They Knew What He Was The Moment He Opened His Eyes. Or Rather, What He Would Become. What They Would

Hunger Games fanfic blurb:

I sipped the last of my water, slow as I could, hoping it would tide me awhile through the heat of the Hobb. Business was slow today. Not that we make much on other days, selling trinkets and scraps of metal and cloth in a district where most people could barely buy bread. But we scrape by.

But today, I hadn't a single body come by to look at the wares. Although, I s'pose, when you've got a Reaping tomorrow, you're probably not in a buying sorta mood. Even Greasy Sae is selling her stew for half price today for the youngins that usually come around to her corner.

Speaking of the youngins, one of them walks my way. The one with stern eyes who brings fresh game from the woods. The butcher's wife says she hunts 'em with a bow and her arrows never miss the mark. Must be nice to have a useful trade like that. Sometimes, she trades me berries for balls of yarn. That's probably what she's making her way over for.

Never got her name. I call her "Stern Eyes" and word around the Seam is she sings like a songbird. My Gammy Maude would've liked that. She gives me berries wrapped in cloth, and I give her the yarn. But she doesn't walk away.

She reaches her hand into one of the boxes, the one with old pins for hair and clothes that might've been pretty once but had gotten rusty and dusty since. Then she pulls out that pin. Gammy Maude's pin that used to belong to her friend. The friend with bad luck in love and even worse in life. Some say she ran away, and some say got shot in the woods by her lover. Gammy said her friend used to sing too. Like a songbird.

Gammy never liked that pin much. Said it never brought nothing but bad luck. I think it just reminded her too much of her friend and the lover who might've shot her. But she still kept the pin till she died. Guess reminders are still reminders.

It's a mockingjay pin. Might be gold, but it's too old and grimy to tell. Could've sold it for scrap metal, but after hearing Gammy's stories, I could never bring myself to melt the damn thing down. And it's not like I could just walk up to the fancy parts of town with a mockingjay pin to sell. The peacekeepers would have cuffed me before I could quote a price. Probably really is bad luck anyway.

Stern Eyes is holding the pin and askin how much. I think of asking for a couple of coins, and then I remember the Reaping. She's probably young enough to have her name in the bowl. More than a couple of times, like every Seam kid. I wonder if it'd bring bad luck to her too. Or maybe it'd bring her good luck. If I'm being honest, I just want the pin gone. Can't keep holding on to a thing like that.

I tell her she can take it. No charge. Can't ask people to pay you for what could be bad luck. Don't know why she picked that one, but I wonder if she knows anything about the last songbird who had it.

I really hope it brings her better luck than Gammy's friend.

Writer's note: I know this isn't accurate to the books where Katniss gets the pin from Madge and the pin isn't really mentioned in TBOSAS. But I remember she gets it in the Hobb in the movie and it does make an appearance in the prequel movie as well. Soooo, that's where this idea came from!

what is adolescence if not leaving and being left?

1. iain s. thomas | 2. alison zai @alisonzai | 3. @chloeinletters | 4. mikko harvey | 5. fleetwood mac | 6. the breakfast club (1985), john hughes | 7. lorde | 8. miranda july | 9. richard siken | 10. @mavra-matia | 11. homer | 12. amy hempel | 13. mitski | 14. katrin koenning | 15. freya ridings |

Satoru was not one to put much faith behind the unknowable. Maybe there was a God, or some universal power or creator. But did it matter? Humanity is still left to wander through the world fending for themselves, spinning endless cycles of survival and destruction. But he did like to think about multiverses.

It's not that he believed it, okay? It's a scientifically implausible theory. It's just an intriguing hypothesis, that he likes to wonder about sometimes. Because if there were that many worlds out there, then maybe there was one where the only person who ever felt like home didn't leave him.

That Satoru probably had the courage to ask him to stay when he felt him slipping away. That Satoru probably let his heart spill out of his mouth and gave it to him to hold. That Satoru probably knew what it felt like to be held by him. That Satoru probably knew what his lips felt like against his own, what his hair felt like between his fingers, what his love felt like when it wasn't quiet.

That Satoru could never even imagine looking down at the love of his life slumped in an alley, bleeding out, and delivering the final blow. That Satoru wasn't sitting alone on the school steps with every piece of family lost to time.

He hated that Satoru so much. He really did.

(No he didn't.)

Slow down, time is not our friend

To anyone who was born in one country and grew up in another,

Does it feel weird to you too when you recite the national anthem of a country that you know will never consider you their own even though they're all you've ever known? Did you also have to force a different accent onto your tongue so people would stop looking at you when you spoke with that face that meant they weren't listening to what you said, only the way you said it? Did you dread bringing a copy of your birth certificate to school and try to slip it onto the teachers desk before anyone noticed or saw as if you were passing confidential information? Did you try to be more of this or less of that so you would look like something that belonged? Have you also been a guest that overstayed your whole life in a country you call home?

"if i was orpheus i would simply not turn around" yes you would. if you were orpheus and you loved eurydice, you would. to love someone is to turn around. to love someone is to look at them. whichever version of the myth — he hears her stumble, he can't hear her at all, he thinks he's been tricked — he turns around because he loves her. that's why it's a tragedy. because he loves her enough to save her. because he loves her so much he can't save her. because he will always, always turn around. "if i was orpheus i would simply —" you wouldn't be orpheus. you wouldn't be brave enough to walk into the underworld and save the person you love. be serious

On Feeld, where curious people come to connect, you can now add a ✨celibacy✨tag to your profile—and search for others who do the same. Find your thing. Find everything when you download Feeld. 

Thanks for answering my ask....if you don't mind me asking (again), can I ask your top 5 (or top 3) favorite characters from The Hunger Games? And why you loved them?

- And your top 5 favorite moments from the series? Also, why do you really love The Hunger Games (series)? Thanks if you want to answer....

I don't mind answering!

I don't really have favorite characters. Like I find each character intriguing in their own way and I love talking about them, but I've never really been able to pick favorites if that makes sense?

As for favorite moments, in no particular order:

- When Finnick reveals what the Capitol did to him and everyone sees just how soulless the Capitol is and it proves that the games are never really over

- The mockingjay dress reveal and Katniss' horror when she sees Cinna has basically just declared an open act of rebellion basically

- When Katniss brings a bunch different twigs of different trees together to create a bundle that would smell like the forest to remind Johanna of home

- When Peeta first asks Katniss "Real or not real"?

- When Katniss volunteers and everyone gives her the three finger salute