T.

Avid reader and hopeless romantic. Biiiig Hunger Games fan and even bigger Josh Hutcherson stan! Welcome to my page! 🫶🏻

[deadroses240]

It’s just me and my annotation kit against the world. One book at a time. Tabbing the hell out of it.

[scribblesisoverhere]

been talking to some dear friends about thg lately and there’s been some discourse on peeta’s character - specifically about how they see him as pathetic because he’s very strong and doesn’t use that power very often. Guys. I believe that’s more or less the point. Peeta has the ability to hurt others and chooses not to, which makes him so very different from everybody else in that world. He chooses kindness even when it’s not ideal. He chooses gentleness in a world that doesn’t promote that behavior. He chooses this form of being good in a society that by all means, says that harshness is key to survival. Sometimes strength is soft.

This isn’t a trait that was written in and forgotten about, by the way. Peeta lashes out. When he finds out in cf that katniss and haymitch have been hiding things from him, he hits a lamp so hard it flies across the room and shatters. The most obvious is when he hurt Katniss badly in mj, even when he was much weaker than normal. He is capable. When he can choose, he chooses not to, almost always.

[heavensbeehall]

I'd also like to talk about Mitchell's death in the books. Because in the movie it seems like the Capitol happened to put this crazy thing there that killed Mitchell, but in the books it is more like "Mitchell was going to die anyway because Peeta yeeted him across the courtyard and then the Capitol made things more dramatic."

he had this ability to kill the whole time but didn't because he didn't want to. (/didn't want them to change him.)

the words katniss uses to describe it are that peeta was "always so powerful". so she is aware of what her man is capable of.

[rosegardeninwinter]

And furthermore, Peeta does use his physical power to do things like, for instance, protect Katniss. He fights Cato (while on tracker jacket venom) shoves Peacekeepers, keeps various mutts away from her in all the books, kills Brutus to try to get to her in the Quell, after, mind, recently having had a heart attack. Not to mention carrying Katniss around when she’s hurt. Like, what more do you want this man to do to “prove” himself? Bomb medics?

[friedobservationdeer]

Snow definitely saw Peeta in himself

Curly blonde hair? Check

Tall? Check

Blue eyes? Check

Knows how to charm people to get what he wants? Check

Is in love with a girl who “swishes around in bright colors” (Katniss’ dress at the parade and the interview). “Who you love” (Because she came here with me) but who doesn’t seem to love you (Katniss kissing Gale when she comes back to twelve)? Check.

This is definitely an interesting idea because it makes the entire series look a bit different. To me Katniss probably reminded him more of Sejanus, but I definitely see the LG similarities.

I mean this dude immediately identified with Haymitch, even though he looks nothing like Snow, so can you imagine how he would react to Peeta, who canonically looks like him?

Do you think Snow genuinely empathized with Peeta when he heard about Gale? Do think he was reminded of Billy Taupe? Do you think he genuinely thought that highjacking Peeta was for his own good?

[katnissmellarkkk]

I genuinely think Snow hijacked Peeta to prove his own corrupt ideals. In his mind, under the “right” circumstances any good person would become bad. Any normal person would kill to save their own life, if they had to. And anyone would have snapped like he did, if they’d been betrayed by Lucy Gray, like he was.

I really think Peeta frustrated Snow, in that on the surface, he was like him. He looked kind of like him (ironically though Haymitch looks more like Snow in the movie version). He is smart and cunning and manipulative and charming. He is in a similar — at least on the surface — situation as he once was, with Gale/Katniss and Lucy Gray/Billy Taupe. Peeta’s even privileged by his district’s standards. And yet, Peeta won’t snap. He somehow maintains his purity of self and his integrity throughout two Hunger Games and in the face of betrayal and heartbreak from the girl he loves. Peeta never stoops down to Snow’s level, never loses his goodness, his kindness, his morality. It’s like old Coryo is looking in a mirror, but the reflection is better than him in every way. And it both fascinates and infuriates him.

So I think hijacking Peeta into killing Katniss / into acting like a monster was for Snow’s own satisfaction, not just to be rid of Katniss but to prove that “under the right circumstances” everyone would snap and become bad. Everyone would do what he did to Lucy Gray.

[thegreenthepeacetheorange]

I think something many readers completely misunderstood when the books first came out, and even now, is that Katniss IS like other girls. She’s not some solitary strong independent woman™ who’s not like the other girls. She very much is the other girls.

She’s shy and vulnerable and judgemental and inexperienced and embarrassed. She loves flowers (dandelions!) and pretty things and fashion and dresses. She would have music and singing in her life more if she wasn’t so traumatised and stunted. She has crushes and she’s very romantic, if we go by her own descriptions of Peeta and what she notices from her parents. She’s metaphorically (and sometimes literally inside her own mind) twirling her hair and kicking her feet and giggling any time she’s around him. She’s such maternal and protective instincts for Prim, Peeta, Rue and countless others throughout the series. She cares for people a lot and she values community and friendship and love. She wants softness, she wants cuddles, she wants her hair played with, she wants to look good, she wants to wear cute and fun things, she wants to be kissed and loved, she wants to go frolicking in fields of dandelions.

She is just like other girls and the tragedy is that she’s never able to fully just be a girl.

[rosegardeninwinter]

YES! YES! YES!

[that-theaven]

I have a headcannon that Peeta's mother (or possibly both parents) is an alcoholic. This is based mainly on how Peeta interacts with Haymitch Abernathy in the books. There's a polite hostility in the first book, which makes me think he's talked with someone with substance abuse. In Catching Fire, he first showed up, making sure Haymitch was eating, giving him fresh baked bread, then the after the Quarter Quell was announced, he berated both Katniss and Haymitch for drinking and tells him that he had gone to Ripper to stop selling moonshine to him. The fact Peeta called Ripper by name tells me that he's been in her acquaintance in the Hob before, which makes Katniss nerves about taking Peeta to the Hob because a good boy from the market district will get eaten alive there, kinda hilarious.

[aurora-sadprose]

something so poetic about maysilee saying if she escapes the Capitol she’ll give her mockingjay pin another chance. Little did she know, Capitol and Snow would get what they deserved and she and her pin would be part of it all. Goodbye, Maysilee Donner. You were part of the fire that melted the snow.

[ashstfu]

i don’t think people understand how much of life is grief. not just people dying, but losing the version of yourself you thought you’d become. grieving the city you had to leave. the friends you lost not in argument, but in silence. the summer that will never come back. the feeling that maybe you peaked at 12 when you were reading books under the covers and believing in forever

[rosegardeninwinter]

“because he loves Peeta too” is the only line ever because it tells us, with the plainest read of the text, that Haymitch loves Peeta just as Katniss loves Peeta; so Katniss admits she loves Peeta here; and, read another way, I think it also tells us that Haymitch loves Katniss, and he loves Peeta too

and Katniss knows they are loved by Haymitch (she articulates it more later, but the fact that she reaches for his comfort also speaks volumes), which is just … a whole thing …

and he’s there for his sweetheart, immediately, and they’re united in their grief over Peeta, even as everyone else is fretting about how they’ve lost their propaganda piece

he didn’t want to let them in and this is why — and he does know what she’s feeling, more than she can handle hearing right now, not only because of his past, but because he too is watching Peeta’s decline, and Katniss’s decline because of it … so he just tells her he knows, and he holds her

this messed up little family has my heart

[rosegardeninwinter]

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

[deadroses240]

*contains spoilers*

SOTR- Epilogue

Did Haymitch… die? when he envisioned telling Lenore he “loves her like all-fire”? Or did I make myself sob uncontrollably for nothing. Lol

(I know he mentions how his time was probably coming because he destroyed his liver, but something about it… I was like OH GOD NO)

[katnissmellarkkk]

saw this days ago but I wasn’t there yet… just got to ampert’s death. brb losing my mind.

[rosegardeninwinter]

you’re telling her the horrific loss of her sister ruined your chances of dating her I am planting her primroses to memorialize her sister with no expectations of a relationship we are NOT the same

[katnissmellarkkk]

i just realized “embrace the probability of your imminent death” is a wyatt callow reference

[katnissmellarkkk]

so anyways katniss definitely is the one who sang the old therebefore at burdock’s funeral and she will again be the one who sings it at haymitch’s one day.

[virtualtoybox]

You know Queen somehow I don’t think Finnick thinks your botoy is the most specialest guy in the whole world. I don’t think that’s what he meant.

[rosegardeninwinter]

you know, before I would have dismissed that little thing about “Haymitch and I” as Katniss projecting her personal attachment to Peeta onto Haymitch and also just assuming it’s a universal thing to love Peeta, but now … honestly Haymitch probably does think that of Peeta … does Mr. Mellark know he’s carrying the weight of the goose family’s mental health? and he’s arguably the least mentally healthy of all of them???

[virtualtoybox]

crying cuz not only is this true but like. the last line specially is sooo. Peetas self esteem compared to how katniss and haymitch view him is something that makes me feel crazy. they both very genunely feel peeta is the best of them while peeta has been trying to grapple with the fact that (in his mind) he completely disposable going into the 74th hunger games and ultimately the most desvering of his fate going into the 75th hyunger games- ive said this in another post but the way peeta wearing the locket into the area as his pseudo suicide note is so crazy making... in this token lies all the evidence that you deserve to live, and all the evidence that i deserve to die instead. not to mention the deeply traumatizing events of mockingjay that result in him thinking of hijmself as a capitol mutt (and leaving him with pervasive psychosis that makes him question both reality and the love of the person he cares for most. lol. lmao even.)

[rosegardeninwinter]

the way both Katniss and Haymitch use the phrase “Peeta says” as a byword to the audience that something is true is CRAZY of Suzanne

“source? well Peeta said it so”

I guess that means Peeta’s therapy has been very successful because at one point Peeta didn’t even know what Peeta was saying

[rosegardeninwinter]

you know what, after chatting with @katnissmellarkkk … I think I take it back: Peeta actually probably is the most mentally healthy of the bunch … and he’s probably aware of it too 😬

[katnissmellarkkk]

okay! so I saw this on twitter and omg does it resonate with me. this is where I struggle with sunrise on the reaping haymitch versus the original trilogy haymitch. not because it’s so unbelievable that haymitch becomes mean and cruel, it’s actually very realistic, but it saddens me so much because after reading how kind and wonderful he was as a teen, the fact that katniss and peeta will never ever experience this side of him is heartbreaking. like he loves them more than anything, he’s only alive because of them by the end, they’re his entire family, and yet he’ll still never be the sweet boy who wanted to protect all the little kids in the arena, bought his girlfriend a book of old poems because he knew she’d love them and a million other things. like this is what I’ve struggled to reconcile since reading sunrise. haymitch was so genuinely wonderful as a person but his trauma did not make him kind, it made him borderline abusive, and that is just who he is now.

and yes, the films sure did soften him up. but i’m talking about book haymitch only, who said cruel things, made fun of katniss at the worst times in her life, told her she didn’t deserve peeta because she took less than an hour to plead for his life over hers, threatened to implant a device in her brain like lou lou’s and punched peeta in the jaw so hard he fell out of his chair. like i adore haymitch, now more than ever, but it actually depresses me so much that katniss and peeta will never know the man he could have been, and the person he was, even though he loves them with all his heart.

also if these twitter users who I screenshot see this, credit to y’all, I totally agree.

[katnissmellarkkk]

“Can you imagine [the sun] rising on a world without the reaping?”