Dear Katniss Everdeen

This post may contain The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and/or Mockingjay spoilers.

Dear Katniss,

I get it, girl. You’re under a lot of pressure. Not every teenager is faced with being sent to an arena death match (not once, but twice) and becoming the figurehead of an entire revolution all while having two whole boys battling for your love and affection. I mean, you’re living a pretty average life for the heroine of a young adult dystopian novel, but even so. That’s a lot to ask of a girl.

But since you’re obviously not going to choose not to do it (come on, girl, you’re built to survive in the wilderness which is apparently plentiful in Panem; grab your mom, grab Prim, and get out of dodge I’m sure everyone else will manage just fine) I have a few suggestions to maybe do this whole Mockingjay thing a little better.

1.      Would it kill you to smile a little? Really, we know you’re a good enough actress to fool the entire Capitol. It’ll help you in this whole “being a figurehead to inspire an entire enslaved nation to revolution” thing if you just keep up the act a little more. Putting on a smile will be a lot easier, at least, than pretending (pretending?) to love Peeta in front of everyone, and will probably make people like you better.

2.      On that note, let’s just ditch the love triangle alright? Clearly you’re not that interested in either of them or else you would have picked one straight away. No one buys this Stockholm syndrome love affair you’ve got going on with Peeta, and Gale’s started to be a real creep. You’re better off with neither of them. Romantic love does not define you, girl.

3.      Maybe just be a little more pleasant all-around. I know it’s hard when everybody keeps going behind your back to make revolutionary plans without you, despite the fact that you’re supposed to be this Mockingjay who proved herself pretty well in the Hunger Games this first time around. But maybe, just maybe, they’d trust you better if you weren’t so…untrustworthy. People like to trust other people they know won’t angrily spout off the plan in the face of the President they’re trying to overthrow. Not saying you’d do that. But you tend to not be the best conversationalist, so is it really that hard to imagine? All I’m saying is, if you just tried to interact with people a bit more positively, maybe you wouldn’t be left in the dark about the entire cause you’re meant to be championing.

Honestly, I’m not entirely sure why anyone picked you to be a revolutionary leader anyways (come on, post-traumatic stress doesn’t make for the soundest leadership abilities and no one’s gonna fault you for that, girl). You’re probably better off getting out of the way until this is all over.

XO