There Are A Lot Of Posts Comparing Peeta To Lucy Gray's Kindness And Charm And How That Similarity Torments

Broke: "Katniss was only with Peeta because of their shared trauma of the Games and the events that followed. After what they went through together, there was no one who truly understood her like Peeta. But if Prim and Peeta had never been reaped, Katniss would have ended up with Gale/stayed single."

Woke: "The Games and the events that followed brought Katniss and Peeta together, but there was something special between them since the day with the bread. Katniss had a subconscious interest in him since they were 11, and after the reaping she couldn't help but fall for him due to their close proximity. The Games weren't her reason for choosing Peeta, but they were a catalyst for their relationship."

Bespoke: "The Games did more to hinder Katniss and Peeta's relationship than to help it. In fact, without the Games to complicate things, Katniss would have fallen for Peeta fast and hard. The Games and the events that followed were responsible for countless barriers to their love including (but not limited to):

1. Instilling in Katniss a distrust of Peeta that did not come naturally to her

2. Forcing her to act in love, regardless of the authenticity of her feelings, in order to survive

3. Broadcasting every moment they shared, no matter how intimate/private, onto every screen in every house in the country

4. Driving them apart due to the pain and confusion that followed the inevitable end of her "star-crossed lovers" act

5. Making their relationship a political tool of manipulation and oppression

6. Leading Snow to hold Katniss personally responsible for defusing the civil unrest within the Districts by means of their love story

7. Forcing them under threat of death to act in love for the rest of their lives, thereby taking away their agency and ability to choose each other out of real love or desire

8. Robbing them of a future together, even if they wanted it, by returning Katniss to the Games and ensuring the death of at least one of them

9. Traumatizing them in ways they'll have to deal with for the remainder of their lives

10. So many other things

The Hunger Games is NOT the story of how Katniss fell in love with Peeta due to or even during the Games. It's the story of how Katniss fell in love with Peeta IN SPITE OF THEM."

If anyone needs a new reason to cry over these two today, just remember that the modern-era Will of the TV adaptation took this photo of the Tower of the Angels on the day he and Lyra first met. Meaning that he’s got a photo of Lyra that he probably doesn’t even remember taking, and on some uneventful, monotonous day when he’s back home and absently flicking through his phone he’ll find it. He was in a rush to catch up with her, he remembers, so it’s not a very good photo - a little blurred, taken at an odd angle. Lyra’s not even the focus of the picture; she’s turned away from him, her face completely hidden, Pan almost cut out of the frame entirely. But it’s unmistakably her.

The first time he stumbles across it, Will can hardly bear to look at it. But he keeps the photo always, makes multiple digital and physical copies just in case. Sometimes it hurts to look at. Sometimes it brings him comfort. He takes a copy to Mary Malone and she tacks it up on her laboratory wall. On one of the less painful days he shows it to his mother and laughs as he tells her the story of how she attacked him when they first met.

And on more than one Midsummer’s Day he takes it with him to the Botanic Garden.

yep, still me, still hung up on the timebomb tragedy, especially Ekko's part of it.

they are both shattered by what happened in their lives, both incredibly hurt, but, as I see it...

just imagine it went like this:

where Jinx thinks she decides to become Jinx, embody that insane, dangerous, devil-may-care explosive persona - all of it just to try and keep herself from breaking completely; just to try and give back to Silco who she saw as a father, as someone who didn't get scared by her pain, rage and voices (all the while not being a particularly good influence on her), just to not be Powder, the weak one, the outcast one, the clingy one -

to finally own and channel the jinx she came to see herself as -

Jinx got to swim in all the darkness she had within herself, drown in it, and flood the Lanes with it, free, destructive, and openly poisonous.

Jinx. The insane one. The killer one. The Loose Cannon.

- and Ekko never allowed himself to do that. he choked on his pain, swallowed it, allowed it to seep into his very bones. endured. built. provided for his community. resisted, repressed, redirected all the evil he knew in himself.

he couldn't afford to break. no. too much to lose, nothing to lose, no one to really talk to about what is eating him alive.

because how do you talk about missing your childhood friend-turned maniac... and actually missing the maniac that wore the face of Powder? who do you talk to?

how can you explain, even to yourself, that the people around you are not enough and you are longing for a connection long severed?

how can you say to your community that relies on you that you are actually a horrible hypocritical person who hates everything and sometimes everyone? who has to spend hours reminding himself that Powder is gone and Jinx is a monster and needs to be dealt with?

who enjoys fighting her? (it is exhilarating and freeing, and being in her orbit makes it okay for him to be a little insane and cruel, too - no one will notice,

Jinx outshines everyone).

Ekko knows it about himself, and hates it about himself, and has to be strong, to atone for the treacherous thoughts of missing Jinx, and not Powder, and pay for it with even more work.

say nothing, show nothing,

they all rely on you, you cannot let them down.

you cannot let them know how corrupted you are,

Boy Saviour.

outrageous.

can relate.

heartbreaking. you have to write the fic youre writing in order for it to be written

i really hate when people dismiss the ending of his dark materials because it leans into the trope "love saves the world". truly, that is what the story is about, but reducing it to a cliché is doing a disservice to the point the story is making. when it says that love says the world, it's rewriting the meaning of sin by saying that giving into desire is not shameful. it's telling us to be brave enough to experience. it's saying that dying for love can have powerful impact, but living for it is much more romantic. it's saying that storytelling saves the world, because telling stories is a language of love. it's saying that the bonds we create with other people will outlast death as long as we share our memories. it's showing how a simple childhood friendship is extraordinary enough to change the course of a war between heaven and earth. is there a better way to end a trilogy that intertwines so many paths of love than with a kiss that shifts the fabric of multiple universes?

It's the smallest thing maybe but it's funny to me Sunrise on the Reaping has given me another reason to dislike Gale.

Thinking of Madge on reaping day, wearing her nice dress and Gale giving her shit for it. Like she has a choice. Like she has say. Like it's her fault who she was born to. It's such an interesting example of class vs culture wars. This idea that the people up the road who have a nice house are the enemy and not the faceless people thousands of miles away who profit on their poverty.

Thinking of Maysilee who was very conscious of the way she dressed. Who liked looking nice and dressing up. Who is Madge's aunt that she never met. Who Madge heard stories of growing up about her moms twin sister who always loved fashion and knew the importance of masking and the power of how you present to people. Don't let them treat us like animals.

And when Madge lifts her head and says "I want to look my best if I go to the Capitol" and Gale has the audacity to scoff at her.

It also speaks to how quickly history is lost. He probably doesn't even know her aunt died in the games. Doesn't care. You never ever ever know what hurt people are carrying. What their history is. What their familial struggle has been. Don't punch down. Don't punch sideways. Don't even punch up. Break the chain and destroy the person holding the reins.

Darker times will come and go

Times you need to see her smile

And mothers' hearts are warm and mild

I would rather feel this world through the skin of a child

—AURORA; Through the Eyes of a Child

once the quell starts, every kiss between katniss and peeta is so soft and natural. a light kiss before parting for the quell (cf, 75). another one as a greeting in the arena (cf, 77).

and, like almost everything katniss and peeta do in the quell arena, it is reminiscent of a married couple. two people who know each other so intimately and deeply that kisses and affection become a part of their routine.

and after the intensity of the beach scene, their relationship takes on a new softness, returning to that married-stage with a new reverence.

and so when katniss takes peeta's face in her hands and kisses him before they split up at the end of the quell, it parallels the kisses that peeta gave to her before the quell began (cf, 105). the ones that acted as a reassurance that they would see each other soon. the ones that promised reunion.

but, of course, the rebellion had other plans. and katniss and peeta never did get a reunion kiss. 

and so, at the beginning of mockingjay, katniss is left sitting on her bed. rocking her body as she rolls the pearl between her lips. still waiting for her reunion kiss. weeks later. trying to sooth herself with the memory of peeta (mj, 32).

and that is what makes it even more tragic when katniss runs to kiss peeta after his arrival in district thirteen. because it seems like she will finally get the reunion that she has been waiting for. the one started with the kiss under the lightning tree that begged to be resolved (mj, 152).

but it didn't resolve. because her peeta doesn't show up. and instead of a soft kiss, she get bruises.

so, she is still left holding onto the pearl, trying to remember the boy with the bread (mj, 168). the one that she feels is so far away from her. the one still in snow's grasp.

and katniss gives up. she wants nothing to do with the stranger that bares her beloved's face. 

but when it truly seems like she might lose her precious boy with the bread forever in the winding capitol tunnels, she leans down and kisses him fully (mj, 267). 

and this kiss is not like everlark's soft, routine kisses. or their empassioned kisses like the beach scene.

instead, the kiss hidden deep in the capitol tunnels is one that solidifies the two lovers together. one that is begging him to stay with her. one that is pleading for him to not let snow take him away for good.

it is a kiss meant to remind peeta of who he is. and who katniss is. and who they are. a kiss that is meant to say everything that they don't have time for. 

a kiss that signals an ultimate, long-awaited reunion.

Some time after

She remembered that excruciating feeling, that devastating day in the mulefa world when Xaphania told them about their fate.

It felt as if the universe collapsed around and into her, merciless and suffocating.

They were to live their whole lives without each other, long and supposed-to-be-meaningful lives without the only person in the universe who could understand them fully.

It felt like being gutted.

Lyra smiled distractedly, caressing the old bench she lounged on.

When she was fourteen, she didn't understand that the universe had robbed Will and her of much more than loving each other openly, or kisses, or romance.

She didn't know then that loving an idea of a person was quite easy.

She couldn't imagine that she would mourn extremely mundane things.

Something everyone else got to experience every day with their loved ones.

Lyra longed to know if Will snored. Or, if he did, whether she would complain about it to him every morning. She wanted to burn his coffee at least once, to do renovations and bicker about wallpaper colours. She wanted to buy things together, read together, steal food from his plate and sip from his cup. To fight about... about something, anything, and then make up, and kiss his brow. To not be forced to replay his every touch from memory, because there wouldn't be need for that. Lyra wanted to whisper Will's name to wake him up, to warm up her feet against his scorching skin. To never let him work, to parade him around and sneak away to dark hallways to kiss, giggling.

She longed to have a life with him. Just this domestic life, so sweet your teeth start rotting at a mere thought of it.

But no, of course not.

They would never have that with each other. The fate made sure of that.

Lyra gripped the edge of the bench tighter and felt, with a grim satisfaction, a splinter lodging itself deep in her palm.

Her eyes burned. She bit her lip so hard she could taste blood, and exhaled shakily.

Envy, anger and pain were swirling in her chest like poisoned water.

Why her? Why Will?

They gave everything, why did they have to give up each other?

That Midsummer Day the loss of him hurt different.

Perhaps, the deepest.

Because she didn't lose his love. Lyra knew she couldn't possibly lose it.

She lost all the ordinary days she could have spent by his side.

Somehow it was even worse.

Season 3 has been a wild ride so far and we are all just holding on for dear life. 

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