Why There is Only Team Katniss
Love triangles are a funny thing. People love them, or people hate them. I’ve had multiple people tell me, after reading The Hunger Games, that they loved the book, but shame about that whole love triangle thing. Others are filling their social media streams, in the days leading up to the movie, with proclamations of “Team Peeta!” or “Team Gale!”
Both these responses, it seems, are missing the point.
Choosing a team implies pulling for one side or the other of a great conflict. Hoping your horse in the race comes through. Hoping the sports club from your area defeats the sports club from the other area at the match this weekend (yes that is the extent of my sports lingo). It’s Team Frodo vs Team Sauron. Team Harry vs Team Voldemort. It’s not Team Ginny vs Team Cho.
(I have now typed ‘team’ so much that the word looks funny.)
The Hunger Games is Katniss’s story, the story of a girl trying to survive against incredible odds. Catching Fire and Mockingjay as well carry on this same theme, and expand with conflicts I won’t go into with so many new people venturing into the series for the first time as the movie hits theatres. It’s a trilogy of hardship, sacrifice, bravery, trauma, and a deeply flawed character doing the best she can for herself and the people around her. Those people include the baker boy and her poaching buddy, but they also include her family and all the members of District 12, and even her uncertain allies in the arena. This is Katniss’s story, and the ultimate goal is to survive, and maybe, one day, thrive. Romance, she explicitly states at multiple times in the narrative, is a liability right now. Not an option. The person Katniss chooses to attempt a relationship with has no impact on the outcome of the story.
I’ll say that again. The person Katniss chooses to attempt a relationship with has no impact on the outcome of the story. read more…
A Night of Insomnia – Documented
12:30 am: finish reading fantasy doorstop, time for work
1:35 am: way too tired to focus, should just go to bed
1:39 am: teeth done, now totally awake, back to work!
1:55 am: fart around on interwebs
2:08 am: play Harvest Moon
2:20 am: bed time!
2:22 am: lying in bed…
2:25 am: snowmelt in gutter thumping on the other side of the wall
2:26 am: maybe I should get back into drawing
2:27 am: I’d love to go take some photos right now
2:28 am: the thumping always comes in fives, why does it always come in fives?
2:35 am: hey, if the snow is melting, that means wellington boots soon!
2:45 am: okay, not bed time, interwebs time
2:53 am: no new tweets, emails, status updates
2:58 am: I bet if I sat down right now and wrote a story without thinking, it would be amazing
2:59 am: I bet if I sat down right now and wrote a story without thinking, it would be awful
3:02 am: check twitter, email, facebook, pinterest, no new updates
3:11 am: this would be a great night to go for a walk
3:12 am: no, it really wouldn’t (this decision required absolutely no movement whatsoever)
3:14 am: contemplate fiddling with unstartupable laptop
3:18 am: walked on by cats [highlight of the night]
3:21 am: contemplate learning to fiddle
3:22 am: browse violin for dummies books online
3:23 am: remember ocarina and ocarina sheet music still unlearned in the other room
3:24 am: remember it is the middle of the night and non-awake occupant of the house may not appreciate ocarina practice even if it does involve Zelda songs
3:30 am: swear there’s someone standing in the gap of the open door watching me
3:32 am: attempt to ignore it, but every time I look away I can see someone standing in the hall outside the door
3:33 am: wind picks up and does not help things, house is thumping
3:36 am: seriously every time I look away from the door — GO AWAY HALL CREEPER!
3:41 am: check twitter, email, facebook, pinterest, no updates
3:55 am: hall creeper has grown bored, or eyes are too fuzzy to see that far
4:13 am: once more unto the bed, dear friends, once more
4:35 am: by the power of warm cats, I amzzzzzzzzzz
This is why I'm leaving.
Dear WarCraft,
I thought I made things clear last year when I uninstalled you, but I guess I need to put it in writing. I’ve moved on.
Look, it’s not like I don’t value the time we spent together. It was great! Most of it. It’s just…we both knew this wouldn’t last. We were young. I had never played an MMO before, you were fresh out of beta and had me skating rather than running in Stormwind half the time, but I never complained. We both stuck with it. You got your latency issues under control, and I learned to gank and grind mobs and ((separate my IC from my OOC speech)) like a pro. I still remember when I first stepped out of Northshire Abbey. Elwynn Forest stretched for miles ahead of me, all green and dappled sunlight, and people chatting on General saying thee and thou and “For Lothar!” everywhere I looked and….
You know, I still don’t understand why you had to be so difficult with me over that naming policy thing. I just said the guy’s name was Slimshady and maybe it didn’t fit in a Medieval(ish…the motorcycles still make me–ugh, forget it) roleplay setting, and then you had to go all “This is not affecting your roleplay experience I will not address it don’t ever talk about it again” on me.
But I know, that was early and we were still figuring each other out. I paid for how many more years after that? A lot. It’s not like you made me stay…although the paladin charger was pretty sweet, and Stratholme, and Alterac Valley was awesome…but then there was also the fiasco with the pvp armor, right? I mean, I thought we knew each other by then, and I was gonna go upgrade my set after you raised the level cap past 60, but you had to go and coat Every Single Thing in glowing crystal fragments like some kid who got hold of glitterglue! And then the spikes in Northrend, everything spikes as though poking out eyes was so hot right now. I just…I don’t even know what you were thinking. read more…
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