So, What’s The Scene For You, The One That Just Has To Make It Into The Movie? For Me, It’s Hands-down

Field Fire

There’s a time and a place for overthinking fiction, and if the time and place is here and now:

Do you find it endearing if the love interest is stupid or are you just afraid of other people’s free will?

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.

It’s an epic false dichotomy we’ve got in the US and the hope that we’ll escape it is what keeps me going.

Realizing that you can (should! must!) have compassion for everybody and you needn’t (shouldn’t! can’t!) pick and choose who to look out for based on what’s popular or who you personally like or any other qualification other than who happens to be existing in your sphere of influence and who needs your help can be a tough pill to swallow in today’s political scene. May God provide all of us with a big sip of water to get it down.

The thing about political polarization that really gets me is what do you mean I have to pick between caring about the unborn and the elderly, or minorities and the poor??? Sounds like a totally made-up rule to me. Skill issue. I CHOOSE ALL.

"If you’re going to care about the fall of the sparrow you can’t pick and choose who’s going to be the sparrow. It’s everybody, and you’re stuck with it." - Madeleine L'Engle

Tired of stories where the author worldbuilds a whole religion only to chicken out at the last moment by making the main character a skeptic. You mean to tell me that there’s all this richness in lore and culture, but you’ve trapped me with the one person in this society who doesn’t care about it? So bland. I could meet an agnostic easily enough by walking down the street, but your story is my one chance to hear the perspective of someone who follows whatever religion you’ve contrived. You made this whole world; convince me that your character really is from there.

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.

We talk all the time about how alike Haymitch and Katniss are, but I think the differences showcased in SOTR are fascinating.

Katniss goes into her Games thinking that her mother and sister will die if she dies and can’t come back to take care of them. Haymitch goes into his Games knowing that his mother and brother will only survive if he dies.

Katniss, in the beginning, is genuinely out for herself, determined to live and go home again. She has to be persuaded to work with Peeta even temporarily, during training and interviews, and she tries so hard to convince herself she’s okay with him dying that she surprises herself by calling out his name the instant she finds out two of them can win. Even so, she’s initially conflicted when the rule change is revoked.

Haymitch, already expecting not to go home, is only pretending to be selfish and ends up doing a pretty poor job of even that. He works hard at keeping Lou Lou alive—feeding her, keeping her away from the poisonous fruit and water—and she only dies because she finds a danger he didn’t know about. He hugs Ampert back, risks his own life to distract the porcupine, finds and feeds Wellie, and absolutely honors his promise that all the Newcomers are safe with him, not just safe from him.

What they do have in common is this: they try so, so hard to do wrong things in the interest of doing something right in the long term, but they just aren’t able to pass up a chance to do right when they see one.

Haymitch is explicitly told that any act of rebellion, anything to draw attention to the humanity of the district kids and the cruelty of the Capitol, will be punished by a painful death. Still, he calls out the Gamemakers for prolonging Lou Lou’s suffering and refuses to hand over her body to them. Still, he sabotages the arena. Still, he uses what he thinks are his dying moments to set up one last explosive in the hopes it might make a difference.

Katniss promises Prim she’ll come home, but she still runs to Rue’s defense knowing full well that whoever’s there may very well just kill her, too. She still refuses to kill Peeta and resolves to die with him rather than let the Capitol use her as their weapon.

“The Devil works hard, but AO3 authors work harder,” I mutter to myself like a mantra as encouragement while I trudge my way through my 10 year old WIP, which is not published on AO3.

One thing that bothers me about the ending of the Lilo and Stitch remake (among the other things people have already rightfully complained about) is how it acts like Nani has to go to college NOW or she's lost her chance forever.

As someone who was raised by a young mother that didn't get to go to college, because she got 2 kids at 18-20, but then went to college in her early/mid 30s when me and my sister were old enough to be left home alone, it just feels really insulting.

It really adds to the harmful mindset that someone's life, especially that of women, is over if they haven't "got their life together" yet before the age of 25.

There would've been no harm in Nani delaying college for like 5-10 years, instead of abandoning her sister during the most vital years of her development only 2-3 months after already having lost her parents. Animated Nani would never.