"gale hawthorne would be a great gamemaker if he wasn't district!" except he isn't inherently cruel? and gale wouldn't be gale if he wasn't district?

he was brought up in violence and it affected him deeply, that's the whole point of his character. suzanne collins is masterful in the way she explores how the Games Society affects people in the districts, don't boil his character down to "smart guy war crime" bc he wasn't always like that.

like katniss, gale started as a poor, angry kid from the districts– it isn't his fault coin saw that and took advantage. she saw that anger in him and used him to get what she wanted. katniss just had the difference of experience having actually been in the Games to recognize that coin was playing her own– gale didn't.

glad we all agreed maysilee is the cool lesbian aunt

part 1

Honestly the "but Peeta wanted kids so bad" line from the Mockingjay epilogue is really funny to me because for three books Katniss has been projecting her desire for children onto a guy who hasn't really ever verbally expressed any interest in having kids, so I do genuinely think the whole "kids vs. no kids" debate happened entirely internally for Katniss and one day she just went "ok, you win, let's have kids" and Peeta's at the kitchen table like"?????? Ok??????"

quick everlark, because I can‘t get enough of them

Given the fact that she thought they’d been freakin it for months, Effie Trinket probably burst into the command center begging the Gamemakers to cut the cameras when Katniss started getting “hungry” making out with Peeta on that beach

She definitely thought the baby was real

THEE girl on fire Katniss Everdeen for the melanin beam challenge!!! I’ve been THG pilled for months now 🤠

Lucy Gray and this song fit so well

@thebisexualwreckoning

A lot of people have asked me to talk about Prim holding the crown, so here's a general deep dive into the characters I picked and their placements!

Starting with Prim. She was reaped, which led to Katniss volunteering to save her. It's, of course, very unlikely that Prim would have won the Games like Katniss did. Prim innocently playing with the crown that could have never been hers is also a reference to how excited she was when Katniss' wedding was happening, how she looked at it with children's eyes, impatient for her to try on the dresses. But she's also not as naive or helpless as Katniss believes, which is why her expression is grave and not cheerful.

Asterid is kissing Katniss' forehead in a very motherly gesture. Katniss is unmoved, though she still takes her hand. This is a reference to Katniss' resentment towards her mother when she stopped caring for them after Burdock's death, but also to Katniss' attempts at forgiving her in Catching Fire.

Effie is sitting at Katniss' feet, holding her hand. This represents the sincere -yet sometimes misguided- dedication that Effie has to Katniss. It also felt like an interesting placement, as Victors are often idolized by Capitol citizens.

Katniss, of course, is at the center. She's the reluctant victor, in her fire dress (with a lot of orange in it to reference Peeta, shhh). I hesitated to give her the wedding dress Snow forces her to wear instead, but felt that her fire dress was more recognizable and striking, and better represented how she is seen by the world: the girl on fire.

inspired by @rosegardeninwinter’s post

okay! so I saw this on twitter and omg does it resonate with me. this is where I struggle with sunrise on the reaping haymitch versus the original trilogy haymitch. not because it’s so unbelievable that haymitch becomes mean and cruel, it’s actually very realistic, but it saddens me so much because after reading how kind and wonderful he was as a teen, the fact that katniss and peeta will never ever experience this side of him is heartbreaking. like he loves them more than anything, he’s only alive because of them by the end, they’re his entire family, and yet he’ll still never be the sweet boy who wanted to protect all the little kids in the arena, bought his girlfriend a book of old poems because he knew she’d love them and a million other things. like this is what I’ve struggled to reconcile since reading sunrise. haymitch was so genuinely wonderful as a person but his trauma did not make him kind, it made him borderline abusive, and that is just who he is now.

and yes, the films sure did soften him up. but i’m talking about book haymitch only, who said cruel things, made fun of katniss at the worst times in her life, told her she didn’t deserve peeta because she took less than an hour to plead for his life over hers, threatened to implant a device in her brain like lou lou’s and punched peeta in the jaw so hard he fell out of his chair. like i adore haymitch, now more than ever, but it actually depresses me so much that katniss and peeta will never know the man he could have been, and the person he was, even though he loves them with all his heart.

also if these twitter users who I screenshot see this, credit to y’all, I totally agree.

oh no they love each others insecurities!!

i love you like all-fire

And if I said Mags was one of the most tragic characters in The Hunger Games? What then?

No but seriously this woman lived an entire lifetime with the cruelty of the Capitol and the games, watching as it twisted and changed and found new ways to torture the people of the districts. And for years and years, decade after decade, she mentored these kids (even ones not from her district). She cared for them and watched them die, over 100 kids.

And yet when we see her in Catching Fire she is still kind and capable of joy. She cares so much about not only Finnick but Katniss, who she’s only just met. And she is still fighting for the rebellion, hoping for a better future after 80 years.

And then she dies. She dies in the arena, sacrificing herself for the people she loves and for the hope of a brighter future. She dies in the arena, the very thing that has haunted her entire life, the thing that has stolen so much from her. And she dies without ever getting to see a future free from the Capitol and The Games.

Drusilla advises Haymitch to be “naughty, not dangerous” like a university student who dyed the fountains pink.

This is an obvious allusion to a common criticism of protestors, that they should be peaceful, not violent, seen but not heard, so to speak.

But beyond that, it has me wondering if the university student who dyed the fountains intended for it to be about face cream at all. Dyeing fountains red (or, when diluted, pink), is a common way to represent blood in a form of protest.

We know the capitol has complete control over the narrative daily life. In CF, one of Katniss’s prep team members explains she can’t get shrimp for a party because of the weather in District Four, when it’s actually the rebellion.

The prank and the victory tour both happened in winter. All eyes would be on the capitol. The university student was likely genuinely protesting the games, but the capitol recontextualized it into becoming a funny prank, and thus, that’s all it was.

If a meaning of protest isn’t clearly and immediately understood, the narrative of the action is the dominant party’s to write.

The propaganda and public opinion machine completely erased the point of their poster, just like Haymitch’s.

Coming back to this, when Haymitch soaks in the bath post Louella's death, he says:

"I sink down into the tub, letting the heat envelop my body, as plumes of Louella's blood tint the pristine water pink."

so yeah, some university student dumped blood into the fountain in protest and the capitol covered it with a story about face cream.