justafewberries

[justafewberries]

The seven + Nico, Will and Reyna🤲🏻🧡💜

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Day 2: Safe and Warm for @toastbabiesweek

link to ao3

"He was missing Mama. I told him my special blanket was a good substi—substitute for her,” she stumbles over a word, remembering the same one her teacher used when she was out.

Haymitch lets out a loud laugh. "What, is it a blanket for kissing?"

Willow stops for a second. Papa Haymitch has a point, they do kiss a lot. "No. It's the best blanket for feeling better."

- With her Mama not around Willow has a new theory to share with everyone.

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@mollywog @thesunpersists

I think y'all might enjoy this.

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After 2 writing and literature degrees, the act of creating was sucked out of me. For the last 7 years I’ve been reading, writing and criticising. Nothing was ever good enough, everything could be better.

In the last month I have written nearly 40,000 words worth of fanfiction and it’s so joyful I can’t even begin to describe.

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Why didn't district 13 do any safety precautions with Peeta before allowing him to see Katniss?(before she was strangled)

they did! boggs was close by, as he was able to get there quickly, and peeta looked bewildered, which probably made him seem less likely to do anything. they were actively running tests on him, and he was taken to the medical wing immediately instead of a hovercraft reunion. so they took some precautions (although not as many as they should have)

regardless, people really just wanted to see the two of them together. they realized she couldn't function without him, and they needed a mockingjay. the sooner the better. and honestly, d13 is run strictly, but they don't seem to have the same knowledge the capitol doctors may have. it didn't seem like they had much research on tracker jackers/hijacking whatsoever, especially because prim was the one to suggest hijacking him back.

perhaps they could have flashed a picture of katniss on the screen to test the waters first, but no one assumed they hijacked him. they were probably just as excited to get him back as katniss was to see him.

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do you think the music in sotr wasn't really incorporated as well as it was in ballad? idk how to explain but i felt the music in ballad were relevant to the way the story progressed, to lucy gray's character meanwhile i found like it felt the music in sotr just existed to be there. a handful of protest songs by lenore and 'the raven' by edgar allan poe which just solidifed lenore dove's place as existing solely to be an extension of haymitch's grief.

i also took problem with how all music in d12 according to the prequels seem to tie back to the covey. i think it weakens the cultural inspirations and makes the world seem smaller.

honestly i felt like a lot of sotr was written solely because of ballad, not in a 'oh suzanne is punishing us for snow lands on top edits' but i think suzanne wished she wrote tbosas earlier, so concepts like the snow/lucy gray relationship, lucy gray, and the covey could be more hinted at or expanded in the original trilogy, which is why they have a larger emphasis in the book, because this was an opportunity for her to insert those things she wished she could've originally. idk does this make sense?

i agree, yeah. but for me, a lot of my agreement comes from the belief sotr would have been better without the covey. there's a big difference between 64 years and 24 years, and for the covey to be so prominent 50 years after their lead singer is "killed by the mayor" and music's banned in the Hob, i just find it so odd that they're so public about their music and still attracting fans. They're playing shows for people still, and they have Peacekeeper fans, even though peacekeepers are rotated over 20 years. it just doesn't make sense why there would be fans of the covey two generations of peacekeepers removed.

beyond that, the songs in ballad felt braided into the plot. Lucy Gray’s character, her survival, and her world were all braided together through music, but the songs in sotr, just like everything else, sat on top of the book, not in it. nothing felt cohesive— metaphors or music.

and don’t get me started on how Hanging Tree is retconned into a widespread rebel anthem that everyone somehow already knows and is able to sing along to, mirroring the film adaptation, or how the other "mountain airs" that Katniss explicitly ties to Appalachian inheritance are now suddenly credited to the Covey.

she stripped away the musicality of Appalachia and gave it to the people who try so hard to insist upon themselves as being "other".

it creates a sense of the ordinary people of District 12 were bland, cultureless, and incapable of producing music themselves. instead of songs being passed down through generations of appalachians as katniss alludes to here:

The song that comes to me is a simple lullaby, one we sing fretful, hungry babies to sleep with, It’s old, very old I think. Made up long ago in our hills. What my music teacher calls a mountain air.

all of the music now exists as something brought or gifted to them.

i digress. the part where haymitch sings goose and the common after the force field makes me laugh because it's just so awkward it comes across as cringe. and not in a good way, people should be cringe, live your life, we're all muttering about thg ten years after the books came out, do what makes you happy, but... the guy who is an awful singer's first instinct is to sing a song. and yeah, it's associated with lenore dove, hence why he sings it, but again, it's driving home the point haymitch is bland and nothing on his own. he only met lenore dove when he was ten, and they didn't get together until much later. and still, somehow, he's completely erased, only acting as a vessel to tell us what lenore dove thinks or says or does. what lenore dove would do. lenore dove. lenore dove. and, listen, while I think virtue ethics is fascinating, it does the same thing to haymitch that the covey being credited with all music does. it strips him of himself and hands it to her.

That's the deeper problem. by constantly filtering Haymitch through Lenore Dove, sotr reduces him to a passive inheritor rather than an independent moral actor. his trilogy persona is built on strategic willpower, cynicism, and bitter agency. In sotr, he isn't Haymitch. he’s just a voicemail, repeating what Lenore Dove, Plutarch, Beetee, Maysilee, his parents, and anyone else who even so much as had an idea around him have said or told him to do. he's not haymitch. he's just a vessel.

and, yeah, i think a lot of how his character is crafted is largely in part due to how people received ballad. people don't like to read villains or hardasses. I do. I love the real Haymitch, the trilogy Haymitch, but we've hit this trend in art where a character can't be embraced unless they're 100% morally "good." The edges, the contradictions, the ugliness that made him fascinating are sanded away so he can be made palatable.

so yeah i think the music was unnecessary and the covey shouldn't have played such a role in sotr. i also think sotr's heavily influence by the reception of ballad.

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"As I drift off, I try to imagine that world, somewhere in the future, with no Games, no Capitol. A place like the meadow in the song I sang to Rue as she died. Where Peeta's child could be safe."

This August marks the 15th anniversary of the release of Mockingjay, where at the end, our heroine who had been terrified of having children in the dangerous world she was raised in, reveals to us that she has two children of her own, indicating that after all of her grief, there was finally a world where her children could be safe.

This is the true heart of Toast Babies Week, a celebration of two children symbolic of a future where every child can be safe.

While originating as a fandom event, it didn't seem right to simply dream of this future. And so in conjunction with Toast Babies Week, we're also going to be promoting a charity fundraiser for the following children's charities:

Palestinian Children's Relief Fund: "Our mission is to provide medical and humanitarian relief collectively and individually to children throughout the Levant, regardless of their nationality or religion."

Save the Children: "We work in the United States and around the world to give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. When crisis strikes and children are most vulnerable, we are always among the first to respond and the last to leave."

UNICEF: "UNICEF, the United Nations agency for children, works to protect the rights of every child, especially the most disadvantaged and those hardest to reach. Across more than 190 countries and territories, we do whatever it takes to help children survive, thrive and fulfill their potential."

GLSEN: "GLSEN works to ensure that LGBTQ students are able to learn and grow in a school environment free from bullying and harassment. Together we can transform our nation's schools into the safe and affirming environment all youth deserve."

Email proof of donation to fuhrgames74[at]gmail.com so we can track the amount of money raised for the event. While donating is its own reward, we also have gifts for the top three donors!

The top 3 donors will be getting the following:

The top donor will get the choice of a copy of the illustrated edition of Catching Fire OR the special collector's edition of Sunrise on the Reaping. AND an art commission from @cateluna that equals up to $50 based on her commission sheet.

The second and third-highest donors will get the choice of a copy of the illustrated edition of Catching Fire OR the special collector's edition of Sunrise on the Reaping.

***Top donors will be determined based on the amount donated in USD using a conversion tool if needed***

You can donate at any point in time from now and through Toast Babies Week happening from August 24-August 30th. The top donors will be emailed on September 1st.

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Toast Babies Week Day 1 - Deep in the Meadow

My children, who don't know they play on a graveyard. Peeta says it will be okay. We have each other. And the book. We can make them understand in a way that makes them braver.

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President Snow Has Great Jeans

“Mr. President, Mr. Slate and Mr. Verres have arrived to speak with you about the textile overproduction. Shall I send them in?”

“Send them,” Snow answers. 

His hands smooth the lapel of his suit, grown snug in recent months. He could have another made from the finest materials in Panem, or even import the best textiles in the world from nations most had never heard of. All he’d have to do is claim it’s a debut of Capitol technology. There would be copycats on the shelves within a week. 

Besides, the leader of Hlaf, right across the western sea, had offered him silk and cash in exchange for medicine after a plague hollowed their population. Snow had told him he’d see what he could do, thought, of course medicine was indispensable.

Oceania, on the eastern ocean, had offered medicine and a lump sum in exchange for Capitol fabric, their new emperor demanding the best for his palace renovations. The men he had hired kept losing fingers in the weaving machines and staining the fabric. It simply wouldn’t do. 

Snow was the facilitator. He pocketed the money. Oceania received fabric. Hlaf received their “apology” and a fraction of supplies. When Hlaf discovered the shipment was more than enough, they sent him a plane in thanks. Classless. No one flew by plane anymore— not since the invention of the hovercraft. Barbaric, both of them. But Snow smiled, pledged friendship, and kept the cash. No one knew. No one needed to.

The door opens. On the other side stands two men, one with a head of graying hair and the other bald. No one speaks. Snow always starts this way. He knows they would not speak until he does. He savored it. 

“Gentlemen,” he begins, gesturing to the smaller chairs across from him, legs sanded down to sit a touch below his eye level. “I have a problem. Sit.”

They comply, infuriatingly comfortable. Snow straightens.

“I’m told your warehouses are overflowing. Shelves unchanged by the season. The fashion sector grows bored. Boredom costs me money.”

The men both sit as still as gargoyles, hunched over in the chairs. Slate lifts his chin. “The fashion sector is only part of the Capitol’s wealth, a small part.”

“Sales always dip right after the Games. It’s only temporary. Young people aren’t shopping for university yet, and our consumers haven’t recovered from their donations to the Games. Sales will rebound by the end of the month.”

Snow crosses his arms, a thread at the too-tight shoulder popping. No one mentioned anything about the sound. Snow knew they wouldn’t. They knew they couldn’t

“Is that why your warehouses have begun to attract rats?” He asks.

“Rats?” Mr. Slate’s fingers tightened around the end of the armrest. His eyes sweep the floor by his feet.

“There are rats in your warehouses.”

“I wasn’t aware there were rats in the Capitol. I’ll have the Avoxes handle it.”

“And yet they are nesting in your denim.” Snow’s eyes narrow. “It’s all over the Panem Post. Holes in your denim. How will the Capitol react?”

Slate pries his fingers from the chair. “Well,” he starts, having shifted his gaze from the floor to the desk. “It’s excellent!” he brightens. “Authenticity. We’ll call it the Survival Collection.”

“Survival Core! That’s rich,” Verres laughs.

Snow doesn’t.

The laughter dies.

“I’ve seen the story,” Verres says, suddenly sober. “We’ve already got a campaign coming to introduce our new sensors. They’re rat-shaped, easily mistakable. We’ve got it all mapped out. You’ll love it.”

Snow uncrosses his arms and leans forward, drawing a gold-rimmed bottle from the drawer. “What I’ll love,” he says, pouring, “is seeing green in the PASDAQ.”

Slate sits back in his seat and eyes the bottle. “That will come, sir. It will come.”

“Soon,” Verres adds, “By summer’s end, even.”

They waited, as everyone did in his presence. No one interrupts Snow.

“We had an idea on the way here,” Slate begins. “We’d like to run it by you.”

“Do you need my approval?” Snow caps the bottle and sets it back into the drawer.

“No, but we know this is going to drive sales.” Verres replies, adjusting his gold watch. 

“Go on.”

“GraySlate owns just about fourteen percent of Panem Aquila, and we’re trying to move that denim before back to school.”

“And Praetorian Guard Group owns just about eleven percent.” Verres’s mouth lifted at the corner.

“We’ll launch an ad campaign with Cynthia Todd. Panem’s sweetheart. Subtext divides the long-established Capitol elite from the newly rich. The audience feels clever. We keep deniability if anyone pushes back.” Slate continues.

“What divide?” Snow asks, leaving the drink on the desk. 

“Generations of Capitol residents versus newly rich climbers.”

“And how?”

“Cynthia Todd has perfect jeans.” Slate maps the words out with the open palms of his raised hands. “It’s just enough prodding without saying it outright.”

“You’re driving the young away. August. Back-to-school. You’re sabotaging the market.” The toe of Snow’s shoe dug into the fibers of the rug concealed behind the desk. 

“Correct. That’s where Schism comes in. Whoever we drive away, they’ll flock right to Schism. We’ll launch a campaign two weeks later, right when people start to forget, and drive those young sales to Schism.”

“We both own over six percent of Schism shares. The most out of any shareholders,” Verres adds.

“You’re making them think they’ve got a choice,” says Snow. “How do you plan to corral the younger consumers?”

“We’ll run a campaign with Dogtail.”

“Dogtail?” He’d heard of them. His granddaughter, as annoying as she could be, was obsessed with them. A new group, a mix of those in deep debt to the Capitol, newly rich climbers, and long standing Capitol people. 

“Dogtail. The young numbers love them. We’ll split the difference. It drives the opinion, makes them feel like they’re making a difference by going with the more rebellious option, and in the end, it will all come back to us.”

“Then, we profit.” Verres pumps his fist.

“To us?”

“You included,” Verres says smoothly. “We’ll cut you a share just for this meeting. Name your price. Blank check, if you prefer.”

“Coriolanus, you and I have known each other for over forty years.” Slate sits back in his chair and crosses his leg over his knee. He slouches, now, finally shorter than the president. His suit puckers at his midsection. “I’ll cut you a check, just name the number. Hell, I’ll leave it blank,” he laughs. 

“Cut it to my son.” Snow watches the man relax across from him. It bothers him more than when he had sat earlier. Audacious.

“Coriolanus Jr.? His company pledged two million shares of our new digital coin,” Slate checks his watch.

Verres watches through the window. A blue sheen flickers over his face from the billboard across the way. Snow knew the exact ad. It had cast that same light upon him hourly. Farmir, the new chip company founded as a cutting edge health tech organization, now advertising implanting chips into whoever would take them. Next year’s fad to be. 

He’d already been working with Dottified, the streaming company, to pick the songs they’d use to market the chips to people. Benton Bouey, moonbeamed right to you! And ugh, Her Mind! (And now yours, too!) Tyler Speed’s version. 

“He mentioned trying to implement a virtual coin on the CubeLeash to use for the Games.”

“Our hope is to roll out the coin Capitol wide for year-round use,” Slate’s attention flicks away from his watch. As he lowers it, Snow watches the hands. They never move. Both stuck directly at 12, right as the artisan would have placed them when making the watch. 

“Harder for districts to sponsor tributes,” Snow’s smile is sharp. “But not impossible.”

“Exactly. They’ll still pay.” 

“They don’t have power,” Snow says. 

“Do you care?” 

“I don’t think that I do.” He reaches for his glass. “I’d better see those jeans move.”

“They will.”

“They’d better. Report back with your sales after summer. And bring the check.”

Read on AO3 here! (And maybe leave a comment, if you feel so inclined <3)

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effie only "humanizes" the tributes/districts if they directly benefit her btw. it's why she calls them savages. they are. to her.

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this person has me blocked, hence the screenshot, but i wanted to address this because it doesn't matter what Suzanne may or may not think— the text itself proves it.

Effie in Sunrise on the Reaping says:

“I know that,” she says. “I’ve known who you are ever since you helped with my makeup box. And I know your position could not have been easy."

In this admission, Effie confesses she did not see Haymitch as someone beyond a project until he helped her. He was unworthy of personhood, in the philosophical sense, until he benefited her. Until he helped her. Until then, until he proved that he could serve her in some way, he was a barbarian, unworthy of personhood.

The only change from the motion of savagery is his servitude toward her. She benefited from him, he is right in front of her, therefore she then is able to endow him with personhood. His “redemption” comes not from his humanity but from his utility.

In this, I am using person and personhood in the philosophical sense. There is no concrete definition of a person, but this definition serves the argument well enough. If we want to dive into personhood philosophy, we can. But for the sake of effie and this argument, this is what I mean by personhood, per Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

What is it to be a person, as opposed to a nonperson? What have we people got that nonpeople lack? The question often arises in connection with specific cases: we may ask, for example, at what point in our development from a fertilized egg there comes to be a person, or what it would take for a chimpanzee or a Martian or a computer to be a person, if they could ever be. An ideal account of personhood would be a definition of the word ‘person’, filling the blanks in the formula ‘Necessarily, x is a person at time t if and only if … x … t …’.

By personhood here I mean the basic recognition of someone as more than an object— someone worthy of moral consideration.

Effie’s criterion for personhood is simple: a district citizen is a person only if they benefit her.

In the case of Haymitch, he did not receive consideration until he served her. In the case of Katniss and Peeta, they became a means (a tool) to the end (a solution or goal) of seeking a promotion.

This is a confession: until Haymitch served her, she didn’t see him as a person. In the philosophical sense, she withheld personhood until he was useful.

This tracks with what we see in the trilogy as well:

And then, because it’s Effie and she’s apparently required by law to say something awful, she adds “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I finally get promoted to a decent district next year!”

Her goal has always been to get moved up to a better district. How?

Thanks us for being the best tributes it has ever been her privilege to sponsor.

Her tributes. She is reaping the benefits of the production sewn by the tributes. She is profiting off of the cogs in the machine, and she doesn't humanize them until those same cogs can help to push her along, be it cleaning up her makeup bag or having such a memorable pair of tributes that she's hopeful for a promotion.

In fact, that's why it's so easy for her to demonize the children she worked with the year prior:

“The pair last year ate everything with their hands like a couple of savages. It completely upset my digestion.”

She does not care about them. They did not help her. They are not presently in front of her, and they represent the crop of people who come from the districts, or should Effie and I both say:

"How you’ve both successfully struggled to overcome the barbarism of your district."

The barbarians.

She only cares about district people when she benefits from them. Those dead tributes? They don't matter. They no longer have the potential to be means for an advancement.

So, once she has humanized Katniss and Peeta and they return on the train the next year to die, it makes sense why she starts to crack from her ideologies. The persons (in the philosophical sense of the word) are supposed to be protected. That is the idea of the Games. Beyond keeping the peace in panem, the Games imply the victors are supposed to live good lives.

So, when the persons, the victors, who have "overcome the barbarism of your district" are then back on the same chopping block as they were when they were just animals, or savages, in her words, that's what shakes her.

She endowed personhood upon them once they benefited her. Then, the challenging of the ideologies of the Games was what shook her. For once she sees beings she valued as people, not animals, going to their deaths.

So, even if Collins thinks otherwise, it doesn't matter. because this is what, textually, Effie thinks.

effie only "humanizes" the tributes/districts if they directly benefit her btw. it's why she calls them savages. they are. to her.

[justafewberries]

OH I never posted these here

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Fan Read Friday!

rules: link the fic(s) you’re currently reading, tag the author (if you know their blog), then share your favorite part!

Fic Title: keeping company by @rosegardeninwinter !

This is a "what if?" where Mrs. Mellark behaves a little differently than she does in the books. And, of course, it's always good to see everlark.

I haven't had much time to read this week, which makes this fic so perfect. It's short, but it's soft.

My favorite part is this small line:

Her best friend, who, now that they’ve escaped their last reaping, she’s permitting herself to wish was something more

Which implies that Mrs. Mellark being a jerk to Katniss in the bread scene is the butterfly effect that ended up in Katniss and Peeta being reaped. I find it subtly really funny.

Tagging: @mollywog , @districtunrest , @mage-chocolate , @thetwinandpinleftbehind , @zenkor123 , @rosegardeninwinter, @thefloatingwriter , & everyone else who wants to share the fic they've been reading/read! The more the merrier!

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You forgot about this jeans under dress diva

stupid question, but like....do they have jeans in Panem? are they easily accessible?

we never once hear of anyone wearing denim?

perhaps it was avoided, because the denim gives too much an aesthetic of now....or is it just harder to come by?

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effie only "humanizes" the tributes/districts if they directly benefit her btw. it's why she calls them savages. they are. to her.

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“you’ll have to watch Mockingjay Part II to find out what happened to Effie and Haymitch… it gets serious. I ship them entirely.” -Elizabeth Banks

can we not retcon canon and set Haymitch up with his oppressor?? no?? okay