My paper’s crumpled into a ball in my right fist. I flatten the sheet against the table and read the rickety letters. “Just one more thing. I kill Snow.”

For the first time ever, I see the hint of a smile on the president’s lips. “When the time comes, I’ll flip you for it.”

So when the final Capita Hunger Games (Coin’s idea) vote comes down to Katniss’s response: That is the literal/metaphorical

(I kinda feel like his elder sister )

Okay look. It's not a popular opinion but *takes a deep breath and braces myself* I agree with you in principle. Look. I used to think I was a hopeless romantic, but I have never bought into the idea that Peeta was so madly in love with Katniss going into the 74th Games that he was willing to die specifically to save her. I don't buy into love at first sight (first song ha! love it), and insta-love is one of my least favorite tropes. My congratulations to those of you who've found and managed to maintain a love at first sight. I am not one of them.

Love has many different forms and definitions, so maybe Peeta did love Katniss in a way before the Games, but as you point out --- he didn't know her. He'd never talked to her. He had a crush on her going into those first Games and maybe loved the IDEA of her, but not Katniss herself.

As for the self-sacrificing nature of Peeta's love... Okay look. Peeta tells us that he wants to die as himself. He wants his death to MEAN something, because in a twisted way, if his death is meaningful, then his life was meaningful. He wasn't just a pawn, a piece in their Games. If his death means something, then he's broken the Capitol's beliefs and treatment of district citizens, albeit in a somewhat quiet fashion, since I don't think Peeta intends to spark rebellion, just like Katniss doesn't. His desire to die a meaningful death is more philosophical than revolutionary in his eyes.

So how does he make his death meaningful? By ensuring someone else lives, in this case, specifically someone who is NEEDED back home. Prim and her mother rely on Katniss, and Peeta appears to have some awareness of this. But there's more than just that. I work in book world primarily, and one of the things the books has in it that the movies cut is the fact that every month for the year after their Games, the home district of the victor receives a train full of gifts from the Capitol -- food, resources, etc. It's part of the reason the Career Districts are so reviled. They keep winning. They keep getting the treats from the Capitol. They're not struggling as much. In fact, Katniss tells us in Catching Fire that the days when the gifts arrive in district 12 are some of the few days when she feels GOOD about winning the Games... why? Because her victory benefited someone else besides herself. A LOT of someone's besides herself.

So, if we apply this to Peeta... whose own mother doesn't think he'll win, (but Katniss might!) then what we get is a boy who understands that even if he doesn't have much of a chance of winning, his district partner does. And if his district partner wins... then his entire district, all of his friends, all of his family, everyone he knows, will benefit from his death for AN ENTIRE YEAR. So no, I don't think he chose to do everything in his power to keep Katniss alive and get her the victor's crown solely as a means of expressing his undying love for her. His crush on her is certainly a complication and added motivation to his plans, but I do not think it was the sole motivating factor.

In fact, he seems surprised and GRATEFUL when she actually comes to find him after the rule change. He understands that she didn't have to do that to keep herself alive. From his perspective, she doesn't need him to win, so why the heck would she burden herself with someone who is sick and probably dying when, if she'd just left him to die in the stream, she could climb a tree and pick the other tributes off one by one now that she's got the bow and arrows. Hence the beginning of Peeta believing that she actually cares for him and the development of their confused relation and affection for one another in the first arena. And from there it just spirals but that's a discussion for another day/ask. ;)

One of the things that I love about this series is the ways in which it examines our extremely complicated and convoluted motivations for our actions and choices. Since we are in Katniss's head we get to see that played out in her thoughts and through her choices, but I personally don't think it's fair to boil Peeta's choices in the first book down to "because he loved Katniss so much." Played a factor? sure. Sole motivation? I don't buy that, but that's just my opinion on the matter, lol. Does this help soothe your indignant older sister feelings?

Is it this one?

Obsession by Reflections57

So where do they say liars end up ?

I don't know.

Lol,

"You know where they say liars end up, don't you?" is a line angel of death Peeta says in one of my horror fics- Why Is The Window Open? aka "Things that I've actually been afraid of in my life and writing helps me put them aside."

Okay so here’s what I think on this one. There’s a couple possibilities and I’m not sure which one is true so let’s have at it.

1) Prim is brought to the Capitol as a medic after Katniss and some of the Star Squad shows up as Not Dead. Coin brings her in to use as leverage against Katniss and to die in the parachute attack. This also explains why Katniss doesn’t know she’s there, because the Star Squad has lost its ability to communicate with the rebels, but doesn’t necessarily explain how Prim wound up on the front lines so quickly after the Star squad shows up on cameras again. Katniss in the books gets to the Capitol through the train tunnels, not by hovercraft. It takes several days to get to the Capitol from 13 the way she travels. This is because, as she points out in the books, almost all of the hovercraft in Panem have been damaged or destroyed during the war. Since this option also hinges on fast transport from 13 to the Capitol that may not have been available to get Prim there in such a short time, I’m not sure it’s all that likely.

2) Prim was brought to the Capitol earlier to control Katniss but shit hit the fan and the Star Squad lost communications before anyone could tell her Prim was there. No mother freaking out, No Haymitch going what the fuck??? Because you’re right. Prim was 13 years old when she dies and had no business being there. She was not old enough yet to carry the district 13 title of Soldier and be put into combat. I would point out that D13 puts their trained 14 year olds into combat, though so add child soldiers to your list of their war crimes while you’re at it. The problem with this one is that Coin had no way of knowing the Star Squad would lose communications and “die.” So Katniss would’ve found out and raised hell. It also depends on either Prim demanding to be sent (against her mothers wishes and months before she turns 14), or on Coin pushing through a waiver for her to go… but that probably requires Mrs Everdeen’s consent. Possible explanation: Prim wasn’t sent to the front lines at all, but to a camp near the rear to tend to the wounded, well behind the lines of fighting. Where she could be “safer…” But then things got confusing or the lines blurred or they lost a lot medics, and Prim wound up in the City Circle. If that’s the case, then sloppy writing Ms Collins because that should be explained after the fact.

3) Actually let’s pause here to remember what Johanna said about there being riots in the Capitol streets if Prim gets hurt… hi hello??? What’s this? Coin actually smartly using an Everdeen girl for propaganda? Possibly. Basically, I propose that Prim was gonna die in the City Circle bombing whether Katniss was still alive to see it or not… because Prim had become another sort of symbol to the country. A beloved symbol of healing and innocence. Put her near a pen with injured Capitol children and she’ll try to help them, blow them all up, make sure the camera catches it (an argument Katniss used to justify risking her own death to Coin…) and Voila! Everybody hates Snow even more than they already do. In which case, Coin doesn’t need to think Katniss is alive when she sends Prim. She could send her to the Capitol when they all think Katniss is dead. What’s better than one dead Everdeen martyr? Two dead Everdeen martyrs!! (My apologies I get morbid when I’m stressed). Problem: depends heavily on Coin getting her to the Capitol when Mrs E has already lost one daughter could prevent her second leaving (maybe?) AND on Coin knowing what Prim is most likely to do in certain situations and taking advantage of it. So…. So maybe a little too much deus ex machina in this option…

4) Prim’s death is an accident but an added bonus in Coin’s viewpoint. It’s only Katniss (helped by Snow) who really seems to believe Prim wound up there because Coin was trying to manipulate/break Katniss. Maybe it really was just a tragedy of war. So how does Prim even wind up there at 13? I’m gonna make the argument that Coin actually sent her behind the lines, possibly even Mrs Everdeen was there. And Prim, like her older sister, defied those orders and charged forward with her medic unit into the fray. This one actually seems the most feasible to me mainly because as awful as Coin is, there’s a lot of devious planning and a lot that could go wrong involved in Coin actually orchestrating Prim’s presence in the City Circle.

5) *throws papers in the air* Suzanne done fucked up and wrote us a sloppy ending with something we can’t easily explain because we’re missing vital information.

That’s not necessarily a plot hole.

Let’s play this like it’s real to show why. Let’s say they did get married before the Quarter Quell announcement and your assumption of 3-4 months between the announcements and the Games is accurate. He didn’t say she was already pregnant at the Quell announcement. It is possible that she didn’t get pregnant until some time after the announcement. The Capitol is going to assume that two young teenagers who are as madly in love as they think Katniss and Peeta are, aren’t going to stop having sex just because of the Quell announcement. The Capitol audience is not aware of Katniss’s reluctance to have a family or children she might lose, after all. Plenty of victors do have children.

And those in the districts also don’t know of that aversion of hers. The people in the districts continue to have sex, continue to have children despite the fact that they know their children will be at risk of being reaped and going into the Games. So, it’s not like it’s that far out of the realm of possibility for Katniss and Peeta, even knowing they’ll be going back into the arena, and who the people of the districts and Capitol believe are in love and got secretly married, continued to have sex and potentially got pregnant in the three to four month gap.

Also… some don’t start to show a pregnancy until 4-5 months in, it really just depends. So I don’t think that’s necessarily a plot hole.

The part about the test might be a complication. Snow could have easily forced her to have a test done after the interview and revealed Peeta to be a liar. It’s a risk Peeta took, but I think he was counting on the collective outrage over the victors all being sent back in the arena and the compressed timeline to help them. And failing that, the thought of “what if” still holds. He still reveals what the Games threaten and destroy every day.

Shout out @lemonluvgirl87 for inspiring this trend to make this fandom a more positive community.

P.S I love chess so I'm always super stoked to find it in fics cuz it's not very common .

P.S.S The smut 👍😁👍

Aw, love thank you so much for this lovely ask! ❤️

Now excuse me while I browse through your ffnet for more exclusive content.

I thank you for your service to the society.

Hey friend! Aw, thanks so much for the love for that one. It’s one of my lesser known fics but I was very proud of it when I wrote it.

FF dot net and I have a contentious relationship. I haven’t posted anything to it in years. There’s nothing of mine that’s exclusively posted on that temperamental site. If you find it on ff, I guarantee it’s on AO3 as well. So unless you have better luck with it or prefer the FFnet format, don’t bother. And um… It’s All a Lie is on my ao3, it’s just buried on page three of my works or something… 🫣