#derogatorially yapping

My good sirs, they said “badly dyed”

Not cutely dip-dyed

Not grown out

BADLY DYED

I want that man’s scalp UNFINISHED, I want it STREAKY, I want it two very slightly different colours because he didn’t have enough of one so he nicked a different, vaguely expired one, and thought it was okay.

Suzanne really said “oh you don’t understand undertones? LET ME SPELL IT TF OUT”

Maybe it sounds like he’s mocking because he is. He’s just not mocking HER.

Maybe as punishment for the fact that it slipped out to someone he BARELY knows and he didn’t keep it buried with the people who DESERVE it; maybe it’s a punishment for the fact that he’s still alive, and that the girl in front of him who looks so much like Louella is going to meet the same fate as her, that he’s BRINGING her to the same fate; maybe it’s punishment that this girl doesn’t JUST look like his Louella, his Lou Lou, she looks like Burdock and Burdock’s girl. The girl who he threw the rock at to push them both away. Astrid who was so skinny and now her daughter is too, while he’s gotten plumper. The girl who he didn’t even look for in the audience, but he knew must have been crying for her Katniss- and Katniss’s little sister who reminds him SO MUCH of his little Sid, and now the Everdeens will be hurt by him again anyway- hurt by him, or on his watch, or for his sins, does it really matter?

Maybe the punishment’s not even planned. Most things aren’t for him. It’s just a way to dig the knife deeper and deeper like he always does these days, like he’s become used to, and if it’s pushing into his chest or out, into that tiny skinny kid that looks like so many people that he loved, still LOVES, who cares, right? She’ll be dead in a week anyway. And it’ll be his fault. Again. The cycle continues. The sun rises.

ACTUALLY ARE YOU GOING TO KEEP BASHING THIS OVER MY HEAD SUZANNE???? FUCKING SERIOUSLY?????? I CAN’T TELL IF IT’S TOO OBVIOUS FOR A RED HERRING

She’s been doing this for the entire book, but THIS just- oh my GOD man

Plutarch pours himself a glass of amber liquid. “Can I offer you something?”

“I don’t drink.” Professional curiosity wins out though, and I cross to examine the booze. The bottles have little silver nameplates on chains. Vodka. Rye. Cognac.

Then I spy a name I recognise. Not only have I heard of it, I know it from the poem that gave my love her name.

“Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe…?”

“… and forget this lost Lenore! Of course, it’s unclear in the poem if nepenthe’s the liquor or the drug added to the liquor.’

I remember having this same discussion with Lenore Dove.

She said ‘quaff’ means ‘to drink’, usually something with alcohol. And the guy telling the story in the song is trying to stop thinking about how he lost his true love.

“I think the important part is it makes you forget terrible things,” I say.

GIRLYYYYYYY WHATT??????? “I KNOW IT FROM THE POEM THAT GAVE MY LOVE HER NAME”???? THE POEM ABOUT A GUY DRINKING TO FORGET HOW HIS LOVE DIED????? HAYMITCH????????????????

“I THINK THE IMPORTANT PART IS IT MAKES YOU FORGET TERRIBLE THINGS”???????

“I could take you apart with less than that”