thinking about how the hunger games were designed to prove that without society, order, government, someone to rule, we devolve into little more than animals, and how the games themselves prove over and over again that this is not true. We see it in every single game we witness.
Katniss placing flowers around Rue's body in the arena. Thresh sparing Katniss because she was kind to Rue, even though he was making it that much harder for himself to win.
Haymitch going back for Maysilee after hearing her scream even though their alliance had been broken. Haymitch holding her as she dies the same way Katniss did Rue.
Coral's "I can't have killed them all for nothing" when she realizes she's not going home. Lamina cutting down Marcus at great personal risk. And, my favorite moment in tbosas, Reaper collecting the bodies of his fellow tributes, his peers, even the ones who tried to kill him, into a pile. Taking the weapons from their hands. Closing their eyes and crossing their arms in the best approximation of a proper burial he can manage, covering them with the Capitol flag as a makeshift shroud.
The Games bring out the worst in people, yes. But despite the extreme circumstances, despite the exterior pressure of the Capitol, despite the fact that it could mean pain and heartbreak and death, it also shows that people have an enormous capacity for goodness. That even in a situation purposefully designed to make empathy impossible, people can't help but have it anyway.
Snow looks at the Games and all he can see is what's inside himself-- this pure animalistic drive to conquer and defeat. He kills and it feels good and he thinks that everyone else must feel that way too. He doesn't realize (maybe can't realize) that he is the exception, not the rule. He cannot see outside himself, outside his own warped perspective, to realize that the fact that people do show humanity in the games proves his entire worldview wrong.
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DPxDC Summoning Failed Successfully
Imagine a warehouse. Imagine a bunch of cultists in dark robes with all the candles, daggers, ancient books, and chanting. Now add Danny.
Only not as the summoned being, no. As a sacrifice.
He is sitting down, tied to a chair, in the middle of the summoning circle, looking as bored and deadpan as he can possibly be. The cultists are chanting, and he frowns, listening to their chants for a moment.
"Hey, is that Latin?" He questions, but to no avail, "You know you're not actually using those words correctly, right?"
"Keep quiet, child!" One of the cultists snaps. Danny leans back in his chair and shrugs.
"I'm just saying, you ain't summoning shit with wrong grammar," he huffs, seemingly absolutely nonchalant about the whole thing. Oracle, who is watching the whole ordeal through the surveillance cameras, raises her eyebrows. Red Robin and Robin are already en route to the building the cultists chose for their extracurricular activities, but now she almost wants to watch this a bit longer.
Gothamites are pretty used to all kinds of shitshows, but this boy is from out of town. She checked him through facial recognition. Daniel Fenton, a transfer student from Amity Park, Illinois.
A few more cultists stop chanting and turn to Danny.
"Do you know Latin?" One of them asks, and the boy makes a half-nod, making a thoughtful face.
"Not fluently, but, like, it's a dead language, I felt kinda obligated to learn it. Just for the meme, you know?" He chuckles.
The cultists, judging by their confused silence, don't know. Barbara doesn't know what he's talking about, either. But she is almost curious now, so she taps Robin's and RR's comm lines:
"RR, Robin, when you arrive, don't jump into the scene," she asks.
"Understood," Tim answers immediately, but Damian, of course, demands explanations:
"Is there an obstacle?"
"Not really," Barbara humms, "The sacrifice is in the process of de-escalating the situation."
She can almost hear the questioning silence over the comm, but, thankfully, no one argues. Meanwhile, one of the cultists pipes up, voice full of doubt:
"So, you can... like, proofread our incantation?"
"Yeah, sure," Danny nods, apparently fine with being sacrificed, "Who you're trying to summon anyway?"
"Satan," that same cultist answers, and Danny laughs approvingly.
"Classic," he nods and smiles, "I'll give you this. The circle is mostly alright, so you don't need an incantation to summon the fucker, I have him on speed dial." And with that, he leans forward, screaming towards the floor: "Ey, Satan!"
Barbara must say the act was actually convincing, but he went a little overboard with it now. She reaches to tell both Robins to get in, but suddenly, a loud, booming voice reverberates through the building.
"The fuck do you want, kid?"
Cultists fall to their knees - it doesn't seem like an act of worship, more like their knees bucking. The whole circle dimly lights up in red, smoke raising from it.
"Do you see this shit, Oracle?" Red Robin questions, and she mhm's at him, not sure what else to say. If this is still an act or a trick, she must say it's a very good one. Although somehow she suspects it's not a trick. She's seen enough magic in her life to tell the difference.
"Do you want to come to Earth, be gay and do crimes?" Danny asks, almost mockingly.
"Fuck off."
The red light flickers and disappears, and Danny looks back up to cultists, grinning cheerfully.
"Welp, looks like he doesn't wanna," the kid concludes and stands up from his chair. Barbara hadn't seen when or how he got out of his bindings.
The cultists just watch him walk out of the circle in bewilderment.
"Pursue?" Robin's voice comes over the comms, and Barbara thinks for a moment.
"I get a feeling like that's a bad idea," Tim mutters over his line.
Barbara agrees.
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One of my favorite trope for Steddie is Steve hunting down Eddie when the kids join Hellfire and giving him a long list of dos and donts.
At first Eddie thinks he’s just being a prick, and worried he’s going to turn the nerds into freaks like him. Especially when he says not to mention drugs in front of Dustin.
But then he starts pulling out lists of monsters that can’t be in campaigns. And like what??? Why can’t he use demagorgons? They were gonna be in the next combat! He’s tempted to ignore the warnings, in fact he’s all set to, but something about Steve’s face when he was laying it all out haunts him. Something so deadly serious about it. So first he decides to test the waters to see if he’s full of shit.
When the session starts, he makes a throwaway comment, “you’re acting like there’s a mindflayer around the corner.”
All the kids freeze but Wheeler especially looks like he’s going to be sick. He even grabs at the bracelet around his wrist. The one he always said his best friend made him before he moved.
Eddie curses himself for even trying to test it out after that, and immediately bullshits the whole session so he can scrap any hint of demogorgans from the campaign.
After that session he drives straight to Harringtons house and demands they go over all the things he can’t include again, in detail, while he takes notes.
He doesn’t know what’s going on with these freshmen, but he knows trauma when he sees it and well he’d gotten attached to the gremlins.
When he leaves that night, he thinks Steve is looking at him with approval. Like he trusts him with their well-being now.
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