CONNOR AGNES

your ability to fall in love doesn't end after your first heartbreak and life is still valuable after teen years. did haymitch love lenore dove as a teen? yes. was her his first love? yes. did it feel larger than life and fantastic and wonderful and all the birds in the trees were singing? yes. that's what falling in love feels like. haymitch lost her. that was heartbreaking and tragic, much like when teens lose their teen partners due to car accidents, illnesses or attacks. but haymitch deserves to mature and love and be loved again. I know she didn't get the chance he did. I know it's not fair. but he deserves to love and be loved again because life isn't just your teen years.

please understand that life doesn't end there. life goes on. I can see how for teens this can be hard to understand but do you think haymitch has lived like a monk? is that what you think, he's been celibate since he was 16? haymitch abernathy? please. and why would you even want that for him? to be so trapped in his 16yo personal trauma on top of everything else? on top of all he lost, all it was taken, is he forbidden from making an effort to overcome his teen trauma and explore adult things, sex or else? why and how is that not just christian purity culture? "he's a depressive alcoholic" well...you'd be surprised with how easy it is to have had trauma and still be horny. I promise these aren't mutually exclusive.

I'm not even saying it would be easy peasy falling in love again. It would be hard. falling in love as an adult can be very hard. it can be ugly. there's all the trauma and guilt. but human beings fall in love again. it happens when we think it'll never happen again. and that should be celebrated. not because your first teen love didn't matter, I think that first experience means and shapes us so, so much. I was so shaped by mine, positively and negatively. but because your ability to love isn't a one time token. it's possible to fall in love in your teens and marry that person and be with them until 100+ for sure. I doubt that's the common experience of global society. I really doubt it. you can love again, even if this feels uncomfortable to read. you can fall in love again after a heartbreak. and that's beautiful.

I was disappointed in suzanne collins for having such a great opportunity to show in the epilogue the difference between teen haymitch's thoughts about being doomed forever and adult haymitch realizing he wasn't but unfortunately she chose such a dangerous move. I think we all deserved better. I think teenagers who have lost girlfriends and boyfriends in tragedies deserve stories about letting go of the guilt, going through the hard progress and falling in love again. finding that despite all the pain, life still have surprises and wonders for them. what does sunrise on the reaping has to say for survivors, for people who have had teen heartbreaks? that they're doomed, that there's never going to be anyone else, that they should close themselves entirely for life and any remote positive experience and should be alcoholic and celibate? I reject that. that's cruel. life shouldn't end for them. in fact I know it doesn't. haymitch wasn't doomed to never love again just because he loved and lost. as a teen!!! as a teen. I'm not even 30 yet, do you have any idea of how long life is? 16 for me was 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10 years ago. that's an entire decade, my young friends. I sure hope life is long and we can remember we have the ability to love, we can be loved too. that's a great thing to keep fighting for. that's a great thing to choose to be alive for.

so excuse me ms suzanne collins, whom I admire very much, I need to say what you should have said to your very very very young fandom: you have the rest of your life ahead of you!!!!! your first heartbreaks are painful but they don't dictate the rest of your lives. life can change so very quickly. there's hope. there's life to be lived. maybe not how you first thought it would be, but life nonetheless. love blossoms from the most infertile terrains. you have a garden within you even when you want to pretend you don't. you can be loved. you can be loved more than once. there's a crack in everything and that's how the light gets in. you're not doomed.

They ignore the fact that not everyone with a fertile uterus and ovaries, regardless of gender, wants to get pregnant and give birth. They ignore the fact that a lot of us live in places where abortion is difficult, if not impossible, to access. They ignore the fact that pregnancy permanently alters a person's body, and that it can be lethal.

I've even seen some try to point out that some trans men/mascs intentionally get pregnant and give birth as some sort of "gotcha," but those guys are just as capable of making their own choices as the rest of us. The existence of men who choose to carry children does not invalidate those of us who are unwilling.

Percy: I haven’t said anything judgmental.

Octavian: Your face and posture say it all.

Happy belated birthday to Katniss Everdeen — the girl who keeps reminding me not to lose hope (which is not an easy task).

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

snowbaird art dump!

katniss: i go to a place and do a thing using a skill. also everyone hates me. oh you want to know more about myself? here are four straight paragraphs just describing food instead.

haymitch: so the baker’s in love with my best friends girl and my girlfriend’s uncle is gay and secretly dating the town window-fixer and she’s actually related to lucy gray and has beef with the mayors daughter who bullied me and her social security number is—

“When the war is over, if we’ve won, Peeta will be pardoned.” Dead silence. I feel Gale’s body tense. I guess I should have told him before, but I wasn’t sure how he’d respond. Not when it involved Peeta.

beckendorf: omg percy i found the dismantled head of a bronze dragon in the woods will you come help me find the other pieces

percy:

beckendorf:

percy: the fuck

beckendorf:

percy: we are in the middle of capture the flag we're supposed to stand guard we're going to get in trouble

beckendorf: