I Love The Irony Of An Author Making A Cautionary Tale Like "don't You Think It's Fucked Up When Society

water era of my art

i knew there was a connection between why i want to embody klaus and sirius

ok but Klaus and Five are Sirius and Regulus variants

I literally hate every job in the world. I don’t want them. I don’t want ANY of them!

i think something people miss when watching fleabag is that we're not really supposed to like fleabag all that much and yeah sure shes relatable cause shes flawed and shes human and youre not obligated to defend her actions

she hurt people around her constantly and she realizes that

I think the ballad of songbirds and snakes is important bc it shows so clearly the cruelty and unfairness of the games. And that is the POINT. Coral dying and saying “it can’t have been all for nothing. I can’t have killed them all for nothing.”

Dr Gaul telling Snow that the world is the arena and you have to be a victor, because humans are at their base level cruel and vicious animals. They’ll either kill or celebrate your death. Cry for their favorites who die and ignore the games’ cruelty for the ones who don’t matter.

Lucy saying even at the end that people are born with goodness inside of them and the world turns them evil. Who writes songs about what the Capital cannot take away. Whose songs drive snow insane because he can’t make them! He can’t truly understand them! Because what is the opposite of death and cruelty and bloodthirsty spectacle? Life and celebration and the soul. Lucy turns the murder of someone at the hands of the state into a song of rebellion. And that same song eventually brings snow down.

It’s two opposing points of views-what drives the world? Death or life? What is humanity’s base nature?

And snow and the games argue that it is always death, which is why his downfall comes from a girl named after a food source plant, who sings, and a boy who literally gives her the bread of life out of a random act of kindness .

It’s why Gale loses everything too. Because gale in the end sees the world the way snow does. All humanity is about cruelty and survival through more cruelty. And with that attitude you can do anything. You can kill children to make sure more children don’t die.

It’s not about capital and districts or the arena and the world-it’s that all these are one thing-so what are they? What makes up the world? What is humanity?

Collins is once again light years ahead of where anyone thinks she is.

Love love love the implication that Lucy Gray came back to haunt Coriolanus Snow in his last years of life, through her mockingjays, her songs, and her District, particularly Peeta.

I also can’t get out of my head the idea of an 80 something year old Snow absolutely haunted by the fact that every time Katniss Everdeen opens her mouth, Sejanus’ voice comes out.

i am going to shout this from the rooftops:

Katniss, Haymitch, and the Seam inhabitants are all described as olive-skinned, brown-eyed (edit: and gray-eyed), and dark-haired.

Peeta, Maysilee, Katniss’ mother and the Merchants are largely described as blond haired, blue eyed, light-skinned.

The Hunger Games adaptations have a huge weakness to their casting because they allowed their white audience to overlook this very important fact, that the Mockingjay is a brown girl, that her mother was disowned for having a mixed-race and mixed-class marriage, that Katniss and Haymitch were long shots not just because they’re Seam but because they are brown… because the only brown characters in the movies (i.e. Rue, Thresh, 11 in general) were there to be tragic, not to be saviors.

Katniss Everdeen is brown, and I won’t forgive or forget the movies for erasing that part of her character.

this has been another tea time with hawk ☕️🦅

another idea that i take immense issue with in the hunger games community is that “peeta played the games better than katniss did” - essentially saying that he knew how to play the capitol and the audience but katniss didn’t.

there is a number of evidence to counter this. the first point the people who believe this like to make is that “peeta came up with the love concept”, and while this is true it’s only true to an extent. peeta did come up with the idea of telling the audience that he loved katniss, to gain their sympathy and favour for sponsorships, but not the ploy that happens in the games where katniss falls greatly in love with him too - in the audience’s eyes. we know this because and the end of the first book, peeta and katniss have a conversation where peeta seems to realise, to quote president snow in catching fire “the extent of her indifference” to him (though of course she’s not indifferent, just not fully in love with him at this point).

there’s also the moment post the 74th hunger games, when katniss and haymitch are secretly discussing how to justify the berry incident and haymitch tells her that “her only defence can be she was so madly in love she wasn’t responsible for her actions.” katniss responds asking if he had told peeta of the situation, to which haymitch says, “don’t have to. he’s already there” (thg, pgs. 417-418). what this explains to us is that peeta doesn’t actually need instruction on ‘the love ploy’ as he is actually in love with her. this is also backed up by the fact katniss was instructed with the sponsor items in the game wheres peeta isnt.

in terms of how katniss played the capitol and the audience, there’s great evidence to her proficiency in it, too. foremost is of course the berry incident, which she came up with knowing its meaning and its danger. it is an act done in anger at the captiol, at their murder of innocent children, at their manipulation to get the two people in the arena closest to eachother emotionally to be the last to standing, to have the greatest possible ending regardless of how it felt for the tributes. katniss realises “yes, they have to have a victor” (thg, pg. 402) so she makes them have two or none.

not to mention, throughout the entire 74th hunger games, katniss is constantly thinking of how the audience will view her actions. when peeta passes with the career pack, she “needs to look one step ahead of the game” despite the fact she is confused and angry, so she “gives [the cameras] a knowing smile” and thinks “there, let them figure out what that means”. (thg, pg. 191)

there’s also the moment where she calls out peeta’s name when she finds out they could both win together, the entirety of their time in the cave, the kissing and almost their whole relationship was a great con to get them both home, and was lead by peeta’s love, yes, but also katniss’ ability to play the capitol’s hearts.

there’s so much more i can discuss about the first and the other books bc i’ve mainly talked about book 1 but this is getting super long LOL. my point is not that peeta couldn’t play the games, or that katniss was better than him at it because i dont believe either of those things. it’s that i want people to stop acting like peeta was the greater voice of the revolution, was better at playing an audience and speaking. he certainly was excellent at it, especially in catching fire when he is aware of his need to act for the capitol (after the district 11 shooting and through to the end of the quarter quell), but katniss was too. that’s all!! sorry for the essay.

i dont think my mental state can handle "class of 2013" by mitski right now

listen, listen. A few things:

Jennifer Lawrence did an outstanding job portraying Katniss in the movies. I cannot really imagine any other actress in her place.

THAT BEING SAID

it pisses me off that people conveniently forget that Katniss is a colored girl.

That's right, folks!

People from the Seam are described as dark skinned, with grey eyes. Katniss is personally described to have 'olive skin' in the books. I know that there's not much compensation that could have been done in the casting, since Jenn was such a perfect choice- but at least depict her as colored in fanart. Same as Haymitch. Haymitch is also from the Seam.

I also find it so beautiful that Suzanne Collins had a teenage colored girl to be the one to dismantle an oppressive and tyrannical government, acting as a huge symbol of rebillion.

And keep in mind, while the series is marketed as a 'dystopia' it has an alarming number of similarities to the current real-world.