Yep, Still Me, Still Hung Up On The Timebomb Tragedy, Especially Ekko's Part Of It.

what is a love story if not falling to your knees and pressing your shaking hands to his wound, as if the desperation of your heart could stem the blood pumping out of his; and what is a love story if not holding out a sticky-sweet handful of death to the greedy cameras; and what is a love story if not your one wish being to send her home, with all the reasons why hanging golden around your neck like a willingly-worn noose; and what is a love story if not hitching yourself to the puppet strings of politicians in a last ditch attempt to save each other across the miles; and what is a love story if not the ever- unspoken mantra “take my life: take it, take it, take it” — and what is a love story if not the burned and blistered realization that offering up your life is not enough, not quite, but that offering your lover’s life back to them might just be? so you plant her primroses in the ash, and you mend his mind with the thread of new memories, and it isn’t pretty, but it is a love story — because what else could it be?

Guzmán and Nadia in Élite S3E7

Ekko's entire story is loss, grit, dying-but-never-dead hope, and pain.

He loses his parents, his found family, his best friend, his aspirations, and life he might have wanted for himself, he loses people to Shimmer and Silco left and right,

he loses hope to get Powder back.

he tells everyone - and himself most of all, - how much Jinx is irredeemable and beyond saving, how she should be stopped, but he can never do it.

but why? why can't he ever let go of Powder?

oh, only because of what was and what could have been. all the dreams and nightmares of the past he has, all his daydreams that flood his brain whenever he's too exhausted to fend them off - they all include her (Powder, Jinx, doesn't matter, really).

only because she knew him inside and out one day. this bond that stretches across years, persists and festers for all it could have been but is not.

it's the only love that stayed from that glossed-over, barely remembered childhood - and even this love is warped, poisoned, stomped at,

always dying, never dead.

she is the only tether to his soft years. the only living proof it was real. she is his person, his... kismet, the worst blessing, the best enemy.

she stole what they could have had from him, she killed his friends, she tried to kill him - and somewhere deep down it never mattered.

and why would it?

Powder became a story. a symbol. just a dead girl who used to be his closest friend, the one he showed all his findings and inventions to, the one who knew all his secrets -

the one who left him. abandoned him. like he was nothing - when he felt in his bones: he was her person, too.

so Powder became a story, a memory, a wound, and stories never die, and memories fade, and wounds that are scratched open again and again, never heal.

if you resent and hold a grudge against someone, yet keep missing them as you remember them, as you could have known them and had them in your life - how can you let go? how can you forget?

replaying all the memories over and over, thinking what you could have done differently -

and he has to hurt his person. over and over, and over again. swing at her, hit her, plan to destroy her.

can you imagine the anguish? the pain? the powerlessness to change anything?

every time raising his fist means adding one more haunting memory to his cognitive dissonance. the girl he loved, the girl he misses, the rabid maniac with a gun who wears her face - lies, lies, he knows her inside and out still, and it is painful and hopeless, and he can't quit remembering, missing and daydreaming.

he hurts and hopes and loses, and loses, and loses - her and his life as it was with her in it.

he loses again.

but it's not about a girl, per se.

their love has always been life-affirming and full of joy and admiration first. romantic love came later.

it's about their life that crumbled in their palms.

fighting like playing, trying to kill only to have a chance to get closer because everything else is forbidden.

*

nothing is as haunting as a life never lived,

and a love never explored.

and they were both to each other.

they were trying so hard to pretend they didn't give up, pretend they are only adversaries, and only the bad blood ties them to each other.

they succeeded, but only just.

love never lived, life never shared. the closest soul turned enemy.

that is their tragedy.

I am convinced that it happened.

I have an everlark headcanon now, that after their “you love me. real or not real?”/“real” moment, it’s like a barrier breaks for katniss and she can’t stop saying “i love you” to peeta. she’ll put her hands up to her cheeks to feel her smile as she says it. she’ll whisper it to him again and again as they lie in bed. she’ll make herself smile as she thinks it while watching him work and will just blurt it out at random when peeta doesn’t even expect it. she’ll say it in a sing song way, in a hushed way, in a breathy way. she’ll just love that she can finally vocalise what she’s felt for so long and she’ll want him to know it all the time.

Coin being frustrated that she didn't get her wanted prize at the claw machine, as if the plushie with the bread wouldn't successfully gaslight her entire district on day one just to rescue his pregnant wife

”And when he kisses me, people in the room actually sigh…”

The Hunger Games chapter 27

Darker times will come and go

Times you need to see her smile

And mothers' hearts are warm and mild

I would rather feel this world through the skin of a child

—AURORA; Through the Eyes of a Child

my ship dynamic

also this is how you'd flirt with me

this is so momtara and dadko coded

There are a lot of posts comparing Peeta to Lucy Gray's kindness and charm and how that similarity torments Snow, I get it but I disagree. At least, I don't think that is how Snow sees Peeta.

Peeta's biggest fuck you against Snow is his love is pure, genuine, sacrificial AND it paid off. She loved him back. Peeta is literally Snow's "you wish that was you huh, lol". THAT is how Peeta tortures him.

Because Peeta was everything Snow couldn't be: trusting, vulnerable, expressive, selfless. All he had to do is be himself and somehow he still won and got the girl.

katniss is so funny she’s like “oh i know i care about peeta but i don’t know if i love him” then they have to sedate her every time she thinks of peeta being tortured