#everlarkreadalong

[everlarkedalways]

CATCHING FIRE

Wow. This book! It's so good and I feel like I'm reading it again for the first time. Let's go.

Week Eleven: Ch 4-6

Canon:

🌞 Create a post about something you've never noticed before or something that seems brand new.

🌞 Train, train, train, train. 🚄 He climbs into bed with me! Oh wow! Reblog, post and create all things train!Everlark

🌞 Katniss. I really love Katniss's thoughts on these chapters. Let's quote Katniss and handwrite one of her quotes.

Fanon:

🌞 It's a whirlwind Victory Tour. What would have added or taken away from the Victory Tour?

🌞 What would your talent be? Peeta painted. 🎨 Katniss crafted clothes. 😂

🌞 The Capitolites puke it all up to eat more. What other crazy, outlandish customs does the Capitol partake in that we would find appalling and trivial?

Anon:

Send me an anon ask about the creepiest thing you've ever for Everlark!

Thanks for your patience and awesomeness! This has been a good week, but little things here and there have made it a long week! Keep creating! Don't forget to tag everything with #toastedthg!

#everlarked #everlarkreadalong #everlarkedalways #toastedTHG

[everlvrks]

#the hunger games #catching fire #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark #katniss and peeta #boy with the bread #mockingjay part one #mockingjay part two #everlark #girl on fire #back to panem #everlarkreadalong #thgedit

[ghtlovesthg]

Future of Forestry’s “Someone (Acoustic Version)” popped up on my ipod yesterday, and the lyrics, the sound, and the fact that it’s a duet seemed perfect for Everlark and the cave scene! So I had to post if for Back to Panem. Lyrics below (with repetitions removed):

(male singer) Turn my head Break my heart with mercy Just move my feet Move my hands, grow so gently

(female & male singer) Mmm for love we’re still in need We’ll hunger and we’ll bleed The rising from the dust We’ve seen how this is ours

‘Cause you’re someone... You’re someone I can trust And you’re someone To light the way for us Rest my head In your arms, so softly Just let your breath Breathe its sweetness around me

#backtopanem #everlarkreadalong #music monday

[softpeetabread]

And all the people say You can't wake up, this is not a dream You're part of a machine, you are not a human being With your face all made up, living on a screen Low on self esteem, so you run on gasoline

Song Quote - Gasoline :: Halsey

#backtopanem #everlarkreadalong #everlark #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark #haymitch abernathy #johanna mason #finnick odair #catching fire #mockingjay part 1 #mockingjay part 2 #song quotes #i love this song for the victors #may also be a part 1 but idk #i'm like ready to pass out lmfao

[porchwood]

Crackpot Theory: Gale was going to propose to Katniss at the beginning of THG.

Disclaimer: I’ve never taken part in any official THG reread/discussion and I essentially read the book in isolation, so anything I say in these posts may well have been discussed and dismissed years ago. 

While mulling over Ch 1 this time around (this is why I’m no longer a quick reader, lol), a couple of things leapt out at me and made my brain go:

Exhibit A: (This was the biggie.) Gale meets Katniss at “their place” in the woods with a loaf of expensive bakery bread. "Fine bread like this is for special occasions,” Katniss explains in the narrative. (And while this reaping being Gale’s last might well qualify the day as a “special occasion,” neither of them remark on it, which I find curious.) We know that they can buy “good bread” from a vendor at the Hob - in fact, they do so that very morning on their trading rounds - yet Gale made a special trip to the bakery at the crack of dawn on Reaping Day (an extra expenditure of time, energy, and resources) for a fine loaf expressly to share with Katniss. This purchase may have necessitated an extra trip to the woods that morning (before dawn and without Katniss) to hunt a squirrel to trade for said bread, unless Gale managed to snare a squirrel inside the fence (also, it seems odd to me that he’d be trading with squirrel since that tends to be Katniss’s currency, in light of her superior marksmanship). Or maybe, if this was an especially significant loaf, Gale paid cash for it while telling Katniss that it cost “just a squirrel”... 

And yes, I know it’s Reaping Day so special treats are customary, but answer me this: Why make a trading visit (without your hunting partner) to get top-of-the-line bread (to share with your partner) even though you could buy perfectly “good” bread for much less at the Hob, which you will do shortly thereafter when making your “official” trading rounds (with your partner) later that morning?

Exhibit B: After slicing the bread (and spreading the goat cheese, etc), Gale initiates the “We could run away together” conversation. At this point Katniss is gazing down into the valley, savoring the beautiful day and the delicious food, while Gale’s out-of-nowhere remark implies that he thinks she’s on the same wavelength (i.e., “the two of us could make it out there”). To Katniss’s everlasting credit, her internal reaction is: “I don’t know how to respond. The idea is so preposterous.” :) :) :)

Exhibit C: Gale amends his wild suggestion with “if we didn’t have so many kids” - to which Katniss immediately responds, “I never want to have kids.” There’s a whole post in that exchange alone, but to sum up: Gale describes their predicament in an unusually suggestive manner, if you will (bless you @ghtlovesthg for phrasing it like that!). He could have just as easily said something like “if we didn’t have little siblings,” or “if we weren’t responsible for so many other lives” but instead he groups the pair of them like a married couple and describes their siblings as though they were their own children (we see what you’re trying to do there, Gale...). Equally interesting ( @ghtlovesthg pointed this out too) is that Katniss, exquisitely oblivious in many circumstances, must subliminally pick up on his intimation somehow, because she consciously knows exactly what he’s referring to and yet the next words out of her mouth are “I never want to have kids.”

Exhibit D: Gale tries again, more overtly: “I might. If I didn’t live here. [i.e., if we were living in the woods together]” (And now all I can think of is “Close your eyes, start a journey to a strange new world / Leave all thoughts of the life you knew before...” - a la “Music of the Night.” :D)

Which enticement - delightfully - only serves to irritate Katniss and she shoots him down with, “But you do,” to which his response is a snapped, “Forget it.” 

Sidenote: For some reason, I suddenly find it very funny indeed that as Katniss is processing the preceding exchange, she thinks “if he wants kids, Gale won’t have any trouble finding a wife.” Not, “Oh no, Gale might get married?!” She admits to being jealous of him as her hunting partner (which I think is true), but it doesn’t seem to concern (or indeed, involve) her one iota that he might be looking for a wife and mother of his children. :) :) :)

Exhibit E: However “flatly,” Gale tells Katniss to “wear something pretty” for the reaping. This could simply be sarcasm or even a riff on his compliment to Madge (”Pretty dress” - which could be the subject of a whole ‘nother post in itself! ;D), but it’s an interesting remark in light of everything that’s transpired between them that morning.

Exhibit F: When Katniss finally spots Gale at the reaping, he’s looking at her with “the ghost of a smile” (an uncommon expression on his face). It’s in the context of Haymitch and Effie’s altercation on the stage, so there is a lightness and even humor to the moment, but we also know that he sent Katniss home to look pretty and she came back looking beautiful. And that at some point after they make eye contact, “his face darkens and he looks away.” Which could be typical Gale anger, but again: it’s curious in light of their interactions earlier that day.

Exhibit G: “Katniss, remember I -” Maybe it’s awful of me, but I enjoy that Katniss seems to have no idea what he was trying to tell her while a reader never had any doubt. (It’s not just me, surely?)

Further, this was Gale’s final (i.e., 18-year-old) reaping. While there’s nothing in canon to explicitly support this, there are various fanon traditions about couples getting married as soon as they “age out” of the reaping, and Gale wants a wife and kids. Had Katniss not been reaped, would he have brought up the idea of an engagement (with a marriage to follow after her final reaping)? Do you think he literally wanted her to run off to the woods with him, or was the suggestion more in the way of trying to make her see him as a romantic/marital prospect? Women respond more positively to romantic cues after they’ve been fed, after all (this is why Everlark was destined to be endgame! :D) and Gale brought an awfully fine treat to feed his prospective mate before reminding her of what a great hunter and provider he is. (And now I’m thinking about that Superb Bird of Paradise courtship video where the male does his bizarre dance and the female - after watching him in “WTF??” fashion - ultimately just hops away. In the words of David Attenborough, “It’s hard not to feel deflated when even your best isn’t good enough”!) 

What if Gale was hoping for a secret toasting in the woods that morning and that’s why he went out of his way to obtain toasting-caliber bread before meeting Katniss in the woods?? (And yes, I know it’s a crackpot theory, hence the title. But it’s curious nonetheless!)

#everlarkreadalong #backtopanem #gale hawthorne #crackpot theories #the hunger games #hunger games reread

[gabzep]

Wake UP! by Raspuss on @deviantart

“I'm going to wake Peeta," I say. "No, wait," says Finnick. "Let's do it together. Put our faces right in front of his." Well, there's so little opportunity for fun left in my life, I agree. We position ourselves on either side of Peeta, lean over until our faces are inches frim his nose, and give him a shake. "Peeta. Peeta, wake up," I say in a soft, singsong voice. His eyelids flutter open and then he jumps like we've stabbed him. "Aa!" Finnick and I fall back in the sand, laughing our heads off. Every time we try to stop, we look at Peeta's attempt to maintain a disdainful expression and it sets us off again.

#backtopanem #everlarkreadalong

[iremembereverything]

“So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.”

― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

#backtopanem #everlarkreadalong #everlark #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark #mockingjay

[panoramaofpanem]

“district ruins are going to be all the rage this year”

- Effie Trinket, Catching Fire

sources: | x | x | x | x | x | x |

#cf #mj #book quote #rebellion #revolt #backtopanem #everlarkreadalong #peacekeepers #picset #pop picset #ruins

[katamount]

Brooding Katniss by Ratgirlstudios

“Apparently, I’m too ‘vulnerable’ for ferocity.”

Katniss in chapter 9 of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins 

This line appears in the context of Katniss’ interview prep with Haymitch, but on this reread, I realized that it actually reveals a lot about her character as well as her appeal in the Games. (And to readers.) As a narrator, Katniss is loathe to appear vulnerable. But people—both in the Capitol and in the districts—can’t take their eyes off her in the Games because she’s a badass in an unlikely package. A fierce 16-year-old girl who’s underfed (though, thanks to her own wits and prowess, not nearly so much as some of the tributes), who hails from the lousiest backwater district, who is utterly compelling, yet arouses sympathy at the same time. 

I bet people in the Capitol didn’t back an underdog very often. (Though with the highest training score, it’s hard to call her an underdog, per se.) But a big part of her appeal is that she’s unlike anything they’d seen before. Sure, they’d seen dozens of scrawny Seam kids from District 12, but a scrappy survivor like Katniss is one of a kind. Which makes me think, the rebels must’ve been beside themselves in the lead up to the Games. 

#Katniss Everdeen #The Hunger Games #backtopanem #fan art #everlarkreadalong #THG #Hunger Games

[bretzboy4life]

in honor of the 10 year anniversary of the series “the hunger games” by Suzanne Collins we’ll be hosting a re read starting monday april 30th kicking in with the hunger games. More info to come.

#everlarkreadalong

[everlarkedalways]

Join us for a corporate viewing of Catching Fire! August 12, 2018 6P/7M/8C/9E

One of the best fandom things to experience. So clear out your schedule and get some spiced milk, spile water and crispy tree rat ready for that night! Tag all the people you want to join in and reblog!

#backtopanem #everlarkreadalong #lets do this #everlark #i can't wait #catching fire #cf #the hunger games #thg #katniss #katniss everdeen #peeta #peeta mellark #fandom #life #movies #reblog #tag #join us #anniversary #kissing #the beach kiss #best movie ever #yes #i love this movie #come one #this'll be great.

[alliswell21]

THG, Chapter 3

Katniss and Peeta’s first tag teaming is short but shows pretty much who they are and how they play off each other:

They don’t know it yet, but they are a team already.

#backtopanem #everlarkreadalong #before everlark was everlark #thg #hg re read

[ghtlovesthg]

Peeta was the very model of what a young man should be

Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins

#backtopanem #peeta #peeta mellark #everlarkreadalong

[softpeetabread]

Tribute Parade

I just want to point out how the scene with Finnick and the sugar cube was almost verbatum in the film and that’s something I will always appreciate.

What I whine about is the lack of Peeta’s beautiful dialogue with Katniss after Finnick walks away.

Firstly, I want to point out that Katniss thinks Finnick is sensuous, but she doesn’t find him attractive. And that got me thinking that she has a type. And Peeta fits that type. Or rather, her only type is Peeta. And that’s great. They’re in public, but their banter is so natural and organic. We have Peeta and Katniss discussing whether they would have been part of the ‘freak show’ like the rest of the victors, and I find it so funny how Katniss claims Peeta would have been drawn into the Capitol ways and changed. It’s almost as if she didn’t know him, he, who did not want to be changed by the Games. I honestly think she’s joking, but her tone is ambiguous (so it depends on how alert I am while I read and re-read this part because who knows if she’s being 100% or 0% serious!). Then we have this gem:

“Having an eye for beauty isn’t the same thing as a weakness…except possibly when it comes to you.”

Oh, Peeta. (I want to crush something right now, it’s just too cute, honestly.) This boy is so flirtatious and smooth, what the hell. Literally calling her pretty and saying she’s his weakness. He’s too good for everyone. Severely upsetting that this wasn’t in the movie, what a shame and a waste of a perfectly amazing line. Josh would have killed it.

Anyway, I’m done with my complaints for now.

Something else that I really enjoyed about this whole scene is that Peeta doesn’t seem jealous of Finnick talking to Katniss. He’s not possessive and that’s wonderfully refreshing. Thank you, SC, I would have been crushed if Peeta would have been aggressive about it. Instead of reacting like ‘why were you talking to him?’, he’s curious about what he wanted. I wasn’t disappointed with Katniss’ imitation of Finnick, but I admit that anything Peeta does is the best thing, so I apologize for not being very objective for this post. He laughs and I think this is a great reaction because he doesn’t really take the whole situation seriously. Despite Finnick being sensuous, gorgeous, and perhaps the most handsome man in Panem, Peeta didn’t even break a sweat or gave off any insecure vibes about Katniss possibly liking this guy. He had no reason since he and Katniss technically didn’t have anything going on between them, as far as he knew, but it was so nice to see how Katniss reacted to it, too. She couldn’t take it seriously, either.

“I look up into those blue eyes that no amount of dramatic makeup can make truly deadly…”

It’s okay, Katniss, you can say his eyes are pretty and sweet. We won’t judge you.

“He holds out a hand to help me into the chariot.”

Chivalry isn’t dead and I’m thankful Peeta Mellark has demonstrated this, goodbye.

“Are we supposed to hold hands this year?”

“I guess they’ve left it up to us.”

See now, Peeta could have easily told her yes to holding hands just so he could hold hers, but he didn’t do that. Peeta lies when he has to, and this is not one of those times. He leaves it up to her, like other types of affection such as her initiating kisses. If I’m not mistaken, it’s usually Peeta who takes her hand (though, correct me if I’m wrong!), but he left it up to her this time and I think that’s so sweet because he didn’t want her to feel like they had to hold hands. But then, Katniss goes for it and all these things about her wanting to protect him and keeping him alive, how she thought they’d kill each other a year before, really show how far they’ve come in their relationship. She’s also glad Peeta is the one that’s going in with her, which shows how comfortable she is with him and how much she actually trusts him and wants to be with him.

“Our hands find each other without further discussion. Of course we will go into this as one.”

Of course, Katniss. You’ve both been one for a long time, what are you talking about.

What I find amusing is how Katniss gets jealous and peeved at Johanna stripping and Peeta casually talking to her. She literally tosses his hand aside when they’re alone and, again, we have such a wonderful scene where Peeta points out how pure she is and her reaction just reinforces that idea. She’s mad about it for about a day, but I think it was probably worth it. It’s really the first time (that I’ve observed) that Katniss shows jealousy when it comes to Peeta.

#everlark #finnick odair #backtopanem #everlarkreadalong #cf read along #catching fire #meta #ch 15 #the parade is one of my favorite parts #i say as i remember i say that about every other part of the book and movie

[porchwood]

THG Reread: A ramble about Rory, tesserae, and the Hawthornes in general

Disclaimer: I’ve never taken part in any official THG reread/discussion and I essentially read the book in isolation, so anything I say in these posts may well have been discussed and dismissed years ago.

I know we’re not quite on Catching Fire at present but the quote pictured above fits neatly into something I wanted to remark on in Ch 1 of THG, and this way I can preempt the forthcoming discussion about something that drives me crazy: Rory Hawthorne’s age.

(Minor rant may ensue. Apologies in advance.)

I’ve had fandom folk tell me that Rory and Prim have the same age gap as Gale and Katniss, and my best guess is that this comes from the THG Wiki (screenshot above). To be fair, we get almost no details about Gale’s family in THG and then CF kicks off and BOOM, they have names and ages. In particular, we find out that Rory is twelve at the time of the Victory Tour (i.e., midway between the 74th and 75th Games but before January, because Posy is still four and she’ll turn five shortly after the anniversary of the mine explosion).

Unpopular opinion: I firmly believe that Rory is - at the very least - a few months younger than Prim, in part because of the age reference in CF and also because of the complete lack of mention of Rory in the reaping lead-up of THG. If Rory is twelve sixish months after the reaping, then either the 74th Games was his first reaping (and he’s going to turn 13 in the next sixish months, making him the same age as Prim) or the 75th/Quarter Quell was supposed to be his first reaping. And while I know that this is effectively argument from ignorance, I have a hard time believing that the 74th was Rory’s first reaping when there wasn’t one speck of mention, not in all that tesserae narrative from Katniss nor at any point from Gale. In fact, Gale’s pretty darned focused on Katniss come reaping day, and there’s no shared anxiety or anger about their siblings going into the pool for the first time. Yes, in CF Katniss imagines Gale volunteering for Rory as she did for Prim (in that awful post-whipping Galeniss time We Do Not Talk About), but based on the absence of references to Rory in the reaping from THG, I don’t believe he was eligible for those Games.

Speaking of the Hawthorne children: while working on Six Months to Strawberry Time (my parallel Gadge fic to WtM), my interest was piqued by the gaps in the lineup. At the time of that age reference from CF, Gale is somewhere between 18-19, Rory is 12, Vick is 10, and Posy is 4. Were there miscarriages/stillbirths/children who simply didn’t survive during those 6-7 years between Gale and Rory (prime childbearing years for Hazelle, one imagines) and the 5-6 years between Vick and Posy? (For that matter, was Posy a longed-for girl after a line-up of boys - or a surprise pregnancy?) I think it’s likely there were/were supposed to be more Hawthorne children (in fact, I might have a related headcanon simmering...), but as in all of this speculation, I could be entirely wrong. 

Further: are the Hawthornes a good representative sample of a Seam family, with children born over 14-15 years (resulting in TWENTY reapings for Hazelle to endure, if my math is correct, with another child going into the bowl right around the time their predecessor ages out), and does this say something about family planning and/or birth control in Twelve - or the lack thereof? (I suspect that fertility awareness practices like cervical mucus checks were likely a part of the process - not foolproof, of course, but the price is right, and it’s a method accessible to the population with a little education from the local apothecary.) 

And here’s something I find particularly interesting: Gale took tesserae for every member of his family when he was twelve, at which point his father was still alive and Posy hadn’t yet been born. Now, Katniss points out that her mother received “a small amount of money as compensation for [Mr. Everdeen’s] death, enough to cover one month of grieving at which time [Mrs. Everdeen] would be expected to get a job,” and presumably the same was true for Hazelle, who “was out hunting the streets for work” “less than a week after she gave birth” (a subject for a future post!). So I’m wondering: just how much did a miner earn, and was it unusual for a Seam wife to work outside the home, unless her husband had died? (I know the presence of too-small-for-school children would certainly be a factor, as it was with baby Posy.) With Katniss, tesserae was a matter of survival after her father died, especially as her mother wasn’t bringing in any income, but Gale signed up for tesserae as soon as he was eligible, and his family was only one child larger than the Everdeens’ (and his father was still alive and working). Would Hazelle have been out working if not for Vick (who would’ve been somewhere around 3-4 at the time of Gale’s first reaping) and that’s why they needed the resource stream of tesserae? And do you think Katniss would have signed up for tesserae at twelve if her father was still alive, or were the Everdeens minutely better off than the Hawthornes in some way (ex. Mrs. Everdeen’s apothecary business)?

#tl;dr #the hawthornes #rory hawthorne #hazelle hawthorne #mrs hawthorne #gale's mother #this is as good a place as any to mention that i've never been a fan of rory/prim #certain authors can do it well #but i hate that rory's the automatic pairing for prim #especially considering how un-hawthorne she is #and i know marko/prim is practically a rarepair #but i (personally) can see her with a mellark far easier than a hawthorne #everlarkreadalong #backtopanem #catch-up week #hawthorne children

[gabzep]

Instead he pulls me in close and buries his face in my hair. Warmth radiates from the spot where his lips just touch my neck, slowly spreading through the rest of me. It feels so good, so impossibly good, that I know I will not be the first to let go.

#backtopanem #everlarkreadalong