#so now i'm gonna revisit this and see how ive changed

[jeanmoreaux]

hi friend! wanted to ask you smthn

ive been thinking and wondering why Snow didn't have Katniss (and everyone she loves) killed outright honestly or staged it somehow.

i'm remembering how Haymitch won and i still don't see it as a way of 'mocking' the capital. but Katniss' stunt with the berries was far more openly rebellious to me as a reader yet Snow sat on this decision to take care of her but murdered Haymitch's family within 2 weeks

im just contemplating hmmmm was it because others were already rebelling as well and if he took her out ASAP then it might've just added fuel to the fire ?

you got me wanting to revisit the series!!!! curse you (affectionately)!!!!!! i need to find a thesis topic send help OTL

hi there! well, you're definitely right in your assessment that haymitch's defiance was less inflammatory in the grand scheme of things. idk if you have read tbosas but i think that book gives you a good idea of how snow is not just obsessed with power but also control. and haymitch doing what he did took some of the capitol's control over the narrative of what makes a victor. it wasn't that he won because he proved himself to be the stronger, more ruthless fighter. he won because he was smart. and while you can easily manipulate a victor who wins the games on the capitol's terms (and is basically a capitol drone), a victor who defies this traditional victor narrative and uses the capitol's weapons against them poses much more of a threat (at least in snow's eyes). and i think, at least to a degree, snow was worried that if given a chance, victors like haymitch would use their status to rally people behind them. so he made an example of him. he didn't have to kill all of haymitch's loved ones, but he did. simply to show that he can. (not just show haymitch but every living victor and all the victors to come.) in the end, i don't think that it had much to do with haymitch and everything to do with the possibility of what some like haymitch could represent. the kind of stories you could spin around someone like haymitch.

and then katniss comes around, and unlike haymitch, she isn't reaped. she volunteers for her little sister—a blond, pretty little thing that half of panem becomes enamoured with over the course of katniss's games. the people do not just fall in love with prim, they also fall in love with katniss, the girl that keeps showing a lot of compassion for the people around her. and she does draw attention with that. people know her. people support her. oh and what a story she makes! oh what a narrative! the girl who volunteered! the girl on fire! and then she does the most rebellious thing by pulling out the poisonous berries and threatening the victor narrative that has been so carefully established over the years. the girl with the berries! she flips the script in the most radical way, and if she didn't have all of panem's eyes on her before, she does now. and the people look at her and her compassion and begin to stir. they begin to see that change is possible, so they rebel. you mentioned it already, but killing her AFTER the stunt with the berries was impossible. not just because people would have known why and by whom she was killed, but because it would have added fuel to the fire. snow, much like coin later on, realises that the rebellion will only co-opt her image and make her a martyr. snow definitely sees that katniss alive can be used in a way that can potentially help his cause, whereas katniss dead will always gonna end up helping the rebels in their cause. and killing katniss's mother might have been possible without raising many questions, but killing prim? no way he could have had her killed without making people suspicious. there is also a big chance that the rebels would have co-opted prim's death as well (or at least bank on the suspicions swaying some people). and without her family, how would snow have anything to control katniss with?

and the thing is. while haymitch was an incovenience he was never a real threat. not the way katniss is. killing haymitch's family was a means to an end, but nothing more. snow didn't need to control him beyond making him fall in line because haymitch had absolutely no social power to rival snow's. but katniss has. she has many of the district citizens at her back. and the only way to contain her (in snow's eyes) is to hold the threat of hurting her loved ones over her head. take that away and snow has nothing to stop her from leaning into the role the rebellion has assigned her. which is also why he doesn't kill peeta in mockingjay. again, with peeta gone there would be nothing holding katniss back from working with the rebels.

the social power that haymitch and katniss wielded after their respective games is basically what makes all the difference (in my opinion). and that's why, with katniss, snow's hands were tied by circumstance (in a way). retaliating against her directly (either by harming her or by harming her family) would have resulted in more problems than solutions, while killing haymitch's family & girlfriend was a quick and efficient way to stop an inconvenient victor in his tracks AND use him as an example that saves snow the time to put every victor in their place individually. in a cruel way, haymitch simply had bad luck on top of his bad luck.

[secretsivekept]

OKAY SO

i didnt expect to go digging through all my old 14 year old art tonight but here we are, thanks @omegasmileyface for reminding me of it, i had fun revisiting this AU.

At first i was only gonna show a couple pictures but i forgot the LORE i made for this Astro Boy X Danny Phantom crossover LMAO

FULL RANT UNDER THE CUT TO SAVE Y'ALL'S TIMELINES IF YOU WANNA SKIP THIS LOL

Okay so.

2012.

Originally the crossover was (and remains to be) with the Astro Boy 2009 movie. Astro's dad builds a ghost portal i think, but when Astro goes through it his blue core got kind of infected with Ectoplasm allowing his robotic body to retain a ghostly nature. Essentially i made Astro a halfa without thinking of what on earth the implications of a half robot half GHOST could even be but yk i was 14 i didnt think that far ahead. More on the Ectoplasm/Blue Core stuff later, though.

((Side note: I don't recall how exactly Astro ended up from the future to Danny's time, knowing my 14 year old self it was probably something super convoluted involving natural time portals i think?? BUT basically i think Astro gets stuck in the past so that's how. uh he and danny meet and Danny helps him with his new ghost powers))

ANYWAY

I did a few conceptual ideas of what his 'ghost half' could look like, and for some reason i really liked the idea of his outfit being purple and green, like 2 opposite colors (though one sketch i did explore was basically a DP ripoff).

Also i gave him a white stripe on his hair for his ghost half.

Anywho this was what i decided to go with.

You may notice he's got one green eye and one purple eye. That was me trying to show he's got 2 halves, the blue core and the ecto-nature. ((why is it purple, tho??)

WELL LET ME TELL U SOME LORE I MADE UP THEN

I came up with this concept/ghostly element called Black Fire. Basically, when the blue core energy and ectoplasm mixed together, it created a very powerful element called Black Fire ((also i think i made up that ectoplasm had small amounts of red core in it?? it doesn't matter really tho lol))

ESSENTIALLY Black Fire is a very chaotic element that only wants to consume things, which Astro has a very hard time controlling.

Oh yeah and it can take over his mind at some points - again, due to the chaotic nature of the black fire, all it wants is to consume. And this is POWERFUL stuff.

This unfortunately gathers the attention of some elder ghost dudes, ((and i don't... exactly recall if i made them up or if they actually WERE from the Pariah Dark episode its been too long since ive seen that, but if I didn't make them up they're the ones that sealed Pariah Dark in that coffin thing)) but essentially they're like:

"Oh shit this well meaning kid is wielding one of the most deadly elements in the ghost zone, we have to seal him away just like we did Pariah Dark, otherwise the Black Fire will literally take over his mind".

Which i literally made a comic about but i won't be posting all of that in here LOLOL, it is wayyyyyy too cringy, but I'll post a few highlights.

I ALSO found a SYNOPSIS for the little comic i wrote which I will now transcribe:

Astro has been constantly possessed by an evil power- Black Fire - and it is slowly taking over his mind and body like it did Pariah Dark. The Keepers are now placing Astro in a sleeping prison like they did for Pariah, but as it turned out it was the greatest mistake they ever made... for sleep makes the body unprotected, and Black Fire can fully consume the person or ghost it resides in [uninhibited.]

In this first picture, you see how he has one red eye? CUZ MY 14 YEAR EDGY SELF WAS LIKE "OH WHAT IF HE DIES CUZ VLAD KILLS HIM AND THATS LIKE LITERALLY WHERE THE DEATHBLOW STRUCK HIM"

ANYWAY

So i'm not sure what happens next between this instance and the next part of the au, or if I scrapped this part and then changed things around BUT -

this Au can be promptly divided into 2 parts, the first part where Astro is a Halfa, and the second part where he becomes a full on Ghost.

O look costume change, now he has a full on cloak instead of a hoodie

And you see how he has one red eye? YEAH THAT'S CUZ MY 14 YEAR EDGY SELF WAS LIKE "OH WHAT IF HE DIES CUZ VLAD KILLS HIM AND THATS LIKE LITERALLY WHERE THE DEATHBLOW STRUCK HIM"

Essentially the idea that as he becomes a full on 'ghost', the black fire energy is now tamed/more controllable because it is a part of his being as he was reborn, and not something that affected him.

however he is now the first ghost to ever be born with "Black Fire" (something that before always grew inside and consumed ghosts or people) so he is put into the care of Clockwork to help figure out and be properly taught how to control such a powerful ability.

14 year old me was WILD man

ok im at my picture limit so im gonna follow up with another reblog i think or maybe another post idk cuz i got a few more things i wanna show