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I like how Beetee is very considerate of Mags's height and age and then there's Finnick

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It's a dark windy day and I am inserting odesta into my life bc I have #freewill !

Picturing them cuddled up together with their baby somewhere near the sea,,, they brought plenty of blankets and Finnick carries around their gigantic baby bag and pushes the stroller because he wants Annie to walk in front of him. Headcannoning that Annie walks super slowly because every time she sees a bug/flower/rock that interests her she has to stop and appreciate it for a bit. Other people get tired of it but both of them adore how much slower their lives are now. When Annie doesn't have to take care of anything outside their paces equal out too, so they're basically walking at the same speed. And if Finnick slows down a little to walk slightly behind her #loveshiswife and blames it on the baby that doesn't hurt either.

I think they love to go out at the ass-crack of dawn, too. Annie will try to identify every bird-call she hears while Finnick does super poor impressions of them, claiming "I'm just helping you identify them, love". And yeah he mostly does it because he's addicted to making her laugh, but it works so what's the harm? Annie makes sure to gather all the flowers that have been ripped from the soil one way or another and brings them home to be dried. I think she turns them into powders, then paints, and sells them on the side. Once they tried painting each other after dinner, with all the house lights off and their windows open to let the salty breeze through, but neither of them were very good at it. Finnick helps her muddle the pigments because her hands ache after too long, so instead she plays with the baby or pesters Finnick to go faster faster faster and loses it when he acts like he's in the paint-making Olympics. Because he would never act sane again if it put even the smallest smile on her face. Because they're disgustingly in love.

I think she puts the baby to bed at night while Finnick washes dishes but he'll wake up in the middle of the night to coo and coddle him until he falls back asleep. And when they finally have time (just the two of them) together at night I think they shut all the windows and cuddle up so closely under their blankets they can hear each other's hearts beat. It's started out innocently after they had sex one night, with Annie saying her heart only beats for him. And Finnick teases her about it, saying he sure hopes so. But then that night he couldn't stop thinking about Peeta's heart stopping in the arena and from then-on hearing the steady lub-dub lub-dub became really comforting. Because if her heart is beating then his is, too.

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The overwhelming need to mourn who movie Peeta could have been... They took our beautiful, persistent, clever pillar of a character - endlessly suffering but unflinchingly the primary fuel for the revolution's success - and turned him into a shell of who he is. No amputation! Stripped of his charismatic potential and strategically preserved strength!! Remember what they took from us !!!

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I constantly think about the details of Lucy Gray's song towards Billy Taupe. The line "You went to the dogs and I lived by my charms" is definitely up to interpretation (I think it's simply her alluding to being an above-board entertainer but that's a discussion for another day) but the 3rd verse really gets me. Specifically the lines;

"Well alright I'm bad but then you're no prize either. // Alright I'm bad but then that's nothing new."

This could simply be her referencing how she encouraged Billy Taupe to steal, but it's framed as a response to a direct accusation in my opinion. The verse before suggests it too, saying "Then one day you left saying I was no good". I think Billy Taupe felt manipulated by her when their luck started running out, so he turned away from the Covey in favour of more lawful company. It feels like a situation of him getting back at his loud, opinionated girlfriend by siding with the more powerful, secure people of District 12. We know that the Covey were outsiders of District 12 and that they only ended up there permanently because of how their cards were laid out. And then to punish her he helps rig the reaping against her, and we start to see a lot of parallels between him and Coriolanus. Both act as love interests who were initially drawn in by what Lucy Gray had to offer them. For Coriolanus it was control and a sense of supremacy, while for Billy Taupe it was security. And of course she provided them both with entertainment.

Lucy Gray's role as an entertainer, however, is ultimately what prevents both Coriolanus and Billy Taupe from being secure in their relationships. Through both of their songs she frames their love as being for what she provides instead of for her.

"So who will you turn to tomorrow, I wonder? // For when the bell rings, lover, you're on your own."

"Cold and clean, swirling over my skin, you cloak me. // You soak right in, down to my heart."

Even though the songs themselves are completely different, both highlight just how aware Lucy Gray is of the dynamics in their relationships. Having moved on from Billy Taupe she promptly realizes how Coriolanus is keen to sanitize her image and support her as long as her can profit from her actions. Then finally, because her song to Snow is a love song, we get to the punchline;

"It's why I need you – you're pure as the driven snow."

This line means a lot to me and I think it should mean a lot to you, too. Driven snow refers to any snow that has been carried by the wind without previously being frozen. Superficially, this is the purest snow, being the snow that lands on top with few contaminants (You know what I'm getting at here...). In my eyes though this refers to Coriolanus' precarious social status after the Games that drives him to District 12 as punishment. The line is borderline satirical, because how pure could Snow be if he has been pushed to the most disparaged region of the country? Surely not pure at all.

Snow's drive to be powerful impacts Lucy Gray's appearance because he refuses to present himself as an ally to anyone who contaminates the Capitol, even in the thick of people who vehemently oppose everything it stands for. Lucy Gray needs Snow to make her palatable, which he does readily as a self-assigned agent of the Capitol. Her willingness to be sanitized, at least publicly, makes her trustworthy to him in turn. It's only when their future plans are driven away from the Capitol, when she fantasizes about their life outside the system, that Snow realizes Lucy Gray is only an asset to him in the specific scenario of the Games. There she is molded as a reflection of his most desired qualities. Tenacious. Charismatic. Boundless. Without the power structures of the Capitol Snow is forced to acknowledge that Lucy Gray is what destabilizes his control. She is the wind that drives him away from the life he dreams of, sending him higher into the sky at times but ultimately towards the ground.

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Peeta's dad must have the biggest heart because how else would he grow up so empathetic with his evil mother and the violence around him ??? I just know Otho Mellark was putting in the Work !

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It's always bothered me that Plutarch calls the videos they film in District 13 "propos". It suggests an intrinsic belief that what they're sharing and talking about isn't entirely truthful. Maybe it's the only term he knows, growing up in the Capitol where they were actually spreading propaganda constantly. But I think that's dismissive. I imagine Finnick being convinced to propagandize his recounts of sexual abuse and it just feels wrong. From the beginning Plutarch has profited off of every interaction he has under the guise of support. We see this goes back to his introduction in SOTR, where he attempts to capitalize off of Haymitch's family during the reaping. It plays in so much to Plutarch's character, as a man who uses the techniques of the Capitol against it, yet thereby retains the exploitative impacts on the people he's supposedly trying to protect.

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Thinking about how THG series portrays isolation. Lucy Gray caged in the zoo, Haymitch at the Victory party, and Katniss having to jump back over the electrified fence in District 12. Even Peeta captured after the 75th Games counts.

I keep thinking about how all of them include oversteps from Capitol, too. Snow literally forcing himself into the zoo, Capitol citizens feeding Haymitch like he's hired entertainment. Guards immediately being at Katniss' house after electrifying the fence and torturing Peeta to be unrecognizable. It gets more and more extreme as the years go by.

And then there's the scene in Mockingjay where Gale and Katniss are allowed to hunt without direct supervision. How they've made it to District 13, but are still being tracked and observed under the guise of generosity. Coin puts so much effort into persuading Katniss to be the face of their rebellion by using her desire for peace as a technique for control. At face value District 13 is very different, but it's harder to put your finger on what's the same. Katniss knows because there's proof of it on her leg. The need to profit off of people's proximity while continuing to trap them.

And then Coin proposes one final Games. So out of left field that suddenly Katniss is the one inside the zoo, feeding caged children, electrifying the fence. She's the one torturing Peeta. Because Katniss knows that it starts small, distinguishing between Us and Them.

It's only through their lived histories of isolation that we get to the epilogue. Where we move past isolating children as embarrassment, torture, control and even revenge. Upon actualizing the truth- that separation doesn't create unity - we finally get isolation as peace.

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"The air’s warm with hopeful hints of spring in it. Spring would be a good time for an uprising, I think. Everyone feels less vulnerable once winter passes."

Struck by this passage from CF where Katniss casually connects hope and spring (two things she associates with Peeta) with rebellion (which she associates with Gale). Though she's not conscious of it at the time, she's starting to break down her black and white thinking on these themes and about the people she believes embody them. Yes, hope is something soft, driving out darkness and despair. But ALSO, it's hope that inspires rebellion and everything harsh and bloody that comes with it. And yes, spring is warmth and new life, driving out the cold and death of winter. But ALSO spring breathes life into the world only by destroying the snow and ice of winter. Melting it. Lighting it on fire.

And Peeta, too, has dark and light and everything in between. That's why it's so fitting that this is the last time Katniss thinks about hope and springtime before Peeta descends into hardass coach mode before the Quell. Before he reminds her that hope has hard edges and that springtime isn't as innocent as it looks.

Spring would be a good time for an uprising, wouldn't it?

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Listening to THG soundtrack as one does and I got to Yellow Flicker Beat:

"We're at the start, the colours disappear

I never watch the stars, there's so much down here"

And suddenly all I can think about is Haymitch coming back from winning his Games, forced to give up everyone who brought colour to his life. How he never wanted to risk watching the stars again, never wanted to open his heart in fear of losing more people he loved. How, without Sid and Lenore Dove's love for the sky - without the idealism they brought, all he had left was the reality that drained that colour. How his dedication to the rebellion, to everything down here, is a dedication to sunrise - to the idea that maybe that colour can finally return even though they can't.

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// SOTR Spoilers

I keep thinking about Haymitch, Wellie and Silka around the tree at the end of the Games. I would give anything to know what went through Silka's mind when Haymitch dropped that chocolate. Surely her first thought was that they were trying to ambush her and her luck had run out. But when she found out it was a treat did she think it was a mistake? We know she's overcome by the reality of the Games, but we also hear that she stops crying. I can only think about her sitting there, mind swarming with all the violence and ill-will she was raised with as a Career. It must've been jarring to see that all the propaganda she was taught didn't peak when it should've. I wonder what happened to her between that night and the day after when she kills Wellie. It's such an interesting contrast because they go from one of the kindest actions in the book to the most cruel one.

Do you think she was mad at them for having sympathy? I imagine the Careers watch the Games every year and that a lot of them are disgusted when their District representatives die. Because surely there were other Games, before Katniss and Peeta's, where moments like Rue getting buried in flowers made the final cut. I think about her talking about their strategies with her friends, promising herself to never get caught up in the temporary kindnesses and alliances she saw on TV. Because kindness doesn't make you strong.

I think the reason Silka stops crying is because she thinks she's remembered who the enemy is. But growing up closest to the Capitol has left her too brainwashed. To the point where the enemy can't be the Capitol itself. It's not the strength she spent years building to support it, or the riches they've always dangled in front of her, tauntingly. It's those kids she saw on TV making the Games into something they never intended them to be. It's a girl starving to death in a tree, and a boy risking his life to make her last moments more bearable. It's a single ball of chocolate from someone who has nothing left to give.

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but she was smarter than me, or luckier. she's the one who finally kept that sun from rising.

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Odesta makes me crazy because what do you have left once you've lost jurisdiction over your mind and your body? What is there left to do when all that remains is your soul? In my mind they're so connected that Finnick's sexual exploitation and Annie's post-traumatic stress disorder (manifested as insanity) are equally weighing on each other's bodies and minds.

It's heartbreaking to think about. I picture Annie watching Finnick return from the Capitol every year and seeing his facade crack, desperate to share the relative safety she feels in her body with him despite it being all she has left, because by this point his prostitution surely contributes to her insanity, too. I think about Finnick watching Annie struggle to cling to reality and knowing it could be worse, would be worse if she was exploited - knowing deep down that his love for her manifests as defense but also keeps him exploited.

What I'm trying to say is that Suzanne does such a good job showing how love traps us but also sets us free. It trapped Peeta and Katniss both inside the arena and in District 12. It trapped them within the rebellion, and when you put it like that maybe the point is that when there's nothing left other than your soul, you have to cling to that soul. Nothing you can take was ever worth keeping because the soul they leave behind keeps their fight alive. It totally transforms the idea of soulmates, as people who weave themselves into the fabric of each other's lives not to borrow what's been taken away from them (whether that be kindness or autonomy or sanity or love), but to strengthen what they already share. Fire.

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// SOTR spoilers

Something something Wyatt Callow presented as oblivious to announcing people's odds of survival being received poorly, Wyatt Callow's dismissal that "Pack members have better odds" while saying friends are at the top of his list in the arena, Wyatt Callow determiner of odds in a family that completely lacks honour, Wyatt Callow working it over and doing the math and sacrificing his life for little LouLou who he himself knows had no chance - because even knowing the odds, his mission went beyond saving his own life. Something about knowledge and strategy and ruthlessness being marketed as the driving force of the Games, but even after decades of being established it still can't replace the ingrained compassion of children raised in a world that shows them no love back. Something about love for others as his final poster.

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I like to think the Morphling from Catching Fire who sacrificed herself for Peeta was part of the rebel plan. I like to think that Peeta describing painting to them was his way of letting them glimpse the future - to see the world full of colour they would ultimately miss, but yearned for enough they would die trying to reach it.

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//SOTR Spoilers

Sometimes I think about Wiress being one of the brightest minds to ever win the Games, refusing to participate in the violence they breed because she could depend on her intelligence instead. How she wanted to take her intelligence and make something of it by ending the Capitol's oppression during the 50th Games. I think about her being at most 19 years old when their plan to flood the arena fails and is completely cut out as a propaganda measure, but they still torture her to insanity as punishment.

I think about how 25 years later they punish her again by reaping her. And despite being tortured to remove that one thing separating her from the violence, that spark and clarity still finds a way to shine through with the forcefield. How despite figuring out the arena shes called a nut the whole time, re-traumatized but still fighting for the cause that put her in her predicament all those years ago. Her death legitimately haunts me, dismissed as insane and on the brink of escape, only to be doomed in a situation I'm sure she predicted from a mile away. Wiress, without a lick of violence, can be described as nothing if not a fighter.

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I can't stop thinking about the scene in Mockingjay where Finnick is the only one who stops Katniss from shooting Peeta when he's suddenly added to the expedition group. Do you think all he saw in that moment was Annie, scared and isolated and confused when he looked at Peeta? Do you think he went home to her every year after the Games, lost in the fog, and saw that same empty look in her eyes?