The End of the World (FernWithy) / Heartwarming

As bleak as 25 years of tragically detailed Hunger Games and their aftermath are, the story does have some moments of real warmth.

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Multiple Stories

All of the rare moments where one of Haymitch's tributes (like Elmer, Babra, Chicory, River, Olla, and Briar) lives long enough to form an alliance and have a few moments of peace and happiness in the arena. Some of these friendships also have powerful effects on the other tributes they ally with, particularly Johanna, who is reminded of her brother during her alliance with River and is patient and protective toward him.
Any time Haymitch and his friends help each other with sponsor calls and other mentoring duties to give whoever is mentoring a promising tribute a better chance at bringing the kid home.
Peeta's first-ever date was with a girl named Jemina Kingery, and he spent most of it talking about his Cannot Spit It Out feelings toward Katniss. Rather than be bitter, Jemina is actually happy that happened during the 74th Hunger Games (as detailed in The Last Tribute and The Final Eight), as it gives her something to tell the reporters that will help keep Katniss and Peeta alive.
There is a surprising sense of cordiality between Career and non-Career victors. While Haymitch and the others may hate certain Careers for things they do in the arena, they can be forgiving of the culture as a whole. They understand that at the end of the day, they are all victims of the Capitol, and most Careers can act like normal kids between battles and are just doing the best with what they have to get by in their Crapsack World without particularly liking the Games or the Capitol (with odd exceptions like Brutus, District 1 Bit Character victor Satin, and occasional non-Victor tributes like Haymitch's nemesis Filigree), and often deserve sincere respect and sympathy when they die. One of the lost LiveJournal oneshots has Seeder conceding that outlier victors like her can be just as ruthless killers as Careers when they have to be as she and the most recent Victor (Miracle Brea from District 1) chat about the respective dance styles they like and go to see sights and have some fun in dancing venues with half-a-dozen other Victors whose talents involve dance and who come from a variety of Districts (like Earl from District 10 and Titania from District 2).
Mr. Mellark bringing cookies to Katniss in the original book is revealed to be part of a tradition where he (and his father before him) have spent decades bringing bakery goods to the tributes to comfort them before they are sent away.
Most of the scenes where Haymitch gets sponsor pledges or enthusiastic media praise for Katniss and Peeta from Obliviously Evil or Internal Reformist Capitol citizens (such as newlyweds who sell their wedding gifts to try to keep Katniss and Peeta alive) are powerful reminders that there is good in the Vice City.
- One little boy in the crowd of people celebrating the rule change talks about how nice it would be if the rule change could be for whole alliances outside of District boundaries and everyone could come home with Katniss and Peeta.
- After one young Katniss and Peeta supporter laments not having any sponsor money, Haymitch hands her a sparkler a street vendor gave him, and tells her to be the girl on fire and run through the night with it, before buying more sparklers for other kids.
Cinna and Portia's whole relationship, both romantic and professional, has lots of sweet moments, especially given how this version of Portia is a citizen of District 3 who Cinna helped get Capitol citizenship.

The End of the World

Shortly before the 2nd Quarter Quell, Haymitch, Danny, Ruth, and the Donner twins try to save the life of a dying runaway from District 6 who they find by the train tracks, with them comforting her and letting her hold Maysilee's Mockingjay pin as she dies.
Digger took tesserae for five other people before the 2nd Quarter Quell, including a sick peer, two little kids, and an old man with no family to care for him.
The goodbye between Haymitch and Digger after the reaping is both sad and touching, as is how their friend Greasy Sae makes sure there is a fire lit for them to toast bread over, having guessed they would want to reaffirm their love in an My Own Private "I Do" ceremony. Haymitch also tells Digger that as much as he loves her, he wants her to move on if he dies and maybe just name a son after him if she can’t entirely let go and wants to keep his memory alive. Peeta later incorporates that story into his claim that he and Katniss did something similar during the 3rd Quarter Quell interviews.
Caesar Flickerman's Establishing Character Moment is having an assistant double-check all of the tribute names because a commentator got one wrong, and he doesn't want them to experience any more of that fear and indignity than necessary.
Haymitch and Maysilee not only avoid attacking two of their last (and youngest) opponents but also leave some of their food for the two girls to find.
Caesar taking Haymitch on a tour of museums, libraries, and the like after Haymitch's victory.

The Rites of Fall

Peeta's grandparents acting as Parental Substitutes to Haymitch.
Chaff risking execution by smuggling himself into District 12 just for a quick visit to give Haymitch some emotional support in the middle of his personal tragedies and Head Peacekeeper Beckett's Day of the Jackboot.

The Hanging Tree

Every scene where any of Haymitch's friends like Gia, Saffron, and Woof try to keep him out of his Descent into Addiction while also showing sympathy and understanding for why he is drinking.
Haymitch gets a frosty reception from District 1 due to his last opponent, Filigree, being one of their Career tributes, and it seems like this extends to the Victors when only two of them even bother to meet him during his visit. However, one of those two, Wealthy Gibson, seeks Haymitch out specifically to tell him that the others are avoiding his party due to their hatred for his odious escort Glass (who was assigned to their district the previous year) and have no hard feelings toward Haymitch over what happened in the arena.
During Haymitch's first year as a mentor, several of the other mentors are briefly annoyed at him for making a deal with Snow (who relishes using any leverage he can get over a single Victor to put the screws to them all) to get a crutch for one of his tributes. Toffy Taggart from District 10 tells him not to worry, saying every one of them has made a deal with Snow that they regret.
Elmer gets sponsors who include a janitor who is touched by how Elmer helped him fix a machine and the members of an astronomy club who spend all of the money they can spare on the brainy Elmer (and only don't save any for Wiress because they wrongly assume everyone else must find her as cool as they do and will be rushing to sponsor her).
Haymitch reading a fairytale to baby Peeta.

These are the Names

Every time Caesar discusses assigning Effie to Haymitch to help him recover from Glass, while also reiterating his trust in her.
A lot of the flirtation between Effie (still a teenager at the time) and Trill, one of the tributes during her first year of escort, is a mixture of cute, funny, and sad (given Trill's Doomed by Canon status), with a slightly bigger emphasis on cute as she begins to find him more charming.
Effie reminds Blight to change shirts (after he was interrogated by having blood dumped on him by Peacekeepers seeking information about his ex-lover Gia) before he makes a video conference call to the family of a dead tribute.
Shortly before the 60th Hunger Games, Effie arrives in District 12 to find Haymitch reading fairy tales to the spellbound Mellark brothers, who also ask if Effie is the princess in his story.
All of the scenes showing Effie bonding with or comforting the tributes, even ones who don't initially care for her, like Butterfly. One standout moment is when Effie and 63rd Hunger Games tribute Ronka spend the train ride to the Capitol trying on wigs together.
All of the scenes of Effie meeting Cinna and being impressed by his work and supportive of his goals to rise up as a stylist.
After District 12's best hope for a Victor in years dies under tragic circumstances, Effie ends up canceling a date to check on Haymitch and comfort him, which saves his life, given that he has just made a suicide attempt.
Blight helps save Finnick's life by putting in a donation for his trident under the guise of buying a fish from Mags.
Despite competing in the Hunger Games and being in the middle of a fortunately temporary Murder Makes You Crazy mental state, Finnick almost follows his fisherman's instinct to save another tribute, Swather, from drowning even though they were fighting minutes ago, and Finnick is just two kills away from getting home.
During the 70th Hunger Games, Hyrum from District 10 is on both the giving and receiving end of heartwarming moments. He comforts and watches over a dying Career who killed his ally rather than kill him, and is on the receiving end of similar efforts by River (who also works hard to keep his body from being destroyed) after catching the plague himself and eventually dying of it.
Haymitch and Effie rallying supplies and support for District 12 after the catastrophic mine accident that killed so many people and damaged the district's economy.

The Tesserae Coalition

Peeta, Madge, and their other merchant friends secretly take out Tesserae rations (including thirteen-year-old Suza Pike taking three rations that will put her at serious risk of being reaped as they cumulate over the next several years and eighteen-year-old Elly Breen risking two extra tesserae in his last year) and anonymously give the food to a starving family who lost their father, the older community home kids, and a sick retired miner.

The Final Eight

Hated rivals Mrs. Mellark and Mrs. Everdeen dance together for a few seconds after the rule change that could save both Katniss and Peeta is announced, and Capitol reporter Cressida joins in the festivities. District 2 is also seen wildly celebrating the possibility of getting both of their kids back, in a way that makes Delly feel brief kinship with them.
Leevy and some other kids from the Seam reach out to Delly, inviting her to sit with them and play sports with them after watching Katniss and Peeta work together.
Finch and Thresh's fans are briefly shown on TV, with the former group analyzing her favorite books and the later group modeling a dance move after Thresh's walk.
Gale, Delly and Leevy's brothers play a pretend game of soldiers in the town square, and after miming being hit and mortally wounded, Vick Hawthorne declares his love for a girl in his class named Dianner and dramatically hands over a keepsake to give her. Dianner then deals herself into the game by saying that she's a medic with Capitol medicine like the kind that saved Peeta, and proclaims Vick cured.

The Last Tribute

Haymitch watches everyone in District 12, miners and merchants alike, gather in the town square and form a vigil for Katniss and Peeta and calls that unprecedented. Chaff tells him that the townspeople did the same thing for him during the 2nd Quarter Quell. It turns out they just never told Haymitch afterward due to feeling it would be showing off.
After the rule change for Katniss and Peeta is approved, as Brutus complains about how sneaky it feels, Haymitch tells him that he wants both of his kids back, and if he can't have that, he'll support Cato and Clove and be glad it's one less dead kid either way.
Thresh lets Foxface "steal" food from him throughout the 74th Hunger Games and even tries to distract Cato away from her during their final battle.
Haymitch recalls how videos of the tribute-mentor reunions became popular news features due to Finnick and Jack joyously hugging Annie and Johanna as soon as they left the arena. While this lost popularity due to Brutus being a dick to the two victors he brought out of the arena, Gloss also had a touching reunion with a mentee he got out of the arena alive during the 72nd Hunger Games.

The Golden Mean

When Katniss and Peeta are approached by the family of Kersey, the girl from District 8, they expect recriminations after the Capitol has tried to edit Peeta's killing of her to look worse than it was, but they tell him that they understand it was a Mercy Kill.
Despite District 2's anger toward Katniss and Peeta, District 2 Victors Otho Magro and Enobaria Fells still say hi to Haymitch during the Victory Tour (Enobaria is a bit passive-aggressive but Otho seems sincere).
Peeta spending time with his newborn baby niece and caring about keeping her out of the public eye in the hopes of keeping her safe from any blowback from President Snow against Katniss, Peeta, and their loved ones.
Despite having no previous known connections to the rebellion, Kate and Earl, the District 10 Quell Victor-tributes, immediately start working alongside of tributes in the Rebel Alliance when the Games begin.
Among the scores of interviewed Capitolites rooting for younger and flashier Victors like Katniss, Peeta, Finnick, and Enobaria, there is one very old man who remembers Mags fighting a group who raped her ally in her Games sixty-eight years earlier and is rooting for Mags to show the same kind of fire against Brutus and Enobaria here, seemingly more out of concern and affection for Mags than any real investment in the Games. This may double as a tearjerker moment (as Mags dies within a day) and a funny one (given how he makes some Sophisticated as Hell comments).
Haymitch and Finnick talking about how Haymitch sees Finnick as one of his "arena kids" after trying to keep him safe and well-adjusted after his Games.

House of Cards

Caesar trying to comfort Peeta and keep Snow from torturing him throughout his captivity.
It's mixed with a tearjerker due to the context of Peeta being shown Jona's body, but he recalls how they would wrestle and make mock threats to each other as kids, and then Jona would sneak his brothers pastries even when it would get him in trouble.

The Narrow Path

Enobaria and her brother Janus volunteering to help rescue Peeta, Annie, and Johanna.
While their involuntary confinement to the mental ward isn't that sunny, it's uplifting that a brief line reveals that Bonnie and Twill, the runaways Katniss helped in the woods, really did make it to District 13.
Peeta meets his biological grandfather (a former Peacekeeper) and cousin for the first time after having lost his District 12 relatives in the bombing of his hometown.
Haymitch and his friends airing propaganda videos (Winnow Robinson burying the gun she fought with in the Mockingjay Rebellion but no longer needs, a boy talking about how an avox helped him find his parents after they were separated in the fighting, etc.) meant to break down the hated between the opposing factions and remind them that there are good people out there and they want peace.
As Katniss writes her book, on the first reaping day after Snow's defeat, Haymitch looks into the town square and sees "children playing happily on Reaping night, none missing." This is what motivates him to tell Katniss the stories of his dead tributes and he gets pictures of them out of his safe (which he never used for any purpose except preserving their pictures), spends the night remembering them, and goes to see Katniss the next morning.
Haymitch finally getting sober for good after everything he's been through.
The Distant Epilogue shows the surviving main characters and their families celebrating on a beach, their bonds stronger than ever, and their lives finally in a state of peace.

Heartwarming / The End of the World (FernWithy)

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Heartwarming / The End of the World (FernWithy)

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