#hunger games on the brain

[bimbobim]

lucy gay bird or whatever im not homosexual

[runawaymarbles]

Reading Mockingjay as an adult is extra devastating because. Of course the plucky teenager and her ragtag friends aren't going to sneak into a government building to kill the president with a bow and arrow. That's absolutely ridiculous. It's the kind of thing that's only possible in the kind of propaganda that Coin developed. But she's so good at it that in some ways she tricks the reader into thinking that's the kind of story this is, too--even after 3 books reminding us that pretty much everything that Katniss does the second she volunteers is manipulated by adults pulling strings to make propaganda in some form or another.

[brimay]

I'm thinking about how Katniss describes the rock that Thresh uses to kill Clove. She compares its size to "a small loaf of bread." This is what I mean when I say I could talk about the bread symbolism for hours. It's actually insane that Thresh is saving her life here, but in Katniss' mind, it echoes Peeta. The first person who saved her. Peeta will always be the epitome of safety to her. God, it's just so—

[bangthedoldrums]

I'm sure a million people have already written about this and better than I ever could, but there are so many hypocritical moments in the hunger games that stick with me. the way the capital citizens gasp and are furious at the flag being torn down, but not at the dead children directly under it. the way they riot after peeta says "if it weren't for the baby" as if they don't watch children slaughter each other every year. the list could go on.

those moments are something I think of daily, just given the current political climate in america. suzanne collins really took a mirror right to our society and nailed it. makes me insane to think about it too much

[atelierlili]

Katniss is the black cat that goes for your ankles the moment you want into the room. She feral.

Peeta is the orange cat that knocks things off the table behind your back and look real smug and innocent afterwards.

[whenthewallfell]

thinking about the existential horror of Peeta Mellark

to be someone who experienced abuse at the hands of his parents, to have the scars and physical proof buffed away to make him palatable for Capitol society, to have even the memories of it warped and wiped away, to have anyone who knew what really happened killed in the bombings

to be terrified of small spaces and raised voices and not know if it's because of the hijacking or something else, to never fully understand the white hot fury when his children misbehave or the ice cold fear of what that might mean

of how in the end all that's left is a vague feeling and no real way of knowing, because the only ones that truly know are him and his mother, because he cannot trust himself and she is dead and gone

(of how this is the fate of all survivors - scars faded, memories lost, standing alone in the ashes of what once was)

[miharuhebinata]

it genuinely pisses me off the way some people STILL think of peeta as just some dumbass bootlicking white liberal for calling for a ceasefire in mj, as if katniss doesn't literally spell it out for both coin & the reader that he is clearly being tortured & used as a mouthpiece for capitol propaganda???,,???????

[broresteia]

katniss

[pixlatedvampire]

You gave those wounds to your god, Enki. Did you think they would heal so easily?

(Uh Oh! Someone gave the priest catholic guilt!)

[diamondsunbursts-and-marblehalls]

The way Katniss is just stumbling through the Hunger Games like "I can keep Peeta alive through sheer willpower combined with how much everyone loves him cause he's the most wholesome and perfect person in the whole universe" and Peeta is out here making these elaborate plans; i.e., "she came here with me", "if it weren't for the baby", the locket with pictures of her mom and Prim, and GALE??? Wanting to make alliances.

Like, one of you is Haymitch's carbon copy and it shows.

[rise-april-art-challenge]

Tournament starts on MONDAY! Tune back in to start casting your votes for the goodest boy!

[ghcstao3]

ok more of this already because i’m so normal. anyway disregarding canon for the 66th hunger games because that’s where i’m putting ghost

(also only bullet points because i might write a whole thing)

cw for usual hunger games things

anyway some hcs/details mostly about ghost’s games (this is long so strap in):

- by this point, it isn’t unheard of for tributes to act unthreatening during the days leading to the games, to maybe have a chance at surprise attacks—which is a strategy simon takes. what is unheard of in recent years, however, is something like simon’s insistence on having no allies. on being a lone wolf. he does it because he always has been alone, in some sense, and he doesn’t trust these other tributes in any capacity to not turn on him.

- his mentor isn’t any help. vernon is nothing but a bitter old man who, in simon’s opinion, didn’t earn his victory. he knows that’s something horrible to say, but it’s true. not with the way he treats simon, and presumably the other previous tributes, too. simon may as well be going in blind.

- the shy, awkward boy act isn’t at all an act. simon’s never been a people person, his outfits all itch, and the feeling of eyes on him has him nervous. paranoid. the upside is that the capitol somehow finds it endearing, which means sponsors. the downside is that, because of the lack of insight into him as a person as a cause of his quiet nature, it leaves too much room for speculation. it’s part of the reason he becomes sought out after winning—the capitol sees a nice face, assumes things that aren’t true, and suddenly he’s stuck as nothing more than a trophy to be passed around.

- he only scores an 8 after evaluation—this is done with intent.

- his arena is a jungle (not unlike the comics.. hint), foliage too thick to navigate with decent speed, and full of muttation insects, reptiles, and amphibians. the trees are too thin to climb or use to hide, and nor are there any caves—essentially, staying on the ground is anyone’s only option. the cornucopia is a large grove, and after the first day, it rains for days straight, until the ninth day.

- simon runs for the cornucopia. he knows it’s stupid, but he also knows how to dodge blows courtesy of his father, so he’s able to grab supplies and get out alive, granted with a few mostly superficial cuts. he knew he needed knives from the start—his most familiar weapon.

- it takes two days before he makes his first kill. it’s too easy, when it’s a girl paralysed and slowly dying from a poison spreading through her, turning her veins an inky black and rotting her skin. simon’s first kill is mercy.

- his second is a career, the boy from 4. the career pack is together when he comes across them, but he finds them first. when the opportunity presents itself and the boy is just separated enough, simon silently appears and slits his throat before disappearing back into the foliage. the rest of the pack only notices they’re missing someone because the cannon fires. none of them ever find out simon had done it.

- stealth ends up his strategy, and it’s what gets him the nickname ghost. he acts like an apparition and is done his work before anyone is the wiser of his actions. he ends up killing 8 of 24 tributes.

- he doesn’t sleep almost the entirety of the games. haunted by his actions, because part of him knows all of it wasn’t necessary. some kills, sure, were to protect himself—but not all of them. some were just to get ahead of the game, and it plants a gnawing guilt in the pit of his stomach.

- simon almost dies when the girl from 7 tries to kill him in the rare time he’s drifted off. he wakes up to an unbearable heat around him, sweat beading off his skin and light behind his eyes and when he’s finally up, he’s burning. she’d lit a fire around himin the hopes it would kill him because she didn’t want the guilt of having actually done the action. he lives—escapes—but suffers burns on part of his face and body that all just contribute more to the nickname. he’d come back from the dead, they all say, but really, he just woke up in the nick of time. but because the capitol still wants him desirable after he wins, to use him, extensive measures and surgery are taken to visibly reverse the damage once the games are over.

- simon wins on the twelfth day using, fittingly, a butcher’s cleaver. he had picked it up around day six off another tribute, and uses it to kill the one other tribute—the boy from 5—after a fight that comes much closer to killing them both than anyone would’ve liked. eventually, though, simon turns out victor.

- his father barely acknowledges him when he comes back. simon returns to work for a bit, despite the insistence that he doesn’t have to, but he needs something to occupy his mind. but then killing cattle and other livestock rears up too much trauma, and he ends up quitting and isolating himself for a while afterwards—but only until president snow had decided to fix him up and sell him to the capitol.

- seven years after his game is when he’s introduced to johnny. immediately, he’s struck by the man as someone he could maybe, maybe eventually trust. johnny isn’t like the man that had made the current transaction for him, or anyone simon had been put with previously, so it’s… nice. for once, he isn’t used. not for his body, anyway.

- when simon thinks he’s seen the last of johnny after that visit, the man puts in another bid for him, one that’d last longer. only to talk, he says, and that this is really the only way he can get him to the capitol. it happens again and again and the most they ever do is kiss during their last visit before simon has to mentor another tribute for the 73rd games, because better him than vernon.

- the visits continue following—they also spend quite a bit of time together during simon’s mentoring, and johnny even helps with getting sponsors—and they fall into something of a relationship, though it’s kept a very well-hidden secret.

- their routine continues until the second rebellion starts up, but that’s another post (or a fic itself) >:)

[moonys-library]

“this book is trash” okay bitch and i’m a raccoon

[i-am-mldy]

I love being an everlark stan cus I'm surrounded by people who are just so right

[atelierlili]

*Peeta Mellark exists*

Katniss: Honestly, clothing is optional.

[whenthewallfell]

Peeta was always endgame no matter how you slice it. Obviously there's the narrative choice, already gone into that, but from a character perspective too.

I mean there's the whole 'gale winds are loud, devastating, and quick to pass' and 'pita (bread) is considered the cornerstone that helped create humanity' thing, there's war vs peace, wrath vs mercy, self vs many, etc etc.

One of them brings destruction (gale is defined by what he kills, be it rabbits or sisters, and the systems he wants to bring down) and the other, creation (peeta is defined by the things he makes - speeches, bread, art).

One of them will end the world, the other will rebuild it from the ashes. Obviously Gale is needed - you can't make omelettes without breaking eggs after all- but he was never a sustainable, long term option.

WHICH THEN BRINGS ME BACK OH SO NICELY to how love IS a central theme of the series, because there HAS to be a 'so after'.