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It’s a reminder that the perfect Hunger Games we saw in the first hg book was an illusion because we had Katniss as our narrator. We didn’t have Haymitch, hell, we didn’t even have someone like Peeta because these people played the games. Katniss didn’t.

Katniss was introduced to us as a mad, simple, naive girl who literally only survived because of others. She didn’t know how much her taking Prim’s place mattered because she didn’t realise what it meant to everyone who came before her. To everyone who had heard rumours of how the last District 12 victor actually fought his games. No, Katniss had just kept her head down, hunting and providing for her family.

See, she grew up way before the Games got to her. She’d already lived through her dad’s death and watched it destroy her once lively mom. Haymitch didn’t have to go through that. Lucy Gray didn’t have to go through that. They were both angry, yes, but at the Capitol. Katniss? She was first and foremost angry at her mom. At her dad. She knew who was to blame but she had too much to do and deal with to think about that. She was already jaded in a way that the Games couldn’t touch.

Peeta? He was Haymitch. He knew what he was getting into and realised he was just on a chess board with no control. So, he adapted. He played the knight, the rook, the king, the pawn. Katniss? She just… did. Changing directions, not playing the piece she was assigned because she didn’t realise that’s what was going on. Remember her surprise at the crown twisting into two after the Games?? She was so oblivious. Until Catching Fire where everything caught up to her. Where everything so many other people had been waiting and working for caught up to her.

in the original trilogy, we hear time and again how much haymitch is like katniss

Effie is 100% brainwashed AND YET she still hasn't lost her humanity. She believes propaganda completely AND YET she doesn't use it as an excuse to abuse people. Throughout the book, the tributes are constantly dehumanised. But Effie doesn't treat Haymitch that way. She helps the team. She's there for him in the launch room- which Drusilla and so many Capitol citizens would never do.

So there really is no excuse for abusing people, not even "I was lied to" or "i thought i was in the right" or "I was fed propaganda"

You still choose how you interact with people around you and how you treat them.

haymitch was close friends with katniss's father when they were teenagers... how many times did haymitch see her at the hob or around town and do a double take?

burdock everdeen is lenore dove baird's distant cousin, meaning katniss is connected to lucy gray's bloodline... literally snow's worst nightmare come back to haunt him, down to genetics

reaping day is on the fourth of july. idk what else to say about this one i think we're all on the same page about this

katniss wanting wiress, beetee, and mags as allies despite over half of the victor tributes wanting to pair up with her... the three victors who helped haymitch win his games

haymitch, the victor of a games with twice as many tributes, bringing two victors home as a mentor in the 74th games

despite having the most tributes and therefore the most deadly, with the least odds of survival per tribute, the 50th hunger games had the most alliances out of any other games

beetee's son being a tribute in the quell- i know we're all there already and it's been talked about endlessly but i'd like us to recall in catching fire when katniss tells the reader that the children of victors are reaped at a disproportionate amount... ampert was not the first nor was he the last. how many tributes were reaped to punish previous victors? "you tried to take away control from the capitol... look what we can take from you"

the circumstances of ampert's death: mutts that were engineered just for him, just for beetee, designed to literally strip him of anything that made him recognizable while they killed him. beetee and his family didn't even have a body to bury, just a pile of bones

we also know that at the end of sotr, beetee's wife is pregnant, but when beetee comes to district 13 in mockingjay his is alone. was his family killed in the uprising, or was yet another one of his children sent to the games as punishment for beetee's actions before and during the 2nd quarter quell?

effie was the last person haymitch saw before the games began. she came into his launch room before he went into the tube... she was the last face he saw, the last person he touched, before the games changed him forever. she was the last person to know the "old" haymitch

maysilee didn't even like the mockingjay pin- it wasn't a beloved token that had a deep meaning to generations before katniss. it meant nothing until katniss made it mean something- until madge, maysilee's niece, made it mean something

gale mocking madge for wearing an especially nice dress and trying to present herself well on reaping day, and her defending herself by saying "i want to look nice if they send me to the capital" - maysilee being scorned by haymitch for her nice clothes and her necklaces until he realizes it's her own way of rebelling against the capitol... "i am going to make you see me as human too if it kills me" (they all try to dress their best for reaping day but gale & haymitch were bothered by madge & maysilee’s clothes as a status symbol)

haymitch mentions that hattie used to tell him "fire is catching", which later became one of the slogans of the rebellion via katniss's propos with plutarch

haymitch's token being a flint striker, and katniss being the girl on fire. katniss inciting the rebellion by succeeding at the exact task at which haymitch failed- destroying the force field. she wasn’t special, she was just in the right place at the right time and got enough support

we've always seen the quarter quell as a way of snow getting back at katniss for her rebellion in the 74th games, but after sotr we know she is hardly the first victor to rebel against the capitol. beetee was already a rebel in his own right, wiress and mags were instrumental in haymitch's victory in the 50th games, we can infer from johanna's characterization as loud and outspoken and certainly less than palatable to the capital's propoganda that she may have had a less than ideal (to the capitol) history... how many victor tributes were reaped on purpose? how many of them won their games through an act of defiance that was covered up?

similary, we know plutarch's plan with katniss was similar to his plan with haymitch... but surely they weren't the only two. how many other tributes, district 12 or otherwise, did plutarch and co. try to use as weapons, simply by being victims of circumstance? how many families of rebellious tributes, whether they were victors or not, were punished, because they went along with plutarch's plan thinking they had nothing left to lose seeing as they were probably going to die anyway? so much of haymitch's games was covered up and rewritten to hide his defiance of the capitol,,, how many other games were significantly or almost entirely fabricated by the capitol because of "unruly" tributes? was any of it real?

anyway i may be reaching with some of these but suzanne collins just gave us so much to think about with sotr!!! i've seen some dissent about how some of sotr disrupts the canon of thg but i think that's entirely the point... none of what katniss knew about haymitch's games was real to begin with, it's just what was fed to her by the capitol.

The book is about implicit submission, and why, with numbers on their side, the many submit to the few, even when the few are unjust. And it's because, the book seems to say, numbers aren't ENOUGH. the Newcomers alliance is much bigger than the Careers. They should be able to team up and defeat them easily. But they don't. Eighteen of them are killed outright, because the Careers have the strength, the skill and the training. And that's just that.

Plutarch asks why the tributes don't overwhelm the Peacekeepers during training, and Haymitch is rightfully outraged at the privilege of this question. Why don't they? Because they probably couldn't kill them all, and even if they could, what good would it do? It wouldn't stop the Hunger Games. It wouldn't change a thing. No one would even know about it outside that room, because the Capitol would change the narrative. Just like Katniss and the Star Squad can't REALLY take on the Capitol single handed and assassinate the president, the scrappy alliance of kids can't really do any real damage to the system the Capitol has in place. All they can do is choose if they want to die now or later. So why don't they, if there's no difference to them, as Plutarch asks. Because, as Snow puts it. Hope. The slight chance that one of them will come out of it. And, more cynically, the hope that if they are good tributes and obey, their families will be left alone. If they choose to rebel and choose to die now they guarantee retaliation against their families and perhaps their entire district. We see that even in the tributes that attack the Gamemakers in the arena. They rise up, they break that bond of implicit submission--and they die bloody for it.

Why don't they rebel? Because they don't have the privilege to lose.

Even Lenore Dove, the Joan of Arc of Twelve, fails to do any real damage or have any real effect. All she does is get herself a reputation for being a trouble maker, and eventually get herself killed. Was she killed as part of the retaliation against Haymitch, or was her punishment because she's a rebel, and that's what happens to rebels? (and Snow hates covey girls.) but she fails because she IS alone. She focuses on small, symbolic acts that do nothing, but that she hopes will rally the people to action.Unfortunately, the people of Twelve don't want their lives to get any worse, and they don't have the privilege of spending time and energy on revolution the way a teenager girl whose family doesn't need her income to survive does--sadly, Twelve will remain this way, in an uncanny valley where they're beaten down enough to need change, but not enough to have NOTHING to lose. They are not one of the districts that rise up. So acting alone does nothing, teaming up does nothing. How does one fight an enemy with better technology, better weapons, and better organization? Beetee's plan doesn't work out. Of course it doesn't. Could it ever? Was it just borne out of grief for his son? And even if it had, then what? What was the plan? Haymitch's poster gets edited away. The Newcomers fail. Lenore Dove dies. The most you can say is Haymitch himself becomes too important to kill, like Beetee, and Snow let him live to fight another day, but so destroyed that he no longer WANTS to.

So, then, what WORKS?

The answer is, quite cynically, Plutarch's version of the world. Numbers mean something, there are more of US than there are of THEM , but that isn't enough. You need weapons, you can't bring a knife to a gun fight, you need EVERYONE on your side. You need organization, not just a series of disconnected rebellions, and you need an Army, provided by Thirteen, as problematic as they are. The timing just needs to be right. And most crucially, what I think Plutarch and everyone involved here learned is that victory belongs to those who control the narrative. Those who control the flow of information and tell their story. And it's not Plutarch, for all his cameras and his propos and his idea behind The Mockingjay, who eventually does that well.

It's Haymitch.

Who learned to tell a story and sell a narrative with himself and the Newcomers. Who tried to paint his poster in the arena only to see it rewritten in front of him. Who won't make that mistake again. When it's time for the deciding factor in the revolution, it's Haymitch who creates the Mockingjay-- and is he also using Katniss and her image? Yes. but he at least sees Katniss and the human she is inside it, unlike Plutarch who hasn't changed much from the man who makes a grieving family do reshoots over and over so he can get his footage, while congratulating himself for letting Haymitch have his goodbye.

When Katniss sets off the spark twenty five years later, the world is ready. The work is in place. Plutarch, Haymitch, Beetee, everyone can say GO , and this time it'll work. So buckle in, and wait for the Long Game, even though only Plutarch really has the privilege to wait, the rest of them don't have a choice. It's cynical. It's awful. People die. The lone rebels and the plucky girls and the alliance depending on its numbers all fail. Plutarch motherfucking Heavensbee, the richest of the rich the privilegedest of the privileged, pulls off the revolution, takes the credit, and lives to see the end of it, without ever once examining his own privilege, and unpacking the fact that despite his head being on the right side of history, he's never managed to see the Districts as PEOPLE . (and you could argue, ANYONE as people. ) But it's just the only way.

Neil asked.

He was not at ninety-four. Ninety-four was the whispered words, “Thank you. You were amazing.” They echoed inside Andrew’s head over and over, like they were an offering, a prayer, a goodbye, like they were pushed out of his body with his dying breath. It was irritating and he was going to bring it up on the bus. He was going to spell it out nice and slow how Neil needed to stop living like he was dying and start living like the exy junkie he was.

Ninety-five was turning around and seeing nothing. Not nothing in the sense that Neil was nothing, but nothing in the sense of panic, of worry, of standing on the edge of the rooftop looking down thinking “Would it hurt if I fell?” The space where Neil should have been filled with emotions that Andrew swore he would never feel again.

Ninety-six was finding his bag. It wasn’t the bag that held his entire life, that was locked away in the Fox Tower, safe. It was the bag that held his future. A future he knew Neil wanted in the way he clutched the key he gave him back in August. A key that was left in the God forsaken bag with Neil nowhere in sight.

For ninety-seven, Kevin was there. The other foxes were there too but the words Kevin formed with his breath passing over his voice box and the movements of his tongue and jaw, were the only things that mattered. Kevin’s mouth moved, sound traveled in vibrations through the air, hit Andrew’s eardrums, and then his hands were around Kevin’s neck. There were lies and half-truths and Andrew hated those. Again not in the sense he hated Neil but in the sense that he hated the word ‘please’ and ‘misunderstanding’. He hated how he didn’t hate Neil because of all the lies. And for that, ninety-seven.

Ninety-eight was the phone call that Neil had been found.

Ninety-nine was walking through the hotel door and seeing him crumple in agony. It was the hissed “Don’t” as he did his best sooth away the pain. It was the eyes that were Nathaniel’s with hints of Neil peeking out behind his irises. It was the look of a man staring helplessly as the executioner readied the guillotine. It was the words “I’m sorry” like he had something to be sorry for. It was his attitude that no matter how beat up he got, remained impeccably intact. And it was the question he still had the gall to ask: “Am I at ninety-four yet?”

requested by anonymous

andreil au in which neil gets tired of the ‘we’re nothing’ game and decides to stop playing

It isn’t much of a surprise when one of the foxes gets hurt on the court. While running drills, they’re often teamed up against each other, working of defensive and offensive maneuvers. And while they don’t mean to hurt each other, Exy is a violent sport, and accidents happen. Most of the time they’re accidents, at least.

Today’s incident is a legitimate accident; in a scuffle for the ball, the handle of Dan’s racket catches Neil’s helmet, tugging it off and sending him crashing to the floor. She fawns over him with apologies, helping him back to his feet, ignoring his attempts to wave her off.

He’s only been on his feet for two seconds when Andrew pushes through, tipping his chin up with a finger, likely to get the bleeding to stop.

“I’m sorry, Neil, I swear-“ Dan exclaims, peering around Andrew, who, though tiny, still manages to take up a huge amount of space in front of Neil.

“It’s okay. Really,” He says.

“Your nose is broken,” Andrew says.

“Hell, Dan. Remind me not to piss you off,” Nicky says, a teasing smile on his lips. Matt shoots him a look, to which Dan crinkles her nose, grip tightening on her racket.

“You know-“

andrew, who is on his own for the first time in five years

no aaron, no nicky, no kevin, no neil

andrew, who only ever wanted to be left alone, who craved peace and quiet, suddenly feeling like he’s going to suffocate in the silence of his new apartment

andrew going to bed alone for the first time in about three years (bc it took a lil time for them to get used to sharing a bed but once they did they never slept apart) and he hates it

at fox tower there were still rare nights sometimes where he couldn’t share a bed with neil but neil was still always there, just a few feet away if andrew needed him

now neil is hundreds of miles away and andrew feels wrong sleeping alone and it fucks him up so bad????

because he never really realised all the ways his relationship with neil was changing him

and now he doesn’t know what to do bc suddenly the things he once hated are now things he craves

but consider this: andrew finding the duffel bag and the keys and thinking that neil finally ran away, he finally did it, he left neil josten behind. andrew realizing all at once just how much he wanted neil to stay, how much he wanted neil to stay for him. 

andrew remembering neil’s goodbye (thank you. you were amazing) and thinking neil was willingly leaving him with only a thank you, andrew being so fucking pissed and thinking maybe, just maybe, if he had actually acknowledged that they weren’t nothing maybe neil would have stayed.

andrew being pissed at himself for getting attached to this runaway boy. this con artist. this nobody. pissed at himself for believing that he would see andrew as a home. 

andrew finding out neil actually didn’t leave him and in fact was kidnapped and tortured and having one tiny, tiny moment of relief before it’s just so much pain, knowing neil was hurt and andrew couldn’t fight whoever did it. 

andrew never taking his eyes off neil in the hotel in baltimore and just thinking over and over that he was wrong, neil didn’t leave of his own volition, neil wanted him, neil wanted him. and then neil is faced with the option of going in witness protection - something nathaniel would have killed for, to be away from his father’s men for good and never having to worry again - and he chooses to stay, because andrew and the foxes are home. 

so during every visit Andrew tries to discretely fill up the place with things he knows that Neil likes

the first thing he brings back is the bean bag that him and neil always use to make out on 

also neil had fallen asleep on andrew several times while they were cuddling in the bean bag so andrew knows how much neil likes it 

next he leaves a bunch of his sweaters because he knows that his scent is sometimes enough to soothe Neil 

and even though he won’t admit it to anyone he loves seeing Neil wear his clothes 

Andrew also buys a lot of exy posters and stocks the kitchen with some of neil’s guilty pleasures 

and he even goes as far as putting up a picture of both of them from one of their getaways

he tapes the photo next to Neil’s bed so that only he will see it 

Neil eventually catches on to what Andrew is doing and his heart is so full of happiness

but one night when they are in bed Neil thanks Andrew who just rolls his eyes 

so Neil moves closer to him and mumbles into Andrew’s neck “it doesn’t feel like home because you aren’t here”

Neil can feel andrew tense next to him before Andrew rolls Neil underneath him 

Andrew has a gentle grip on Neil’s jaw before he leans down and presses his lips to Neil 

After coming out to the team about their relationship, Neil doesn’t really see the point in being secretive. He’s not ashamed of who he is or who he likes, and he’s made a promise to himself of ‘no more lies’ so it just doesn’t occur to him to be covert about feelings towards Andrew.

Feelings. Wow.

They still haven’t put a label on things, but at least they’re both admitting that it is indeed a Thing. And Andrew is as affectionate as Neil could have ever hoped him to be, which, granted, is not very much.

Still, things are really good. And Neil, for the first time in his life, is allowing himself to relax. To get attached to someone and somewhere. To build himself a Home out the rubble of his life.

So Neil’s got all these super emo Feelings built up inside him, and he quite frankly doesn’t give a shit who sees. But he knows it’s not the same for Andrew. He knows that Andrew is still very careful about who he lets into his life, and while he’s started accepting the Foxes, there’s no way he’s going to want to invite the entire world to be a part of his private business.

So Neil holds back. He waits until they’re off the court to kiss Andrew. He doesn’t mention anything to reporters when they start interrogating him about everything from his favorite shampoo to his thoughts on politics, which, holy hell, is probably the farthest thing from his mind. His bubble of things that concern him has quadrupled in size over the last year, but it’s still microscopic in relation to the rest of the outside world.

Anything that isn’t Exy, Andrew, or his makeshift little family of Foxes, is about as important to him as the weather in Fiji.

It’s after their last Fall game, when they’ve once again secured their place in the championship matches, that Neil is once again the spokesperson for the reporters. He’s usually paired with Dan or Kevin, but Dan pulled something bad in her leg, and Kevin might be concussed, so somehow he’s ended up in front of a camera with Andrew.

They’re both winded and physically drained, running solely on the adrenaline of their victory, so Neil isn’t really sure what he’s saying, or if he’s even speaking English.

The interviewer smirks, wiggling her eyebrow at Neil. “Got a special lady you’re going to celebrate with tonight?” she asks, and Neil just kind of stares at her. These kind of inane questions don’t even merit a response in his mind but–oh. He can practically feel Andrew tense up next to him. He reaches out for his hand to give it a squeeze out of the frame of the camera, but Andrew doesn’t let him even get close. He stares the interviewer dead in the eye, jaw clenched.

“He doesn’t have any ‘ladies’,” he spits, and alarm bells go off in Neil’s head.

“What are you–” he hisses under his breath, but Andrew shoots him the most patronizing look he’s ever seen on those sharp features and he shuts up.

Not a second later, Andrew’s hand is on his cheek, turning his face towards him and planting a kiss directly on his lips with a bruising intensity. And then he bites down on Neil’s lower lip quickly before pulling away, leaving Neil flushed and gaping, eyes wide, his heart beating in his throat.

Andrew glares at the camera. “Happy, you fuckers?”

–