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​i really wanted to draw them exploaring cabeswater

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that’s all there is ⋆˙⟡

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brother and sister

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“I hate school I’m sorry Malala”- Funny yet poignant. Acknowledges both the difficulty of the task and the fact that doing that task is a privilege. Gives credit to the people who fought for that privilege with a tongue in cheek acknowledgement of the irony of the initial statement

��I’m just a girl I should be home baking bread not doing calculus” - at best historically uninformed at worst leaps decades back in time. Refusal to acknowledge the charged history of education and slights the centuries of women’s labor it took to reach this point

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Hide and seek is over!

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SOTR SPOILER

interview night

Haymitch, LouLou, Wyatt, and Maysilee

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my crack team of internet addled 16-24 year olds have been working day and night to invent a belief system that is near identical to that of the average white father in the 1950s. No its ok we are using words that are newer and also dumber.

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The thing about thg movies is that they are so much better than most adaptations on a surface level. They don't make any great changes and cut very few major plot points (SC in particular has said that she was worried about changes like not killing Prim, so that's kind of the bar there), but in exchange they missed the heart and soul and tone of it all, which is a lot harder to complain about without sounding a little like a crazy person who reads too far into a ya book series 😭

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What are your thoughts on Sunrise on the Reaping

It’s complicated. There’s lots of stuff I like, some stuff I don’t care for, and some stuff I’m still ruminating over when it comes to the bigger picture.

When it comes to the actual story of the Quell and it being an attempted rebellion that failed, I really liked it. I love the message that it gives about how much work goes into a successful rebellion, it almost reminds me of Rogue One and Andor from Star Wars when it comes to the building blocks that help along the way for a rebellion even if they’re not successful.

Maysilee is a bitch and I love her. Her balance of dignity and care was wonderful and I loved her relationship with Haymitch. Especially with the link to his dead sister.

Wyatt was a joy. It was so nice to have a quantitatively minded character amongst all the artists we’ve had in all the books. And he wasn’t villainized for it, he was hilarious and helpful.

Burdock was wonderful. His crush on Asterid was adorable and he just seems as good as his future daughter and son-in-law in his behavior.

Though I do like Burdock I don’t actually care for him being absolute best friends with Haymitch. I think we could’ve learned the same amount of information about him with Haymitch only knowing him at a surface level. District 12 is a small town, it’s okay that Haymitch knows him but I don’t really need Haymitch and Katniss’s relationship to have the ghost of her father over it. I liked Haymitch having more of a choice when it came to caring for Katniss, which I still think he had, but it feels slightly diluted. And it would’ve worked better in my opinion for the future Mockingjay to be the daughter of just some guy Haymitch knew instead of his best friend.

Lou Lou,I found her and Haymitch sweet together. I’ve always loved the sci-fi horror potential in what the Capitol could do so it was nice to see that part of the lore expanded on though it broke my heart.

Katniss being Covey. Shockingly I’m not any more annoyed at this than I was after reading TSOBAB. It’s probably because it was mentioned as a very distant relation so it doesn’t seem as pushed into my face. Maybe I’m just putting my fingers in my ears but I can just interpret this as being more of a form of poetic justice from the readers perspective, of a culture that Snow has such distaste for coming back to haunt and win in the end. The relationship is distant enough that I don’t think this makes Katniss a chosen one. If Katniss was a quiet Covey girl in the games Snow wouldn’t have cared. If Katniss had gone into the games alone and won in a normal way, I don’t think Snow would’ve been that provoked because he wouldn’t have felt personally slighted. It’s the berries and love story that drove him insane enough to get invasive. Peeta has to be with her to drive him insane. It’s the choices that they made together that caused the districts to care enough to be a threat. I still don’t think I care for it being added though, I don’t think the poetic justice is worth the extra scrutiny on the original themes of Katniss being a normal girl who chose to be compassionate. It’s not really a net gain.

Lenore and Haymitch were sweet together. And I like that that they made her rebellious to the point of recklessness. Theoretically it works with how Haymitch is a little more of a schemer. But I do have a critique that out of all three love interests Lenore is the weakest when it comes to how she’s written. Most likely because the other love interests had the advantage of being the deuteragonist of their books. Lenore’s writing reminded me very much of Prim (who I find to be the weakest written character in the original books), where she’s more a symbol and priority than an actual fleshed out person. I did still like what we saw of her and it broke my heart that they didn’t get their happy ending. It was just very fridged wife in parts, which is a large contrast with Peeta and Lucy who even at their most tragic felt like people outside of Snow and Katniss’s stories.

I really don’t know how I feel about how much was changed from the original footage we saw. I loved the story we got. And I like the message about propaganda. I’m just trying to wrap my head around this and how Katniss thought she understood Haymitch. I appreciate Haymitch seeming more naive, and I can see the pieces for how this Haymitch could potentially be the Haymitch of the future, he’s adaptable and he absorbs a lot from everyone around him. But there was a lack of cohesion pulling it all together.

Epilogue: I don’t like the mention Haymitch has of seeing Katniss before the games for the same reason as I don’t like him being best friends with Katniss’s dad, I cared more for their relationship when it was based on her spirit instead of his ghosts. But if I’m trying to give a good faith interpretation I don’t really blame him for not helping her family and it doesn’t change how I see him. Haymitch was a really flawed person in the original books, to the point Katniss thought in MJ that nobody was left to stop her from killing herself because she hadn’t seen him for a while. Haymitch while being one of the better adult figures in Katniss and Peeta’s lives, still screwed up. So him essentially doing the same thing Katniss’s own mom did because he was also mentally struggling, doesn’t seem that surprising to me. It’s like Katniss mentions her understanding after the she comes back from her games, how some people struggle and are given more than they can handle. It’s actually a sign of progress that Haymitch comes back with Katniss to D12 when her mother doesn’t, it’s him taking care of his family. Which is why I still see the end of the book as hopeful for Haymitch. Peeta and Katniss seem like such life changing people to him, opening his heart after so long. He’s flawed but his love for them is so big. Even with the ghost of Lenore haunting him, I don’t see him as a tragedy because he can still live a full life with his family. He says it himself, he can’t go, he still has a family to take care of. Also with the mention of his reduced drinking and the timing of the epilogue seeming to be not that long after the war, I do see hope for him.

TLDR: I think the book was really enjoyable to read. I liked most of the characters and the story. Usually I try to measure how successful a prequel is based on how it enhances the rest of the universe thematically. The main way I apply that to this book is how it strengthened some symbolism and parallels that already existed in the universe. But there was some new lore that almost weakened a few character relationships and themes from the originals. Like Burdock and the Covey. I’m still wrapping my head around how I feel about the book in general. It’s a mixed bag to me and though I enjoyed reading it, I think it’s the toughest piece of the puzzle to fit in with the other four books. Maybe Suzanne wanted that, but I’m still ruminating on it.

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Winter has arrived on Poob.

Start your 7 day free trial of Poob today, and watch smash hit Martin Scorcese's Goncharov.

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The female tributes of the 50th Hunger Games, Louella McCoy and Maysilee Donner (and Lou Lou)

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“Well, there’s no proof that will happen. You can’t count on things happening tomorrow just because they happened in the past. It’s faulty logic.”

How are we holding up? I’m still crying about Lenore Dove and the gumdrops

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maysilee donner

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SOTR in progress no spoilers PLSSSSSSSSSS

Biblically Accurate Haymitch for now 🤍

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like all-fire

(heavily inspired by the sculpture “the kiss” from yves pires)

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i know they had a group chat

art made by @fluorescentbalaclava

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wonderful pair of posts on the dash tonight