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do you guys think the night after katniss (and peeta) won by using the berries and therefore rebelling/outsmarting the capitol, asterid was scared for her and prim? do you think she stayed up all night and made sure there were no ashes in the fireplace? do you think she watched prim and refused to let her out of her sight? remembering sid and willamae abernathy and their horrible, horrible fate and knowing, if president snow decided to hand down that same destiny, she and her child would be powerless to escape.

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The thing that kinda makes me a bit mad about some people in the fandom erasing Peeta from the victors and the rebellion is that Suzanne Collins gave him first, before anyone else, the line that, I would argue, is the thesis of the entire series. You know that one:

“I don’t know how to say it exactly. Only…I want to die as myself. Does that make any sense?” he asks. I shake my head. How could he die as anyone but himself? “I don’t want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster that I’m not.”

[...]

“No, when the time comes, I’m sure I’ll kill just like everybody else. I can’t go down without a fight. Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to…to show the Capitol they don’t own me. That I’m more than just a piece in their Games,” says Peeta.

Like... This is Haymitch's whole reasoning in Sunrise, that's the point of Lucy Gray's song: Nothing you can take, that's why Katniss decides Rue should be buried in flowers, that's why she and Peeta do the berries stunt , that's why the victors hold hands in catching fire and that why Katniss directly quote him in district 2 in Mockingjay.

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ATLAS! HOW DARE YOU!? 😡 SHE IS PRECIOUS!

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once again on the “justice for book everlark” warpath because people who only watched the movies don’t get any of the give and take in the cave: and not just the give and take of humor and flirtation and human connection, but film-only or film-mostly fans genuinely were led to believe that Katniss spent the whole time in the arena post alliance tending to a helpless, hapless Peeta and ✨ trying to survive ✨ (🙄 failing to specify how exactly she’s prioritizing her own survival by taking on the care of a wounded boy she doesn’t need to hitch herself to) when in the book there’s a big chunk of time where Katniss is wounded and Peeta bandages her wounds, watches over her, feeds her, rubs her feet, speaks words of comfort, tucks her in, holds her while she sleeps and guards her … like??? don’t make him out to be a burden to her! she wanted to save him, and once she did, he took care of her too 🥲

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theres a distinct difference between Katniss’s and Haymitch’s narration style that i think a lot of other people are noticing and it is that haymitch seems to know a lot more about District 12 and Panem than Katniss seemed to. and SotR might seem like lore dropping or name dropping but like. i think it says a lot about them as people.

I think the lack of context we get from Katniss isnt just due to propaganda, but largely due to the fact that she’s so deeply rooted in poverty and survival mode that she simply doesn’t have the mental capacity for anything else. When traumatized, our brains automatically retain less information than they ordinarily would and we see that with Katniss. Not for friends, or school, nor propagandized television lore. Notice how we get descriptions of most tributes before she remembers their names, if she ever does, while Haymitch actually remembers a lot of their names right off the bat. When you’re fighting for your life every day, it really doesn’t leave much energy for anything else. She’s used to saving all of her energy for providing for her family.

But Haymitch isn’t providing for his family. He has several friends, a healthy romantic relationship, and retains information about society because hes not neglected.

It’s just so interesting that Katniss is the luckier of the pair because in their childhood parallels, she drew the short stick compared to him. She’s only luckier cuz she had him.

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call it unrealistic all you want but Coriolanus, Haymitch and Katniss never getting over the first person they fell in love with is so funny to me like they met exactly one (1) sassy, free-spirited, artistic diva and that was it for the rest of time

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Sunrise on the Reaping changes the whole game. Suddenly, Katniss isn't the chosen one anymore, or the only person who can make the capital pay for what they have done. She's just a girl with a long list of grievances, coming from a long line of people with even longer lists who have been trying to make them pay for years.

She finds her victory standing on the backs of hundreds or thousands of people who came before her. All pushing for the same goal, all guided by the same anger and grief and the need to go out on their own terms. The same things that caused Katniss to reach for the poisoned berries for her and Peeta in the first place.

When Katniss gives her "fire is catching" it echos the same purpose the districts have had for centuries; honour the dead, make the capitol take responsibility: Sejanus with the breadcrumbs, Reaper; who covered his dead with the capitol flag, Haymitch running with Louella to make Snow face what he'd done, Haymitch running again with Lou Lou, Katniss covering Rue in flowers, Peeta painting a mural of her for the gamemakers, so when the last stand finally comes she has all of her living allies behind her, but not only that. It's like Haymitch said: "Those 31 allies I boasted of to the head game maker? I can feel every one of them at my back"

She has every person who suffered at the hands of the capital, every person who was abused, every person who was reaped too soon, every person who died, standing at her back and in the end I think that's what gave her the strength to finish the fight.

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I need Suzanne Collin’s to rewrite the hunger games but from haymitch’s perspective and it’s just him panicking because KATNISS THAT IS REBELLION THEYRE GOING TO KILL YOU and him remembering all of his people and seeing Rue and remembering his sweetheart and his doves and fUCK YOU I just know he was going thrOUGH it with these kids. He saw the berries and he had two thoughts. 1. THE REBELLION IS BACK ON and 2. Oh god they’re going to die snow is going to kill them oh god I need to fix this they’re going to be killed he’s going to burn Astrid’s house down and kill hwr and primrose and burdocks girl is going to die and it’ll be my fault FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

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Lucy Gray, Haymitch, and Katniss all being reaped in unconventional ways and each being the 'Mockingjays' of their generation is everything to me because they were never supposed to be tributes - let alone victors - just like mockingjays were never supposed to exist.

Peeta - the only one of the four to be reaped conventionally - is their jabberjay. Not just because of his way with words, but because the Capitol tried to make him into their weapon just like they did with the birds, and they failed.

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YOUNG MAN!

There's no need to feel down,

I MEAN YOUNG THEY!

I forgot your pronoun,

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Laurence Rickard hosting the 2023 Freelancer Awards [x]

2023

This year we broke all records with a staggering 30,000+ votes. The Honourable Society of The Middle Temple was location for our Summer event, in-person and outside! It exceeded all of our expectations. ‍ SFA/23 Theme: Midnight in Paris ‍ SFA/22 Host: Laurence Rickard

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snow's characterization is so interesting because like. he's the president of a fascist government. in theory he has better things to do. but he's obsessed with poisoning teenagers and their loved ones. and this would make absolutely no sense if it weren't for tbosas, when we learn that (1) he has a past to get hung up on and (2) he's absolutely the kind of guy who laser focuses on ruining one person's life even when it doesn't matter all that much

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“I just stare into those burning blue eyes, letting her know she’s not dying alone. She’s with family. She’s with me. In her last moments, she released her grip enough to lock her pinkie around mine. Looking, I think, for a final confirmation of the promise we made to eachother. I not so she knows I understand and that I will try my best to bring the Capitol down, although I have never felt so powerless in my entire life.” (SOTR 307)

In the end, he does fulfils his promise. To Maysilee. To Ampert. And to Lenore Dove.

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Thinking about how Wyatt Callow is proof that Dr. Gaul’s and Snow’s assertion that humanity’s essential nature is violent (which is part of their argument for the Capitol’s control being necessary) is false. That “What happened in the arena? That’s humanity undressed… A boy with a club who beats another boy to death. That’s mankind in its natural state.” is false.

I’m sure he had it all calculated. He knew exactly what choices would give him the best odds of survival. He knew that the faster he got out of the initial bloodshed the better his chances would be. He knew that letting other kids die would benefit his odds of survival. He knew exactly what he should’ve done to preserve himself.

And yet, he threw all those statistics and odds, all that reason and logic out the window in the name of protecting Lou Lou, a girl that wasn’t even from his district. He threw it all out the window in the name of helping another human being that was in an unfair situation and had worse odds than him. He knew who the real enemy was; he knew it wasn’t the other kids being taken advantage of by the Capitol just like him.

That is humanity.

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I think that Peeta was onto something about us destroying one another and letting some decent species take over. Because something is significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its children’s lives to settle its differences. You can spin it any way you like. Snow thought the Hunger Games were an efficient means of control. Coin thought the parachutes would expedite the war. But in the end, who does it benefit? No one. The truth is, it benefits no one to live in a world where these things happen.

this quote is very seldomly mentioned but to me it’s one of the most significant of the whole series. in my opinion, this right here is katniss’ overall takeaway of the whole series.

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an absolute fuckton of people at pride rn