First Impressions

Johanna – July 65 ADD

Johanna Mason is 11 years old the first time she sees Finnick Odair. She’s watching TV with her cousin Eleanor – who is an idiot – and Eleanor’s friend Addison – who is an even bigger idiot. It’s the tribute interviews, mandatory viewing, but Johanna would have far preferred to watch alone at home rather than be subjected to Eleanor and Addison’s insufferable stream of commentary and giggles.

Johanna is only here because her mom insisted. Her mother has lately taken to being worried that Johanna doesn’t have enough friends. It’s totally ridiculous of course. Johanna has Jordan, and Jordan is the only friend she wants or needs. But Jordan has always been a little too rebellious for Johanna’s mother’s taste, and last month Jordan got caught smoking a cigarette with a few of the older girls at school. So now Johanna’s mother has decided that Johanna needs to make friends with some “good, nice girls her age”, and as far as her mother is concerned, Eleanor and Addison are exactly that. Never mind the way they turn up their noses at Johanna when they see her at school or the way they sit as far as possible from her at the lunch table. Melanie Mason has decided that Eleanor is to be her daughter’s new best friend.

“Oooh look at him! He’s so cute!” Addison exclaims as the boy from district four walks onto stage.

Johanna rolls her eyes. “You’re not seriously thinking about boys. It’s the Hunger Games for god’s sake.”

Addison and Eleanor both giggle, and Johanna just wants to slap both of them. The boy on the TV waves and blows a kiss, and it seems the Capitol audience agrees with Addison. But there’s no surprise there. The capitol is chock full of absolute morons. Addison would fit right in.

“Come on Jo,” Eleanor says, between giggles. “Finnick is, like, sooo cute. Even you’ve got to admit it.”

Johanna turns to the TV and really looks at the boy in question for the first time, and her heart just about skips a beat. Addison and Eleanor are right, and she is so, so annoyed by it. She will never in a million years admit that she thinks Finnick Odair is cute. But she can’t exactly deny it either.

“He’s a career,” is what she settles on.

Eleanor looks mildly dismayed that Johanna has decided to bring facts into her dumb fantasy, but Addison not so much.

“He can’t be a real career,” she insists. “He’s too young. He’s barely older than us.”

The banner at the bottom of the screen says that Finnick is 14, which Johanna thinks is a whole lot older than 11, but she doesn’t bother to point this out. Instead she says, “That just means he’s worse. He was so eager to go kill other kids that he couldn’t even wait until he was older.”

“That’s not true!” insists Addison. “He seems so nice.”

Johanna opens her mouth to point out that it is 100% definitely an act, but Eleanor shushes her so they can listen to the interview. So far it has mostly just been the capitol citizens screaming whenever Finnick says anything at all or even when he just smiles. Johanna actually has no idea what Addison could be basing her assessment of his supposed niceness off of considering that Finnick has barely even spoken a full sentence so far.

Ceaser Flickerman asks Finnick if he has a girlfriend because of course that’s a very relevant question when it comes to fighting to the death with 23 other kids. Finnick answers that he doesn’t, that he’s waiting for someone “special”, and Johanna doesn’t even slightly believe him. Any boy who looks like that probably has a new girlfriend every other week. Eleanor and Addison eat it right up though. “Aww!” They chorus in unison.

“Just think,” says Eleanor. “If he wins, we’ll get to meet him on the victory tour! I’ll make my dad invite you to the dinner party, Addie.”

“Oh my goodness, you have to!” Addison squeals.

Johanna rolls her eyes. “Or, you know, maybe one of our tributes could win, and we could get parcel day.” Johanna thinks that the boy, Harrison, actually stands a pretty decent chance. He’s 17 and tall and strong and even scored an eight in training.

“Yeah, maybe,” Eleanor says with a shrug. It’s clear that she feels far less enthusiasm at the prospect by comparison. Of course, as the mayor’s daughter, Eleanor has never been hungry, so how can a little extra food possibly compare with the opportunity to have dinner with Finnick Odair? No doubt Eleanor thinks that Finnick will take one look at her – an 11 year old who doesn’t even have boobs yet – and decide that, yep, this is that one special girl who he has been waiting for. It’s so ridiculous.

It’s ridiculous, but even so, Johanna finds herself turning on the TV when she gets home and then again the next morning. It’s not mandatory viewing, and she wouldn’t usually watch, but Johanna tells herself that she’s only watching because she’s hopeful Harrison might actually win. Or maybe it’s because she’ll be eligible for the reaping starting next year, so she feels like she needs to learn as much as she can about how the Games work just in case. Yeah, that’s probably it. She’s certainly not watching because of Finnick Odair, even though he’s pretty much all the commentators can talk about.

Did you know that Finnick Odair is 14 years, 3 months, and 4 days old and that if he wins he would be the youngest victor by a margin of nearly two years? Did you know that he has more sponsorship commitments than all the other tributes combined? Did you know that he is the second youngest person ever to volunteer for the Hunger Games? Apparently the youngest was too sickly and ugly for anyone to really care about. She probably just volunteered because she knew she’d die soon anyway, and where’s the fun in that?

They replay clips over and over again of Finnick volunteering, Finnick at the opening ceremony, Finnick at the interview last night. They show aerial shots of the arena and discuss how its various features might impact Finnick’s chances. The commentators bemoan that the gamemakers refused to add a trident to the cornucopia for Finnick to kill the other children with.

At one point, Finnick’s mentor comes on to do an interview. She’s an old lady named Mags who’s been a mentor all Johanna’s life. Mags says that Finnick is just blown away by all the incredible support he’s received, that neither of them ever could have imagined this sort of response. Johanna rolls her eyes. As if. Mags goes on to talk about how much everyone loves Finnick back in district four, how he’s such a nice, charming, hard working young man, how his hobbies are feeding orphans and rescuing kittens from trees.

Okay, she didn’t actually say the last part, but you get the idea. Against her better judgment, Johanna finds herself absolutely enamored with this perfect, beautiful boy. How could she not be? He’s just so damn likable.

But then comes the portion of the interview where Mags has to talk about Finnick’s training without ever actually admitting that he’s been trained. Mags says that Finnick has spent most of his life spearfishing, so he’s very good with a trident, and that he enjoys running and swimming and has won several wrestling competitions at school, even against the older students. The message is clear; he’s a career through and through, and Johanna is sharply reminded that the rest of it is all fiction. Finnick is not this sweet, charming, and impossibly handsome boy they are describing. He’s a cold blooded killer who is pretending to be sweet and charming for the cameras.

He is ridiculously attractive though. She’ll grant him that. They actually bring on an “expert” to analyze just what it is that makes Finnick Odair so stunningly beautiful. Apparently, it has to do with the symmetry and proportionality of his features. They display all manner of charts and diagrams to prove just how incredibly attractive Finnick is, and it seems to Johanna a giant waste of time since anyone with eyes can already see that. Johanna turns off the TV, deciding that she doesn’t want to see Finnick’s perfectly symmetrical face any more than she has to.

At school that day, they’re all ushered into the auditorium for the start of the Games. Mandatory viewing. Johanna stands next to Jordan. She hears Eleanor and Addison giggling and whispering behind her about how great Finnick looks in his tribute outfit and what perfect hair he has.

“Idiots. You’d think they wanted him to win,” Jordan says to her in an undertone.

“Oh, they do want him to win,” Johanna whispers back. “They’re very excited about meeting him on the victory tour.”

Jordan snickers and shakes her head. “You know, I really don’t see it. He’s not all that good looking.”

Johanna thinks that Jordan is wrong about that – there are even expert opinions and diagrams to prove as much – but that would be much too mortifying to admit, so she doesn’t say anything and instead just watches, waiting for the clock to count down.

The cannon sounds, and it takes Finnick less than 30 seconds to prove himself every bit the cold blooded career Johanna first took him for.

Both district seven tributes go for weapons at the cornucopia. The girl, Maple, is killed instantly, her throat slit by district two’s behemoth of a boy. But Harrison manages to get his hands on an axe and even dodges a knife thrown by the district one girl. Unfortunately, that’s when Finnick spots him.

Finnick wrenches the knife out of his first victim and takes off after Harrison. The chase goes on for several minutes, and Johanna thinks that Harrison is going to get away. At least Finnick isn’t gaining on him. But then a graphic appears on the screen to show each tribute’s current heart rate, and Claudius Templesmith explains that Finnick’s heart rate is only 165 beats per minute whereas Harrison is at 203, meaning that Harrison is about to collapse while Finnick isn’t even really trying. Not only is he going out of his way to kill their tribute, Finnick is toying with Harrison, and Johanna hates him for it.

Harrison eventually turns around and throws his axe at Finnick, but it’s a move borne of desperation, and it’s not a very good throw. They might use axes a lot in district seven, but it’s not like they have much cause to throw them. Johanna thinks that maybe she ought to practice that just in case she’s ever reaped.

Finnick dodges the axe easily and then throws his knife at Harrison. That is a good throw, and district seven is officially not getting parcel day this year. But maybe Eleanor and Addison will get to meet Finnick Odair. They have the indecency to succumb to excited giggles a few minutes later when Finnick takes off his shirt.

Johanna sighs. Finnick Odair is nothing but a cold blooded killer with a pretty face. She was right about him.

Finnick – July 71 ADD

Finnick Odair is 20 years old the first time he sees Johanna Mason. She’s a screaming, sobbing mess, having to be dragged up onto the stage by peacekeepers when her name is called at the reaping.

Finnick’s tribute, Alana, watches the recap incredulously. “So uh… guess we can put her in the not a threat column then,” Alana says.

Finnick frowns though. There’s something about it that doesn’t sit right with him. Well, it’s a teenage girl being dragged off to die, kicking and screaming, so that kind of goes without saying, but there’s something more to it. Finnick is almost sure of it.

For all her bawling, Johanna doesn’t actually look weak to him. She looks healthy, like she’s always gotten enough to eat, and she’s got a fair bit of muscle too. She’d be considered undersized for a career, but Johanna is really pretty tall by district standards. The banner at the bottom of the TV says that she is 17. Finnick has no doubt that being reaped in a non-career district would be a terrifying experience, but at the same time, most tributes that age have enough sense and enough self control not to throw a tantrum like that.

It’s all a little too… over the top. Like it’s too good to be real, her flailing a little too exaggerated. Most people might not notice such a thing, but of course Finnick is a very good actor. It’s how he survives. Maybe it will be how Johanna survives.

“You shouldn’t count anybody out until you hear their cannon fire,” Finnick tells Alana. “You never know what someone might be capable of.”

“Yeah, okay,” Alana says. “I get that but, like… she’s not one of the ones I need to be especially worried about.”

Finnick doesn’t say anything. Privately, he thinks that the only ones Alana needs to be especially worried about this year are the gamemakers. They’re never going to let district four win. Not after what Finnick pulled last year to get Annie the crown. If he’s right about Johanna Mason, then Finnick can only hope that Johanna gives Alana a more merciful death than the gamemakers would.

The next day, at the opening ceremony, Johanna is still crying. But honestly who can blame her? Finnick would probably cry too if someone tried to put him in such a stupid looking tree costume. She’s not screaming anymore, but she is very much still crying, and there’s makeup running down her face.

That’s odd too though now that he thinks about it. Because plenty of tributes cry either at the opening ceremony or on interview night, but he’s never seen one whose makeup looked even half this bad. Finnick vaguely remembers hearing a stylist complain at one point about not being able to do a tribute’s makeup the way he wanted because she was too weepy. Finnick had wanted to punch the guy, but the girl’s makeup definitely hadn’t run like Johanna’s is now. Either Johanna has a really incompetent stylist or this is intentional.

Finnick turns to Blight. “What’s the deal with your girl?” he asks.

“Ah, you know. Some kids just can’t cope,” Blight says with a shrug that isn’t entirely convincing. Blight isn’t quite as good an actor as Johanna, Finnick thinks.

Johanna ends up scoring a two in training.

“Figures,” says Alana. “I don’t think she did anything except cry the whole time.”

“So she didn’t go to any of the stations?” Finnick asks. Against his better judgment, he finds himself intrigued by Johanna Mason.

“I think her district partner dragged her to a few,” Alana says with a shrug. “Don’t know why he bothered. She’s hopeless.”

Finnick disagrees though. A two isn’t just a low score; it’s a remarkably low score. He doesn’t even remember ever seeing a two before. It’s almost like Johanna was trying to get a terrible score.

He asks the other mentors about it the night of the interviews. “Any of you ever seen someone get a two before?”

Chaff laughs. “Haymitch here got a one.”

Finnick turns to Haymitch open mouthed. “The fuck did you do?”

Haymitch snorts drunkenly. “Take a guess, kid.” He drains his glass in one long swig.

Okay, yeah. Finnick has a pretty good idea why the gamemakers gave Haymitch a one. But Johanna isn’t involved in any rebel schemes. The rebellion doesn’t know that Finnick is working for them, but he still has a pretty good idea of what the rebels are up to. He would certainly know if they were planning something to do with the Games. And Haymitch would lose it if they ever tried to use a 17 year old like that.

So what could Johanna have possibly done to get a two? Finnick can ask around and find out, but he expects that the answer will be more or less, “She cried”.

“There was a blind kid a while back,” says Lyme. “He got a two.”

So the gamemakers think Johanna’s odds are equivalent to those of a blind kid. If Finnick was allowed to bet, he would put a whole lot of money indeed on Johanna Mason.

When it’s her turn to interview, Johanna’s district partner has to walk her onto the stage. She hides her face in her hands and sobs the entire time, despite Caesar Flickerman’s best efforts. “Johanna Mason,” Caesar announces with something less than his usual enthusiasm when it’s finally over. Finnick and several of the other victors clap and cheer but almost no one in the audience does. Johanna has to practically be carried back off the stage.

At every party Finnick attends that night people want to know who he recommends they put their money on. Finnick dutifully suggests Alana. He lists all the many strengths that led to her being chosen as a tribute and that ultimately won’t matter at all because Snow has already decided that she can’t win.

“Yeah, but you have to say that. Who else?” They all want to know.

“Johanna Mason,” he tells them with a sly grin every time they ask. They all laugh, but he’s not joking.

As usual, Johanna is crying when she makes her first appearance in the arena the following day. Predictably, she doesn’t have a single cent in her sponsorship account when the opening gong sounds. She has a rather unfortunate starting position, right between two careers, but neither of them spare Johanna a second glance as they rush to gather weapons from the cornucopia. Johanna sprints for the woods. Finnick is somewhat surprised when she stops right at the edge of the forest and quickly scales a tree instead of keeping moving.

Alana gets two kills at the bloodbath. Finnick almost wishes he’d told her not to bother. She’s going to die either way, so she might as well not have to live out her last few days as a killer. It’s too late for that though.

The bloodbath starts to wrap up, and the remaining careers scatter in all different directions, chasing after the stragglers. This is when Johanna makes her move. She drops down from her tree, runs back to the cornucopia, grabs a backpack and a couple axes, and runs away again before anyone even notices her.

Blight laughs appreciatively. “Scuse me. I’ll be getting a few calls.” Sure enough, money is now pouring into Johanna’s sponsorship account. She’s up to a quarter million already, and that’s before Blight has even started answering the phone.

Finnick watches Johanna as she heads deeper into the woods. With all her crying, he’s never really seen her face properly before, and it registers now that she’s actually kind of pretty. Which really sucks for her because she’s probably going to win.

On the morning of day two, Johanna gets her first kill, splitting open a boy’s head with one of her axes. She goes from being the least sponsored tribute to the most sponsored in the span of less than 24 hours. Finnick isn’t even going to have enough money to make sure Alana eats.

Alana is smart and skilled enough to feed herself though. When the food from the cornucopia runs out and the alliance breaks apart, Alana starts setting snares and manages to catch at least a squirrel or two most days. It’s when she’s checking one of these snares that Johanna finds her.

Instead of attacking Alana, Johanna leans against a tree and cries loudly in a spot twenty or so yards away from her. Finnick groans as Alana takes the bait, not even bothering to unsheathe her sword before she marches right over. It takes Johanna mere seconds to stop crying and bury an axe in Alana’s chest.

It’s only one day later that Johanna is declared the victor of the 71st Hunger Games. Johanna Mason is strong and unshakable, a brilliant actress. He was right about her.

Johanna – January 72 ADD

Johanna Mason is 18 years old when she realizes that she was wrong about Finnick Odair. She’s standing on the roof of the tribute center after one of the worst nights of her life. Finnick, who she only met a few days ago, is there with her. Johanna is still not really sure she likes Finnick exactly, but she’s decided that his presence is preferable to being alone or with Blight, who would probably just say something idiotic. Finnick at least understands what she’s going through. And she wouldn’t have expected it, but he’s actually pretty good at knowing when she doesn’t feel like talking and he should just shut up. It’s a skill that she finds is sadly lacking in most people.

They’ve lapsed into a silence that has probably gone on for a few minutes when Johanna asks, “How long do careers train for?” It’s something she’s always wondered about.

“Full time by the end,” Finnick answers. “Eight hours most days, four on Saturdays and Sundays.”

That’s… insane but also not what she meant. “No, how many years?”

“Oh. Well, kids start at the Academy when they’re six so that’s…” His face scrunches up as he does the math. “Eleven or twelve years usually.”

“You started when you were six?” Johanna asks incredulously.

“Nah, my Dad trained me himself before that. I think he started when I was three or four maybe.”

Johanna gapes at him. “You know that’s like seriously fucked up, right?”

He looks at her for a moment then turns quickly away. “Yeah, I know.” His voice is soft when he says it, and Johanna almost doesn’t hear him over the wind.

“It’s not so unusual though,” he adds. “It was the same for Lyme.”

Lyme. Johanna sees the vague image of a tall, brutal looking woman who she thinks is from district two. Lyme was definitely not on the list of victors she wanted anything to do with, but now Johanna finds herself feeling sorry for the woman. She tries to picture Lyme as a helpless toddler, already being molded into a killer. It’s a little more difficult than imagining Finnick as a toddler, but maybe that’s just because she can actually remember what he looked like as a kid. 

He doesn’t even look all that different now, really. Finnick always seemed older to her on TV, but now that Johanna is standing right next to him, he’s almost shockingly young. Johanna is 18, so she’s technically an adult, but she doesn’t feel like one. It occurs to her for the first time that Finnick is barely an adult either. Hard to believe when he’s been a victor for the better part of a decade.

“So that’s why you went early then?” Johanna guesses. “You had already learned everything because you started sooner?”

Finnick snorts. “No,” he says. “I wasn’t supposed to volunteer, and there’s really no such thing as learning everything. You just keep training and getting better. I volunteered because my Mom was sick, and I thought that if I won the Capitol would save her.”

Johanna doesn’t ask if that plan worked. She’s already been a victor long enough to understand that nothing good ever comes of winning the Hunger Games. Instead, she asks, “What do you mean you weren’t supposed to volunteer? Isn’t the whole point that you can do it if you want to?”

Finnick raises an eyebrow, and he looks vaguely amused. “What, you really think the trainers just stand there and hope that a couple of the kids they trained have a death wish? Nah, they choose someone. Only the kids who get chosen are supposed to volunteer.”

“What happens if they say no?” Johanna asks.

Finnick laughs, and the sound is hollow and bitter. “They don’t.”

“Why not?” Johanna wonders. Then a horrifying thought occurs to her. “They can refuse, right?”

“I guess so. Technically,” Finnick says with a shrug. “Like… No one’s holding a gun to your head. Not unless Snow is, anyway. But you still do it. Because it's your entire purpose in life, and everyone would hate you if you didn’t.”

“But you never even got a choice!” Johanna protests. “No six year old could actually understand what they were signing up for.”

“Uh huh,” Finnick agrees. “That’s kind of the idea.”

“That’s horrible!” she exclaims.

“Yep,” he says. “But at least no one gets reaped and no one starves.”

It all made so much sense when he put it like that. Food and security for an entire district, and all you have to do is take a few kids who are barely out of diapers and convince them that their entire purpose in life is to be a human sacrifice.

Johanna had been wrong about Finnick Odair. The boy she saw all those years ago wasn’t a cold blooded killer after all. He was just a frightened child – a boy desperate to save a mother who did not deserve to be saved. How had she gotten him so wrong?

Finnick – July 72 ADD

Finnick Odair is 21 years old when he realizes that he was wrong about Johanna Mason. It’s the fourth night since arriving back in the Capitol for the 72nd Annual Hunger Games and the first one they’ve both had off. Their tributes have already gone to bed, so Finnick and Johanna are on the roof, passing a joint back and forth.

“So who do you think’s going to win?” Johanna asks him.

“I dunno.” If he had to guess, he’d say the boy from one, but that’s just lazy. The district one boy is the biggest and strongest, but the biggest and strongest tribute still loses more often than not.

“Come on, you must have some idea,” Johanna insists. “I mean, you claim to have known all along that I would win.”

“Well, that’s because you had a unique angle,” Finnick says. “The gamemakers do everything they can to help if they think someone will be a really interesting victor. There’s no one like that this year.”

“Crying is a unique angle?” Johanna asks, grinning as she snatches the joint from him and takes another hit.

Finnick laughs, probably just because the cannaweed makes everything seem much funnier than it is. “The way you did it – yeah, for sure,” he tells her. “I dunno how you even came up with that so fast. Not like they give you time to prepare when you get reaped.”

Johanna lets out a most un-Johanna-like giggle, and says, “I didn’t.”

Finnick looks at her, surprised. “What do you mean you didn’t?”

“I just started crying,” Johanna says, between hysterical giggles. “I didn’t mean to, but then… Well, everyone had already seen it, right? Might as well make it really memorable.”

“You didn’t mean to cry?” Finnick asks, incredulously. He starts to laugh too.

“Of course not,” Johanna says. She hiccups and adds, “And it was really easy to keep crying too because I always felt like it anyway. The trick was to stop crying.”

“Oh man,”  Finnick says, shaking his head. “And hereI thought you were, like… terrifying.”

Johanna grins. “You can keep thinking that,” she says, and they both break into raucous laughter.

Finnick had been wrong about Johanna Mason. The girl he saw crying so perfectly for the cameras wasn’t really putting on an act at all. She was just a frightened kid like all the others, doing her best to salvage the shitty hand she’d been dealt. How had he gotten her so wrong?