#katniss really did spend all of cf being like damn how are we gonna kill these ppl :/

[65ths]

good morning! finnick is quite blunt during the quarter quell— yes, he makes jokes and he laughs, but he also says things like “those canons? music to my ears. i don’t care about any of them” and “if i wanted to kill either of you i would’ve done it by now.” he doesn’t hold back for a second about any of it and he can’t. it’s how he survives, and more importantly it’s how he makes sure that katniss and peeta survive. the quell is a complicated multilayered event for finnick— he’s going back into the games which have haunted him for a decade. to win would be to seal his fate as the golden boy for the rest of his life. he will never know peace. he’s doing it alongside the closest person he has to a mother, mags, and for him to win would be mean for her to die in the games. he’s fighting against people he’s known for ten years, and quite well given that he’s the one who does all the we remember memorial videos. despite his attitude and words, there is care and there is still this attachment. he has to play ruthlessly, because even a moment of hesitance could end badly for him. he can’t afford to get caught up in the relationships and common hatred for the games that he has with the other victors. he won his first games by being quick and calculated, and he’ll only win his second by being the same. anything personal is a weakness and it makes him vulnerable, and finnick knows what happens when you’re vulnerable to the system.

bearing all that, he’s also part of the rebellion which should it end badly or if anything goes wrong will also be his unraveling. it’s a secret he’s hid from annie, the one person he is constantly trying to have some level of honesty with. it’s treason. then, he also has the ultimate task of getting into an alliance with katniss and make sure that she and peeta stay alive— arguably the most next to impossible task. to do so, he needs to convince katniss to not kill him in the middle of the night or leave the group— two things she is constantly thinking about. none of them have the time or luxury to think and unpack the circumstances, they’re in the games and they have to act like it and finnick has to steer every situation they get into— saving peeta’s life, yelling out to johanna when they’re all standing by ready to attack, calming johanna down, counting the bread rolls, holding onto peeta when the cornucopia spins, etc.