There’s A Time And A Place For Overthinking Fiction, And If The Time And Place Is Here And Now:

So, what’s The Scene for you, the one that just has to make it into the movie? For me, it’s hands-down the mute “Buddy?”

Need to have my heart shattered a second time by seeing Haymitch’s reaction to Ampert’s death on screen.

Because he knew almost as soon as he met Ampert that the kid had no chance. Ampert’s reaping was an execution order, even more than anyone else’s. From a purely practical perspective, Haymitch should have been closed-off toward him, should have resigned himself to Ampert’s inevitable death at the hands of the unstoppable Capitol and just looked out for himself. After all, Snow offered Haymitch a deal if only Haymitch would lay low and let the Capitol do as it pleased.

Instead, Haymitch promised to fight for Ampert, to protect him, to keep his death from being whatever torture Snow had in mind for him. He promised to do whatever could be done. Why? Not because it was easy (it obviously wouldn’t be) and not because it was even possible (how could it have been), but because it was right. Because Ampert was a kid caught up in other people’s problems and he didn’t deserve any of it. Anyone who could have stepped in was obligated to, even if it didn’t do any good. There was no saving him, but there was no justifiable option but to try anyway.

Haymitch was all-in with this impossible task. He understood the doomed necessity of protecting the kid marked for death, not because he could succeed but because he couldn’t not try. That’s why he fought for him even as he realized the mutts were only there for Ampert, that this was the brutal execution Snow had planned to make an example out of an innocent kid. That’s why he tried to save someone who couldn’t be saved. That’s why he tried to call out to bones that couldn’t hear.

When someone’s accent changes according to their mood

Forget pet peeves, what is one of your little loves?

I love in the summer when people drive with the windows down, and the music up, and they sing along really enthusiastically.

TBOSAS showed us why Snow believes poor kids from 12 can be influential and SOTR showed us that he still lives in fear of that decades later. Snow was working double-time to make Haymitch look bad—and still couldn’t do it!

The recap cut out him holding Lou Lou while she died, trying to save Ampert (don’t even get me started on how it’s because of Haymitch that the last interaction Ampert ever had with another person was a gesture of affection and a compliment), working out how to call off the porcupine (only possible because the distorted crying sound reminded him of consoling his baby brother), trying with Maysilee to revive Hull, sharing the chocolate with Silka because she was crying, admitting to Maysilee that he didn’t want her to leave . . . and the few positive aspects they were forced to leave in (e.g. defending Maysilee, killing only in self-defense) were enough for 12 to welcome him home with open arms.

They held him back from going in the house to die with his family, Louella’s mom took him in and told him it wasn’t his fault, and his friends tried to stick by him until he literally beat them off.

I can only conclude Snow only hated him so much primarily because he knew Haymitch was loved and going to stay that way, whereas Snow had long since ruined his own life. He comes down on Haymitch like a ton of bricks because, from the moment he laid Louella’s body down in front of him, Snow’s known that Haymitch sees him for what he really is, sees the Hunger Games for what they really are, and he’s petrified that Haymitch might make other people see it, too.

Anyway, it’s not about the character being redeemable or irredeemable, it’s about whether the character takes the opportunities for redemption or passes them by.

The only fear death holds for me is that, even if I find myself in Heaven, I’ll have to explain to jirt that I posted LOTR fanfiction and edited his poetry to suit the plotline I had in mind. It could be worse, though: I could be Peter Jackson having to look Tolkien in his eyes and explain why Christopher Lee played Saruman.

I know it’s been said a million times, a million different ways, but Dumbledore was crazy right out of the gate with the whole Philosopher’s Stone ordeal. Imagine approaching your longtime acquaintance and saying, “Hey, pal, can I borrow your life support? I want to lure a genocidal maniac in so I can test an 11 year old against him in combat. I’d like to do this on school property, while in session.”

Your life is such a beautiful story. You were made to overcome the specific challenges you’re facing. You and your circumstances are a match made up in Heaven. I wish you wouldn’t talk about yourself like someone who’s not interesting, not inspiring, not worth watching. I wish you wouldn’t spend your whole story waiting for the happily-ever-after. The part you’re at is just as lovely, just as touching, just as momentous.

My latest hot take is that Warrior Cats and Yellowstone, while vastly different media with vastly different target audiences, appeal to their respective audiences for the exact same reasons. Similarities include:

- the beauty of nature is a major theme and the expansion of cityscape is treated in both with the exact same level of narrative grief

- gratuitous violence and dysfunction

- readers/viewers vicariously live a power fantasy

- territorial disputes of a kind that no one else in their respective worlds engages in

- characters who are undeniably badass but all their ambition stems from their intense self-loathing

- oaths of unbreakable loyalty

- constant existential doom

- strict hierarchy enforced by violence

- murder plots that go off without a hitch

- murder plots that absolutely do not go off without a hitch

- lies about who your family is

- adoptions, but they’re a really weird dynamic

- lots of doomed romantic relationships

- “their death was all your fault”

- jaded antiheroes who can’t actually believe in the future they’re striving toward and sabotage it every time they get close by aiming for something imperfect (the best they think they can get/deserve)