🌼🏹🥖🪿💛 only the gentle survived

I already know the majority of my mutuals will likely agree with everything I am about to say, but there is a serious amount of casual fans that hold true to their claims that the “old Peeta” is dead. Edits upon edits are made about this, and the amount of traction they get aggravates me greatly. Because this is NOT the case at all, and it genuinely has warped the resilient arc that Suzanne crafted for Peeta in Mockingjay.

Going from latest events in the book to earliest, these readers read about Peeta planting the primroses, saving Katniss from unaliving herself and refusing to “let her go” (not just in the physical sense in that moment, by the way), voting most passionately against a Capitol games, very plausibly having been the one to put out the fire on Katniss from the two-tiered explosion and obtaining his burns while doing so (there is a deleted scene of Josh Hutcherson doing this), hyping up Tigris for her fashion skills with his trademark, sunny disposition, clearly already indicating his capacity to long for Katniss to choose him again during the conversation with Gale while still battling his mind, knowing the exact right words to alleviate Katniss of the guilt she was feeling over every 451 squad member they had lost (which everybody else was trying and failing at), reiterating his promise that he would always stay with her, saving Katniss from the lizard mutts and having the most level head amongst the group in the most high-stress situation their squad experienced, knowing the exact right words to commend and cheer up Pollux for the asset he could be for their squad, giving Katniss the can of lamb stew on a whim WITHOUT needing to confirm with anybody that it was her favorite, begging to be unalived because he couldn’t bear another person dying by his hands, of course remembering Katniss’s favorite color before he could remember his own, scolding/arguing with HIMSELF about how he had just treated Katniss at that awkward group meal, decorating Finnick and Annie’s wedding cake with such intricacy, having an audio of Katniss singing be the first thing that didn’t make him enraged and receiving his first, true onslaught of memories through that, and SOMEHOW many readers come to the aforementioned conclusion. Peeta, who if they didn’t have a photo to put in the memory book, would sketch or paint that person from MEMORY. Peeta, who brought bread over out of a long-old habit the morning after his return to District 12, symbolizing the LIFE he will provide for her again. Peeta, who continued being this symbolic life-giver by building the life-sustaining incubator for Haymitch’s geese. Peeta, who is Katniss’s “dandelion in the spring” both at the beginning of the series and the end of it, symbolizing REBIRTH even after the harshest winter (the hijacking). Peeta, whose kind and good nature being especially showcased was always the precursor to the kisses that gave Katniss a hunger for him, and therefore her reporting on that hunger again must mean his very nature she loves so dearly returned as if no lapse had ever occurred. Peeta, who regained his innate instinct to take care of Katniss and love her with every fiber of himself. Peeta, who made Katniss feel safe enough to have children and brought her a brand new kind of joy in them. Peeta, who must make up ninety-percent of the list Katniss makes of any act of goodness she’s ever witnessed, which she uses to cope just as much as his strong arms in the night. This is the man they claim is so drastically different from the boy we first met.

The progression of a relationship according to Katniss Everdeen:

Often it gets lumped into a cause and effect with the sentence before it. It took me five, ten, fifteen years to agree, but Peeta wanted them so badly. We read it as if she’s saying that Peeta wanting them was the reason she agreed.

Except that’s not how it’s written. It’s It took me five, ten, fifteen years to agree. Full stop. New thought. But Peeta wanted them so badly.

She’s presenting two separate perspectives on having children. Two potentially contrasting perspectives. It’s not I needed convincing, but Peeta wore me down. It’s I was hesitant, Peeta was certain. She’s showing the difference in the way they each see the world. Where she saw everything that could go wrong, Peeta saw the good. And where else do we see this?

“What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.”

It’s just a page before the epilogue for us as the readers but for her it’s almost 20 years later, yet the sentiment still remains. So what if “but Peeta wanted them so badly” isn’t just “he convinced me”? At least not in the negative way it’s sometimes taken.

In the FIRST CHAPTER OF THE HUNGER GAMES Katniss gives us the history of Panem!

"He tells of the history of Panem, the country that rose up out of the ashes of a place that was once called North America. He lists the disasters, the droughts, the storms, the fires, the encroaching seas that swallowed up so much of the land, the brutal war for what little sustenance remained. The result was Panem, a shining Capitol ringed by thirteen districts, which brought peace and prosperity to its citizens. Then came the Dark Days, the uprising of the districts against the Capitol. Twelve were defeated, the thirteenth obliterated. The Treaty of Treason gave us new laws to guarantee peace, and as our yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated, it gave us the Hunger Games." - The Hunger Games, Chapter 1

The Hunger Games is set hundreds of years in the future! After Climate Change has destroyed much of the planet and civilization. Out of that destruction and war rose Panem, which assumedly existed for a time BEFORE the Dark Days. There was another several years long war which ended in District 13 getting obliterated (or so everyone thinks) and as punishment for their uprising THEN the Hunger Games is established. Then 73 years of Hunger Games before Chapter 1 of the first book, WHICH IS NOT HAPPENING IN 2100.

I just need this love spiral by dandelionsunset_1210 on Ao3

Rated T | Complete | 80,624 words

"I will love him in the mornings, before the sun has risen outside our open window, and in the middle of the night when he guards me from my worst nightmares. I will love him when the world feels gray and I can’t get out of bed, and when his knuckles go white and he can’t remember what’s real or not."