#blame Wikipedia not me

[korshrimpski]

I included Russia and Turkey with Asia

[suddenly-likes-musicals]

Blue lilacs mean happiness and tranquility, hmm? That sounds wonderful! And quite accurate indeed!

Come to think of it... why should our Leading Man be left out of all the infodumping fun? Your tongue is free now, your heart unburdened by hate! Tell us all about the shows you've come to adore since embracing your true passion for musical theater! ✨️

I agree! Why exclude my voices when we bring so many together here! I've come to greatly adore the Frank Wildhorn Jekyll and Hyde. While not ending as fun as the original story did, it still shows how your darkest part of you is still a part of you, no matter how much you try to rid of it! The only options are to accept it, or die yourself to be rid of it.

[npdkondraki]

im not working on this anymore

[thedevotionaltour]

there's something wrong with me i need things to be special again < diagnosed major depressive disorder

[ahopefulbromantic]

Wait why is side Y incompatible with Catholicism?

I think Wikipedia explains it well:

[river-gale]

love counting systems in languages that make you do math. i'm so bad at it. you'd think i'd have learned by now but i still don't know how many ten thousands are in a million because in conversation i usually just guess wildly in the hope that it will eventually click

ANYWAY apparently the vigesimal system in (parisian) french is due to north germanic influences but they possibly might have gotten it from the celtic languages (base 20 historically used in breton, welsh, scottish gaelic, and manx)

AND it's largely fallen out of use but apparently some northern english dialects still use a vigesimal system SPECIFICALLY FOR COUNTING SHEEP

[thereareeyesinsidethetrees]

mentioned the skeletons a few times now but haven’t really said anything about the individual ocs so we’ll reblog some posts for like. ten of them

[zoueriemandzijnopmars]

How can I have started a book, read the blurb on the back, the title and 30 pages, but only when I’m tracking my progress on the StoryGraph and only finding an English version of the book when searching by isbn I realise that the book is in fact in English and not in Dutch as I’d been convinced?!?!

[tvntheatre]

Guys I keep coming up with nutcracker designs I use to minimal extents, HELP

[gildedagent]

he's not evil he just needs mood stabilizers

[sunarryn]

DP X Marvel #21

Tony Stark had a lot of regrets in life. Most of them involved tequila, a few bad tattoos he had paid to laser off before Pepper found out, and one especially haunted incident involving a mechanical bull, a congressman’s wife, and the phrase “I dare you.” But none—not even Ultron—could have prepared him for the living, brooding, wall-punching cryptid that was Dante “Dan” Masters.

Dan was technically human. Probably. No one was brave enough to check. He stood 6’7”, made of nothing but scarred muscle and menace, had jawlines sharp enough to commit tax fraud, and wore an expression that screamed “I bench press semi-trucks for therapy.” His hair was raven black and permanently tousled like he’d just walked away from an explosion—which, considering the fact he had actually walked away from an explosion that morning, tracked. His eyes were the kind of ice-blue that made AI go glitchy and interns cry.

Also, he was Tony’s bodyguard.

“I didn’t hire him,” Tony said the first time the Avengers saw Dan.

“You absolutely did,” Pepper replied, not even looking up from her tablet. “You drunkenly told Happy to ‘get me someone who looks like a Greek tragedy and hits like daddy issues.’”

And so Happy had found Dan. Or, more accurately, Dan had found Happy—by appearing in his passenger seat uninvited while Happy was getting a cheeseburger.

Dan never explained how he got there.

“Didn’t open the door. Didn’t break the lock. Just was there,” Happy muttered for the next three weeks. “I looked down to grab fries, looked up, boom. Bodyguard. Demon. Something. He just nodded and said, ‘I eat souls of cowards.’ Then asked for curly fries.”

Tony loved him instantly.

“Look at him,” Tony whispered one night, wine drunk and emotionally vulnerable. “He’s like my own personal murder puppy.”

Steve thought he was horrifying. Natasha called him “the Babadook with a gym membership.” Bruce kept trying to blood test him, but the last time he tried, Dan snapped the needle with his eyelid.

No one knew much about Dan, other than that he was the estranged heir to DALV.CO, the global tech giant run by Vlad Masters, a man whose Wikipedia page had to be locked due to repeated edits claiming he was “the literal Antichrist.”

“Why don’t you go back to your dad’s company?” Tony asked once, halfway through their fourth bottle of scotch, lounging on the penthouse balcony like rich, emotionally constipated divorcees. “You’d be the richest guy in the world.”

“I’d rather castrate myself with a melon baller,” Dan replied.

“Hot.”

Dan just grunted and stared moodily into the skyline, brooding like Batman’s taller, angrier cousin.

There were… signs that Dan wasn’t quite normal. Like the way he phased through walls when he thought no one was looking. Or the time someone tried to stab Tony during a charity gala and Dan grabbed the knife mid-thrust, crushed it into dust with his bare hand, and said, “You missed his heart. Want a second try?”

Tony had to excuse himself for five minutes and blame it on the shrimp cocktail.

Also: Dan never slept. Ever. Tony caught him once at 3 a.m., levitating midair in a meditative pose above the workshop floor, glowing faintly green and whispering what sounded like Latin but angrier.

“Cool trick,” Tony said, filming it for Instagram.

Dan’s eyes snapped open, glowed neon, and he growled, “Delete that or I’ll haunt your teeth.”

Tony deleted it. Reluctantly. But saved a copy in a secret drive labeled “hotboy_shit_DO_NOT_OPEN.”

The first time Dan met Thor, he sized him up for half a second and muttered, “Nice hair, Renaissance frat boy.”

Thor blinked. Then grinned. “I like this one.”

The first time Dan met Loki, he pinned him to the wall with one hand, sniffed once, and said, “You smell like lies and lavender. I don’t trust you.”

“I’m flattered,” Loki purred.

“I wasn’t complimenting you.”

Loki avoided him for two weeks. Claimed it was allergy season.

Dan did not talk. He growled. He glared. He loomed like a death omen in leather jackets. And still—still—every villain who tried to attack Tony ended up launched through a wall, disarmed in under two seconds, or knocked unconscious with a flick of the wrist.

“Are you sure he’s not a meta, or like, a ghost, or something?” Sam asked one day.

Tony blinked. “Ghost? That’s oddly specific.”

“I’m just saying. I saw him walk through a vending machine yesterday and pull out a pack of gum.”

“Maybe it was broken.”

“He reached in, grabbed the gum through the glass, and said, ‘I don’t pay for artificial happiness.’”

“…Okay, that’s just poetry.”

Dan, as it turned out, was a ghost. Sort of. Not the Casper kind. More like the “cursed anomaly spawned from grief and rage after a catastrophic supernatural meltdown in a parallel dimension” kind.

But he didn’t talk about that. Ever. Unless it was to threaten someone into shutting up. Which he did often.

Tony once asked if “Dan” was short for something other than Dante. Dan deadpanned and said, “Damnation.”

Tony laughed. Dan didn’t.

The Avengers all had bets on what Dan really was. Bruce thought he was a failed gamma experiment. Natasha swore he was an eldritch entity in disguise. Steve thought he was “just a really intense guy with trauma.” (Steve was wrong.)

The truth came out, as these things do, during an alien invasion. A random Tuesday. Buildings were exploding, civilians were screaming, and Tony—stupidly, heroically, idiotic as always—got cornered by a space hydra in a burning alley.

“Dan!” he shouted through comms, panicking. “I need backup! Big slimy bastard, eight mouths, hates sarcasm!”

The hydra lunged.

Then Dan exploded out of nowhere in a swirl of black and green fire, his body wreathed in spectral energy, eyes glowing like apocalypse lanterns. He opened his mouth—and screamed.

Not like a human scream. No. Like a banshee from the ninth ring of hell having a breakdown.

The hydra disintegrated. Vaporized into cosmic ash.

Dan turned to Tony, eyes still glowing, hair on fire, his voice doubled and demonic: “You okay?”

Tony, covered in alien guts and halfway to fainting, whispered, “Okay? Okay? I think I just came.”

Dan dropped him.

“Deserved.”

From then on, everything was chaos.

SHIELD tried to recruit him. He burned their files.

HYDRA tried to kidnap him. They didn’t survive the attempt.

Someone from a ghost-hunting organization named G.I.W. showed up once, claiming he was a danger to the world. Dan stared them down and said, “I’ve killed gods for fun. You think I’m scared of a man in khakis?”

They ran screaming.

Tony, of course, was obsessed.

“You’re my new favorite thing,” he declared one night, flopping dramatically onto the couch while Dan watched reruns of Iron Chef in silence. “Like, my favorite. Sorry, Pepper.”

“Don’t drag me into your kinks,” Pepper replied from the hallway.

Dan never officially moved in. But his things started appearing—a toothbrush here, a punching bag in the gym, a fridge filled with nothing but protein shakes and hot sauce. Eventually, Tony just gave him a keycard.

And maybe a second suit in case he ever wanted to try flying. Dan declined. He could already fly. Casually. Like it was no big deal.

Also: he could turn invisible. Tony found this out when he walked into his lab naked at 2 a.m. and muttered, “If there’s anyone here, speak now or forever hold your—”

“I’m here.”

Tony screamed. Dan was perched on the ceiling.

“Why are you like this?!”

“Because I hate peace.”

Eventually, the world found out. A viral video. A fight gone wrong. Dan going full phantom mode on live TV and decapitating an alien with a manhole cover.

Headlines exploded.

“Heir to DALV.CO Is a Literal Ghost.”

“Tony Stark’s Bodyguard Is an Interdimensional Specter, and Honestly, Same.”

“Dante Masters: Hot, Haunted, and Horrifying.”

Vlad Masters showed up. Tried to reclaim Dan.

Dan answered the door shirtless, covered in blood, holding a spatula. “I’m cooking pancakes. Leave before I use you as syrup.”

Tony peeked from behind him. “He means it.”

Dan shut the door in Vlad’s face.

“I hate that man,” he muttered.

Tony smiled dreamily. “I love you.”

“…Stop.”

“Nope. Too late. Suffering together forever.”

Dan groaned. But he didn’t leave.

He never did.

[hexow0]

Hello! Hope you're having a good day ☺️🌸

I have a tiny fluffy request if that's alright... What if MC/reader wears a super fluffy oversized hoodie which makes her look super fluffy and cozy (especially when she puts on the hood) and the lnds boys take one look at her and just wants to glomp her in a bear hug? How do they deal with the cuteness aggression?

Cute Aggression || LaDS

Tara gifts you an extremely oversized hoodie. Your boyfriend finds it... cute. Unbearably cute.

Make sure to reblog and tell me who is ur favorite in the tags 🤭🤭

Pairings: Xavier/reader, Zayne/reader, Rafayel/reader, Sylus/reader (separate)

Rating: G-T (slightly suggestive, blame Sylus)

Tags: gender neutral reader, FLUFFFFF, established relationship, maybe ooc for sylus?? i did my best, cute AGGRESSION from raf, xav being sly, zayne being a nerd (thanks wikipedia), me fighting for my life to write hoodie and not hoddie omg

A/N: tysm for this prompt, I giggled while writing these (esp Raf's and Xav's.) I hardly ever write fluff so this was fun for me. Hope you like them!!! <3

Tara got the hoodie for you as a present. The Hoodie, as she formally dubbed it, claimed a mysterious power: one which made the wearer irresistible. The Hoodie had grown so popular they were nearly impossible to find, but Tara had her ways.

She'd presented it to you with a twinkle in her eyes. "I'm serious! This hoodie is magical!"

"Evol?" you questioned, accepting the package from Tara gleefully.

She shook her head. "No. Magic! Just," she'd said, placing a hand on your shoulder, "Trust me."

After work, you head straight to your boyfriend's place...

More below the cut!

"What's this?" Xavier asks, poking the bag with a finger.

"I got a gift," you say, then clarify, "From Tara," before he has a chance to interrogate you further.

You open the package together and stare at the hoodie. It's so big that you could shove Xavier's oversized beanbag chair in it with room to spare.

Xavier brings a thoughtful hand to his chin. "It looks... comfortable."

You agree. Eagerly, you yank it on, wiggling your arms through the sleeves, which are so long they hang off your hands. Then you turn to face Xavier, and nearly stumble backwards, because he's suddenly right in front of you.

"X-Xavier? What's wrong?"

There's a strange gleam in his eyes. He tugs you to the couch, pulls you to his side, and wraps his arms around you.

Blushing, you look up at him. "What are you doing?"

"Checking to see how soft it is." He squeezes you tighter to his chest.

"Ow," you say, even though you don't really mean it.

You end up putting on a silly drama, one you've seen many times. You expect Xavier will just fall asleep partway like usual.

But that doesn't appear to be the case this time. He keeps nuzzling his face into the hoodie, like a giant housecat trying to soak up your body heat. Every so often, he grips your arms or hips or thighs, and you start to worry he'll leave handprints if he keeps it up.

"You're not even watching!" you chide him softly.

He plays with the too-long sleeves. "Hm?"

Huffing, you start to repeat yourself. "I said—"

"I'm cold," he says suddenly, and he adds on a full-body shiver to boot. You aren't sure you buy it, but... "Aren't you cold?"

"How can I be?" you answer, snorting. You make a token effort to writhe out of his grasp, but he just holds you tighter.

"Yeah, your hoodie looks pretty warm," he murmurs, sighing. Then he looks away again, shivering, and rubbing his arms.

"Pfft. Do you want to try it on?"

Really, you should have known better.

He just smiles at you, as if that's what he'd wanted you to say, then suddenly shoves your shoulder. You topple backwards onto the cushion with a gasp, as he pulls the hoodie up and wriggles in alongside you. Then he pushes his arms through the sleeves and entwines his fingers with your own.

Evidently pleased with himself, he sighs happily and leans against you. "Yeah, this is much better."

"I thought you said your friend got you a hoodie," Zayne says. He reaches forward to adjust the hood's collar, which had gotten twisted somehow as you pulled it on. "This looks more like a tent with arms to me."

You lift your arm and look at the comically long sleeve. "It's... Tara said it's magical."

You feel your cheeks warming. You didn't need to say that, only you couldn't think of how else to respond.

"Oh?"

Zayne takes a seat in his recliner, tugging you along with him so that you end up sitting on his lap. Then he takes the hoodie strings and begins quietly winding them around his index finger. He's quiet for a long moment.

You lightly shake his shoulders, blushing. "...You're not saying anything."

"Your face is red," he replies without missing a beat. "What? I thought we were taking turns stating the obvious."

You open your mouth to say something smart when he suddenly hugs you, squeezing you against his chest. Not too firmly, but with enough strength that you begin to put together what's happening.

You push him back so you can look into his eyes, fixing him with a smug grin. "Zayne, have you ever heard of cute aggression?"

He scoffs, but smiles back. "I probably know more than you do. Should I give you a lesson? When a human sees something they think is... cute, activity in the orbitofrontal cortex increases. Then the body produces neurohormones, which may stimulate feelings of both affection and aggression. They can manifest like this," he says, pinching your cheeks.

"I see." The words come out garbled and strange because he's still pulling your cheeks. He chuckles.

"Or," he says, moving his lips to your shoulder. "Like this." Then he bites down, and you can feel his teeth even through the fleece.

You squirm on his lap. "Hey! You can't just bite someone because you think they're cute..."

"I can't, or you don't want me to?"

"...Hmph. Why do you know so much about cute aggression, anyways? You had a whole lecture prepared. Aren't you a heart surgeon, Dr. Zayne?" You poke his chest to emphasize your point.

He captures your hand and brings it to his lips, pressing a small kiss to the back of it. It could be a trick of the light, but you swear that his ears are turning red. "...Finding something cute is a matter of the heart. Wouldn't you agree?"

Rafayel watches you open Tara's gift with a curious eye. You stare at the hoodie together.

Rafayel snorts. "That's a lot of hoodie."

You shrug and pull it on. As you do, you lock eyes again with Rafayel, who just stands here staring at you, a dumb look on his face.

Things snowball from there.

He keeps grabbing your face and squishing your cheeks while muttering under his breath. It's funny at first until he leans forward and nibbles on your cheek, and you realize a little too late that he'd been arguing with himself not to.

"You bit me!" It didn't really hurt, but it did shock you.

"I can't help it," he says, looking as mystified as you feel. "You just look so... biteable. Let me do it again—"

You wrestle playfully until he traps you in his arms, hugging you to his chest so tightly that you actually gasp for air. "Ugh! Rafayel, you big bully—"

"This is your fault! You've turned me into some sort of monster!"

Then, he won't let you go. He holds you against his chest and coos at you like you're a baby. He keeps trying to bite you, and you keep dodging out of the way as best you can.

"Stooop! You're embarrassing me!"

He pays you no mind. "My scrumptious cutie," he says dreamily, giggling. "My succulent pufferfish. My—"

Unable to withstand this torture any further, you yank the hoodie up and draw the strings tight to hide your face.

"Waaaait, you're running away?" he cries. "Is it because I keep squishing you?"

Your answer comes out muffled. "And biting me."

You feel him poking your sides. "Okay, I'll stop! Please come out. Please?"

After much begging and pleading on Rafayel's part, you finally relent. When you push the hood back, you see the guilty look on his face, the tips of his ears bright red. You stare at each other wordlessly for a moment.

You pat his arm in mock sympathy. "Wanna talk about it?"

He leans his head on your shoulder with a groan. "I wasn't myself."

You giggle and card your fingers through his hair. "That's how cats make me feel."

Rafayel shoots you a lighthearted glare. "Don't belittle my feelings. You're a lot cuter than a cat, you know."

Sylus didn't buy your story about the hoodie's supposed power at first, claiming you were always irresistible, so what difference could a piece of clothing make?

Now, he doesn't seem too keen on letting you go, if the hand gripping the small of your back is any indicator. His other hand is petting your hair.

You swat his hand away, but there isn't much fire behind it.

It doesn't matter, anyway. He just reaches his hand forward and pets your hair again. His movements look stiff, almost like he's restraining himself somehow.

At the look on your face, he just laughs. "Sorry, kitten, but you're just asking for it. You look..." He trails off.

You try to play off how flustered you are with a smirk. "I know. I'm dangerously cute in this hoodie."

"You're always cute, sweetie. But you're right on one front. This hoodie is dangerous."

You realize something with a start, and it's like a shock to your system. But then you seize the opportunity to try and fluster him right back. "Are you... blushing right now?"

He ignores you, opting instead to pull you in for a hug that nearly squeezes the life out of you.

"Oof—Sylus—too much—strength—"

"You can handle it," he deflects easily.

After struggling for a bit, you manage to push him back, panting. "Hah, look at you. The big, bad leader of Onychinus, done in by a simple hoodie. Tara was right."

The corners of his mouth turn downward, and you think he's going to pull away, but then he shakes his head with a scoff. He tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear, and smirks at you.

"I'm starting to think this hoodie's power is going to your head. Maybe you should take it off."

[exeggcute]

interesting links roundup #10

>>> permalink <<<

reading

Animals as chemical factories

Are "algorithms" making us boring?

Big Food Gets Jacked

Can the Human Body Endure a Voyage to Mars?

Century-Scale Storage

Crypto trader kills himself on X live to create a meme coin

A Dark History of the World’s Smallest Island Nation

The End of Children

The Getty Family’s Trust Issues

The hardest working font in Manhattan

How Diablo hackers uncovered a speedrun scandal

I Tasted Honda's Spicy Rodent-Repelling Tape (And I will do it again unless someone stops me.)

If You Ever Stacked Cups In Gym Class, Blame My Dad

The Kiss That Changed Video Games

Patterns in confusing explanations

Photographers Are on a Mission to Fix Wikipedia's Famously Bad Celebrity Portraits

The Real-Life Consequences of Silicon Valley’s AI Obsession

Removing Jeff Bezos From My Bed

‘Technofossils’: how humanity’s eternal testament will be plastic bags, cheap clothes and chicken bones

The “Unhinged Bisexual Woman” Novel

Unique formation of organic glass from a human brain in the Vesuvius eruption of 79 CE

What a Crab Sees Before It Gets Eaten by a Cuttlefish

When Your Last Name Is Null, Nothing Works

Who Killed the Footless Goose?

The Worst 7 Years in Boeing’s History—and the Man Who Won’t Stop Fighting for Answers

tools/reference

Ableton: Learning Synths

Cover Your Tracks: See how trackers view your browser

European word translator

OneLook

Refuge Restrooms

River Runner Global

other

BLUEJEWELED

jacksonpollock.org

London Transport 25: ride 25 different forms on transport in one day

What if Eye...? [warning for some flashing graphics/gifs]

10,000-Year Earworm to Discourage Settlement Near Nuclear Waste Repositories

[mindless-existence1]

Summery: Shadow teaches reader how to ride a motorcycle.

Authors note: I changed his size a bit just so then he could sit behind reader and not being like....tiny. Also this is meant to be more romantic then platonic but reas it however you want. Also I don't ride motorcycles (sadly) so if how shadow describes the bike is wrong blame the Wikipedia page I skimmed.

@luc1dw0rld

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The low rumble of the motorcycle echoed through the quiet parking lot as you stood nearby, staring at the intimidating machine.

Shadow was already seated on it, his posture confident, one hand resting casually on the handlebar as he looked at you with his usual stoic expression. “You’re not scared, are you?” he asked, his crimson eyes narrowing slightly in challenge.

“I’m not scared,” you replied quickly, though the way your eyes lingered on the bike betrayed a little hesitation.

“I’ve just… never done this before.” Shadow smirked faintly, his version of amusement. “That’s what I’m here for,” he said, patting the seat behind him. “Come on.”

You hesitated for a moment before taking a deep breath and stepping closer. As you swung your leg over the seat and settled in behind him, you couldn’t help but notice how solid he felt.

His presence was grounding, a quiet reassurance that you weren’t going to mess this up. “First things first,” Shadow began, his voice steady as he leaned slightly to show you the controls. “This is the throttle,” he said, gesturing to the handle.

“Twist it gently to accelerate. The brakes are here,” he continued, pointing to the levers. “And your foot operates the rear brake.”

“Okay,” you said, nodding along, though your mind was spinning with the information. Shadow glanced over his shoulder at you. “Relax. You’ll get it.” His words were simple, but something about the way he said them made you believe him.

After a bit more instruction, Shadow motioned for you to switch places. You slid forward hesitantly, your hands gripping the handlebars as you tried to get comfortable.

He moved behind you, his arms going under yours as he reached forward to guide your hands. “Start it up,” he instructed, his voice low.

You did as he said, and the bike roared to life beneath you. The vibrations sent a jolt of excitement and nerves through your body, but Shadow’s steady hands on yours kept you grounded.

“Now, ease into the throttle,” he said, his hands guiding yours as you twisted the handle. The bike began to move forward, and your heart leapt in your chest.

You wobbled slightly, but Shadow’s firm grip helped you steady yourself. “Good,” he said, his tone calm and encouraging. “Keep it slow. Feel the balance.”

You followed his instructions, the bike picking up a bit more speed as you circled the empty lot. Shadow stayed close, his presence a constant reminder that you weren’t alone in this.

After a few laps, you started to feel more confident. The movements became smoother, and the initial fear melted away, replaced by a sense of exhilaration.

“You’re doing better than I expected,” Shadow said, and you couldn’t help but smile at the rare compliment. “Thats high praise coming from you,” you replied, glancing back at him briefly.

“Eyes forward,” he reminded you, but there was no sharpness in his tone—just a quiet protectiveness that made your chest feel warm.

By the time you brought the bike to a stop, your nerves had completely transformed into excitement. You turned to Shadow, your grin wide. “That was amazing!” Shadow stepped off the bike, his arms crossed as he watched you with a faint smirk.

“Told you there was nothing to worry about,” he said. You rolled your eyes playfully as you took his hand and hopped off the bike, your legs a little shaky from the adrenaline. “Okay, you were right,” you admitted. “Thanks for teaching me.”

Shadow’s expression softened slightly, a rare but genuine smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Anytime,” he said, his voice quieter now.

As the two of you packed up for the day, you couldn’t help but think about how patient and kind Shadow had been with you. It wasn’t something he showed often, but in moments like this, it was clear just how much he cared.

And as you walked away from the lot, hand in hand with him, you knew this wouldn’t be your last ride together.

[crippled-peeper]

“you can’t blame me for being racist because I’m uneducated because the U.S. public school system didn’t teach me anything” is honestly funny to me as a person who lived in the 2nd poorest U.S. state and knows several genuinely, actually, DEBILITATINGLY, illiterate people (who are illiterate because of severe poverty, English not being their first language, and lack of multilingual schooling in rural farming communities). if you’re on social media and capable of making stupid fucking posts about how helplessly stupid you are, you can also look stuff up. use the search bar. browse Wikipedia for a few hours. stop making excuses for yourself

[t1oui]

i said i was going to talk about why suzanne collins used the raven perfectly in sunrise on the reaping (and i haven’t seen many people talking about this) so here i am to talk about it. 

if you don’t know, the poem lenore dove’s name comes from is “the raven” by edgar allen poe. i know the final chapter(s) of sotr include a lot of the poem, but i still suggest that people go and read the entire thing. as haymitch says at some point in sotr, maybe a few times, “the raven” is about a man losing his lover, lenore, and being super depressed about it while a raven shows up to fuck with him. interesting premise, right?

now, we already see some of the poem coming true in sunrise on the reaping, and haymitch acknowledges this: haymitch, acting in the role of the poet, loses lenore dove (who is, of course, lenore). haymitch compares himself to the poet, getting depressed about his lost love. but something i haven’t seen people talking about, and something haymitch himself never mentions, is the fact that some (including me) believe “the raven” is about a man sad about losing his lover who he accidentally killed. see, haymitch hasn’t sat around analyzing “the raven”, but i have, and i am here to tell you about this connection and its relation to sunrise on the reaping.

if you’ve read sotr you probably know where i’m going with this, but before i go there, i want to tell y’all about why i believe that in “the raven” the poet (otherwise known as the man whose perspective the poem is from) accidentally killed lenore. and why do i think this? allusions! 

what is an allusion, you ask? according to wikipedia, an allusion is as follows: “allusion, or alluding, is a figure of speech that makes a reference to someone or something by name (a person, object, location, etc.) without explaining how it relates to the given context, so that the audience must realize the connection in their own minds.” 

in other words, an allusion is a reference to someone or something specific (you cannot allude to a concept like death, for example) for the purpose of giving readers/viewers a deeper understanding of what they are consuming, should they pick up on the allusion. obviously we are given some context for “the raven”’s presence in sotr — it is lenore dove’s name poem, and it relates to haymitch’s own feelings about losing lenore dove. but there are more aspects of the poem, like that accidental killing thing, that you would not know about if you haven’t read and extensively analyzed “the raven”. 

so, why do the allusions in “the raven” make me believe that the poet is to blame for lenore’s death? well, first off, let’s identify some allusions. let me just say, there are a lot of allusions, and i am not going to talk about all of them, but i will talk about a few that support my point.

first: stanza 7, line 5, which reads, “perched upon a bust of pallas just above my chamber door”. pallas is most commonly known as another name for the goddess athena, but pallas is also the name of a close friend of athena’s who athena accidentally killed. athena was incredibly sad about the death of her friend, and she ended up creating a statue of pallas in pallas’s honor. that’s not super important, but hey: explicit allusion to a myth of a goddess accidentally killing somebody she deeply cared about. 1 point for the accidental murder of lenore theory.

onto the second allusion that i believe best supports my point. now, i’ll admit, this one is a bit more of a stretch, but stay with me, alright? stanza 15, line 1: ““prophet!” said i, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!”

prophet. now, i may be a bit of a greek mythology nerd (alongside, y’know, a hellenic polytheist), but i saw this part of the poem where the poet addresses the raven as a prophet and immediately thought of apollo. apollo, best known as the greek god of the sun, is also the greek god of prophecy. ravens are one of his sacred animals. well, you ask, what does apollo have to do with accidental murder? even more than athena, in my opinion, at least in the context of “the raven”. 

see, here’s a myth many people have at the very least heard of: apollo and hyacinthus. hyacinthus was a spartan prince and one of apollo’s lovers. now, there are a few versions of the myth of hyacinthus’s death, but the most relevant (and well-known, i think) version in this case is the version where, during a game of discus, apollo accidentally hits hyacinthus in the head, killing him. accidental murder strikes once again, and with yet another (possible) allusion to greek mythology.

but, one final allusion. stanza 15, line 5: “is there—is there balm in gilead?—tell me—tell me, i implore!” gilead is a region known specifically for its medicinal/healing balm, which is clearly being referenced here. i, personally, believe that the reason the poet was asking the raven this is because he is wondering if there was a way he could’ve saved (or healed) lenore.

now, let’s connect all this to sunrise on the reaping.

we all know that haymitch didn’t outright kill lenore dove himself, but through both his actions of rebellion and his feeding lenore dove one of the poisoned gumdrops, there is an argument to be made that haymitch is somewhat at fault for lenore dove’s death. as we also know, haymitch — of course — tries to save lenore dove once he realizes she’s been poisoned. he first tries to get her to throw up the gumdrops she had, but when that doesn’t work, haymitch asks lenore dove if she has any charcoal tablets, which saved him when he was poisoned in the arena. in my opinion, the charcoal tablets seem like a reference to that line about balm in gilead. haymitch accidentally has a hand in the death of lenore dove, and — like the poet in “the raven” — he tries to save her, but is ultimately unsuccessful. this sends him into a spiral. now, it does look up for haymitch in the end, as he doesn’t straight-up die like the poet of “the raven” does, but hey. that’s not what this analysis is about.

this analysis is really all here just for me to say that suzanne collins utilizes “the raven” in such an interesting, expansive way that most readers won’t ever fully appreciate or understand, and i want more people to know. (also, while reading “the raven” can give you a better understanding of sotr, i read sotr before analyzing “the raven” and i can report that it works both ways. sotr definitely helped me analyze “the raven” and what it’s about.)

so, yeah. dislike sunrise on the reaping all you want, but you can’t deny all the thought, work, and research that clearly went into it, bc this is 1) super cool and 2) a level of attention to detail that i strive to have as a writer myself.