strong kid with a way with words. Because he loves her, he turned his abilities into weapons and did things he wouldn’t have dared to do otherwise.

Love isn’t everything that defines him though, just the strongest side of him we see because the books are told from Katniss point of view. He’s also a great politician and strategist when the situation requires. When his name was pulled out on the 74th games and he had to volunteer for the 75th ones he was, of course, scared… but instead of letting that get to him he forced their mentor to sober up and to teach them because he wanted to have a chance to survive, as slime as it was. He had a plan for both games; he didn’t just jump into them and hope for the best. He always seems to have some course of action in mind, and that has made Katniss among other people suspicious of his ulterior motives.

He’s a very artistic guy, able to see the beauty of nature and paint it to show everybody else what he sees. While he isn’t naïve enough to think the world they live in isn’t rotten to the core, he thinks it’s not a lost cause and it’s worth fighting for. He isn’t afraid of politics or a repercussion for his actions if he is doing what he thinks is right. He forced the capitol to feed the families of the 4th district tributes without even consulting to them first, because he knew it was the right thing to do and the capitol wouldn’t have accepted. He’s more scared of losing himself than he is of dying or being tortured. He wants to die having made the world a better place.

He isn’t moved by revenge or hatred. They had the chance to bring upon the kids of the oppressing Capitol citizens the same they had had to suffer: A hunger games. He rejected it because he didn’t want anybody else to go through that. He didn’t want to kill President Snow or anybody from the capitol; he just wanted the suffering to end. He has a strong sense of what’s right and wrong, even if he will sometimes do the wrong thing for the right cause.

He puts other people’s needs above his own. When he was practically forced to propose to Katniss he was obviously really upset, but he still did it with a smile on his face because it was what he had to do. Even when Katniss confessed most of the things that had happened during the 74th games were just done to get the sponsor’s sympathy and broke Peeta’s heart he still took it like a champ and still pretended they were really that in love for the cameras.

The fact that he’s determined means he’s stubborn most of the time as well… and that leads to him being a little short-sighted. He knows what he wants and most of the time he knows how to get there, but that means he might ignore plenty of other things on the way. He was so happy with the possibility of Katniss returning his feelings he didn’t stop to think that hey, this is rather sudden, what has changed. His trusting nature also plays an important part of that, he’s usually so good at unconsciously manipulating people he doesn’t realize that it could come back to come bite him in the ass or that he might also be manipulated.

In short, Peeta is a sweet guy in love that can be really scary when he puts his mind into it.

Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:
Peeta isn’t a metahuman and he doesn’t have any superpowers, most of his abilities and weaknesses have been mentioned on the personality and/or the history. He’s smart, strong because of years working in the bakery, determined, gentle with people…

But he’s also a little naïve, stubborn, hard-headed and being suck a love-sick puppy has his priorities a little skewed. It’s very easy to read he’ll do anything for Katniss and if someone was to get to him they wouldn’t have a hard time figuring out she’s the way to do it.

Inventory: Just the clothes.
Appearance:
He’s described in the books as a strong muscular kid for living in the district 12. He has blue eyes and curly (“in waves”) ash short blond hair, and medium height. He’s handsome, but not extremely so. Apparently Gale was more handsome than Peeta, since he was the one always getting compliments because of his looks.

Using Josh Hutcherson as his PB because…. Uh, yeah, he’s the actor that played him in the movie for a reason, right?
Age: 18 by the end of the third book (not counting the epilogue), 16 on his first appearance.

AU Clarification: N/A

SAMPLES
Log Sample:
(At the first reaping, when his name is the one they pick)
He doesn’t even notice at first.

It apparently registers somewhere on his mind, since he’s already walking to meet Effie when he comes back to his senses. But in a few minutes his life has taken such a surreal turn he can’t be completely sure he isn’t dreaming. Nightmares of the reaping day are quite common, especially when the day is close. So it’s not like it’d be unheard of.

But then he bumps into another guy. And he can feel it, and he’s pretty sure you aren’t supposed to feel those things in dreamland. So the dream theory meets an abrupt end.

So it’s really him. And it’s really her.

That’s what makes it all the more surreal. Effie tells them to shake each other’s hands, and they do. And he can see it; can see it in her eyes how she remembers.

And she gives him that look. That look between a glare and a squint. The same look she’s given him every time their eyes have met, as rare as those occasions were. He gives her a shy smile in return, but his hand is trembling so much he isn’t sure he’s actually pulling the I’m-not-scared attitude he’s trying to go for.

Because if it was somebody else he might have stood a chance at winning. If he trained hard, if he worked as hard as he could and played his cards right, he could have had at least tried his best.

But if Katniss is his opponent, he’ll die protecting her if he has to.

Comms Sample:
[You get an angry, pissed-off blonde guy looking at the camera with his lips pursed. He looks as if he was torn between demanding explanations and just running away as fast as he could, but he seems to go for the second.]

So, hi. I’m Peeta.

[A beat, as if he isn’t really sure how to continue that. In the end he sighs, looking up with a little growl.]

You’d think you’d eventually get used to being kidnaped and dragged around to strange places. And at least it doesn’t seem like I have to suffer for my life in the immediate future in here, as far as I can tell.

But I’d still like a better introduction than ‘you’re in space now, here are some clothes, enjoy’.

So, any takers?