I Love That In Catching Fire Katniss Comes To The Conclusion The Other Tributes Are Trying To Keep Peeta

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.

katniss is so funny she’s like “oh i know i care about peeta but i don’t know if i love him” then they have to sedate her every time she thinks of peeta being tortured

I feel like Peeta didn't really think too much into giving Katniss the pearl and yet she treasured it so much!! She loves sweet gestures, she loves trinkets!! And she's been deprived for so long!!!

One Day

"My nightmares are usually about losing you. I'm okay once I realize you're here" - Peeta, Cathing Fire

it's so heartwarming to read fics where Ekko is all patient, level-headed, and painfully tender with Jinx.

makes me question whether I have finally turned cold, pessimistic, and heartless when I smile reading them, smile through the tears and think of how much work it would take for them both to allow themselves being soft again.

Jinx, who believes that she is a bad omen, killing and bringing misfortune to everyone she cares about and who cared about her.

and Ekko, the leader, the inspiration, the boy who became a savior before he became himself - always managing, strategizing, settling conflicts, always putting others first... because what good could ever come his way, he is a lost cause, he is damaged, he lost everyone and all that he's good for is to build and care for others so that they would never experience this - or, at least, experience it later.

for him, the world, Zaun, his people might have a chance, but Ekko... he turned himself into a tool and almost lost hope for his life, for dreaming, feeling, being soft, reckless how a teenager and a young adult are, and not as a rebel leader who sticks his hand into every trap for it not to harm his people.

how cautious it must have made him.

friendly and social, and ever cocky and confident on the outside, but closed off on the inside.

how much effort it must have taken him to really coexist with Jinx in the same space, caring for her - and for himself for the first time in years.

trying to believe and accept that this time she'd stay, that they can have good things together...

for all of that to blow up in his face.

all.

over.

again.

✨ Teach me how to look at you. I promise I’ll be a fast learner. ✨

in my next life, I would like a chance to be soft - and not get belittled

or shamed

or dismissed

or laughed at for that.

i would like a chance to be bold and loud, bright and boisterous, and covered in glitter, in kisses from those I love - from head to toe - in sunlight, to get so free and unrestrained that all little parts of me would get a spotlight in this world at least twice

(one of them for this life, where I am lost and scared, and empty, always empty)

I would like to live unafraid.

- sure of my place, of my wants and dreams, of my words.

- not trying to reach out to everyone and thinking that I am healing some part of myself that wants being held and cherished, being seen, known, and remembered.

it would be such a nice life.

but in this one

i can't afford to be soft.

Coin being frustrated that she didn't get her wanted prize at the claw machine, as if the plushie with the bread wouldn't successfully gaslight her entire district on day one just to rescue his pregnant wife

it’s always really funny when people say the books portray Peeta as too kind or too wonderful or that he shouldn’t be the representation of hope and rebirth and renewal and all things good in the world. i always wanna ask if the person saying this is aware that the narrator of the story is literally in love with him.

like of course she’s biased. that’s her husband of over twenty years.