alistairlowee

[alistairlowee]

I wish we had more female characters like Eleanor Shellstrop. One of the most unlikable people you've ever met. Read a Buzzfeed article on most rude things you can do on a daily basis and decided to use that as a list of goals. Makes everyone's day worse just by being there. Dropped a margarita mix on the ground and tried to pick it up, only to get hit by a row of shopping carts which pushed her into the road where she was hit by a boner pill delivery truck, killing her instantly. Cannot keep a romantic partner despite being bisexual. Had a terrible childhood but will die before she gets therapy. Best employee at a scam company. Just the worst but also can't help but root for her to improve.

Absolute loser. Girl-failure. Bad at almost everything. Literally perfect female character.

[alistairlowee]

the "I'm not a drinker myself" to gradually becoming an alcoholic to numb out the pain pipeline

the "I don't want them to change me. turn me into something I'm not" to being turned into a mutt version of himself pipeline

the "I do everything in my power to protect my sister" to losing her anyway pipeline

[alistairlowee]

Sotr phone background. Something feels like it’s missing but idk what

[alistairlowee]

I know Wylan’s line of ‘just girls?’ seems to imply that Kerch is a heteronormative society but I think it would be objectively funny and also incredibly in character for Wylan to assume he managed to fall for the one straight guy in all of Ketterdam. Like yeah queerness is the standard but Wylan is over here thinking with his luck he’ll have managed to find the one fucking guy who only likes girls. And then the guy in question is the most overt bisexual you’ve ever seen.

[alistairlowee]

Can yall imagine how stoked the Rebellion was when Katniss and Peeta won?

The staples of the Games are:

We Reap the children, and you don’t fight it

They either are programmed to play along, are threatened into playing along, are rigged to die, or are the approved/punished winner

We control the edit and everything done to try and disrupt is for naught.

There has to be one (1) winner

But then Katniss comes along. And outside of Haymitch (useless drunk mentor) she’s so removed from any connection to rebellion. Any paperwork on her would have included her loner behavior. And Peeta was probably recorded as saying he wants to make sure Katniss comes back, even when that means his death. (Before, in the apartment, not just the interview)

So against the odds, (with the caveat that Peeta wasn’t on some Secret Mission) 2 and 12 have both tributes alive! And the rules are fake changed. (Was that Plutarch’s whispering and planting? Or was Crane part of the Rebellion? Or was it just a poor stupid decision?)

And then! Katniss and Peeta out-survive Cato.

Remember how Peeta said he would be down to die to get Katniss home? Now’s the time to prove it! She’s risked a lot to save you, boy, return the favor and fulfill your promise! (thinks Snow, laughing at the Covey Girl playing tricks on a poor love sick boy)

Except she doesn’t kill him. And doesn’t passively wait for him to bleed out. And refuses to let the wolves come back. Instead she says “it’s both or neither.” And she means it. Them berries are in her mouth.

And Plutarch and BeeTee and Mags and probably Haymitch (and 13?) are all sitting there. Watching. If it’s in real time, they’re thinking “how can the Capitol edit this?” And the truth is, they can’t. There is no way to edit only one winner when Katniss brings out the berries. Maybe if they had time? But not 5 minutes. And if it’s post-edit broadcast they’re probably staring in gleeful disbelief that those two 16 year olds from 12 out smarted the editing room.

And here they are. Two (2) Winners.

And that breaks the real rules. No winner = nothing to lose, One winner = selfish hope, Two winners = daring hope

Better than any of the Haymitch or Maysilee Posters. Better than Snow cheating or Sejanus going in or Highbottom’s lack of circus. Better than whatever Johanna did.

Who knows if a Tribute was in on a secret mission. It wasn’t Katniss so, we don’t know. But finally the Rebellion sees a real impact. The break in the total image control the Capitol wields. And it’s their first real foothold nationally. It’s the first lasting crack. And now things can change.

[alistairlowee]

When it's enemies to lovers and their first kiss ends with:

"I've always wanted to do that."

"Longer than you wanted to kill me?"

"Sometimes I wanted both."

THEN WHAT? WTF AM I SUPPOSED TO DO AFTER???? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO LIVE?!

[alistairlowee]

Oh I am SICK

Catching Fire was the first time both Haymitch and Katniss were actually reaped for the Games

Catching Fire was also the first time Peeta wasn't reaped yet he goes into the games anyway

They all get to experience what the other did

Haymitch and Katniss learn the horror of hearing their name called

Peeta learns the horror of knowing he should've been safe

This book has made me so emotional

[alistairlowee]

do you know how miserable and tragic your life has to be to say that katniss everdeen is luckier than you and be correct

[alistairlowee]

president snow is literally THE incel. had a failed situationship ONCE and decided that no woman could ever love a man and that women cannot be trusted

warned haymitch about lenore dove

was convinced katniss didn’t love peeta

64 years later and he was still bitter

[alistairlowee]

Lenore Dove is named for a dead girl and a shade of gray, which I’m pretty sure is just Covey-speak for “doomed by the narrative”

[alistairlowee]

burdock: a plant “famous for it’s clinging properties”

kind of like how burdock was the very last person to cling onto haymitch after his life was completely destroyed.

kind of like how burdock’s little girl would spend years clinging to his memory after he died.

[alistairlowee]

things maysilee donner would've loved:

pushing drusilla down the escalator

kissing girls

cyberbullying

pinterest

selling handmade jewelry on etsy

johanna mason

CINNA.

judging people's outfits at the met gala

panem's next top model

and last but certainly not least: watching president snow die!!!

[alistairlowee]

Cordelia ❤️ character belongs to @cassandraclare

I love using sculptures as reference! This time I used Prosper d' Epinay statue "Sylvie". I must admit I haven’t drawn in a while so this turned out a lil messy, but hey that’s fine I guess. Still happy with the result!

[alistairlowee]

maysilee mentoring finnick & johanna...goddamn. that could have really been something

[alistairlowee]

"Snow rigged the Quell reaping" "Snow rigged the Quell reaping"

No he didn't. It was Plutarch. I will die on this hill.

I'm not saying Snow didn't have a hand in it, but the only victors posing an immediate threat to Snow during Catching Fire were the ones from 12, specifically Katniss. Without Katniss, Haymitch and Peeta would have struggled to get the rebellion off the ground. Snow needed her gone, but he didn't need to rig the reaping to do that.

However, Plutarch did. We don't know what the other victors from the rebel districts were like. Were they all rebels themselves aware of the plan? Unlikely. But even if they were, enacting a plan like the one they pulled off in the arena isn't something they could leave to chance. The rebel alliance in the 3rd Quarter Quell is the literal dream team. Without that specific set of people, it all falls apart.

Finnick and Johanna are the physical defenders in the team. Wiress and Beetee are the brains. Even though she wasn't technically reaped, Mags was the only reason Finnick could get close enough to Katniss and Peeta to keep them alive in the first place.

But Snow has no reason to kill them. They're too valuable - Finnick and Beetee especially (Finnick because of his celebrity in the Capitol, and Beetee because he's responsible for half the technology in the country). And the ones that aren't valuable to Snow (the Morphlings, Chaff, possibly even Wiress) aren't a threat to him at all, especially not on their own at home in their own districts.

There's a reason Snow kills the victor's families rather than the victors themselves. He needs them to keep up this illusion of control and to keep the Capitol happy. If Snow was the one to rig the reaping, I don't think he would throw away so many valuable assets at once, even if they were causing trouble. Sending them all into the arena for the Capitol to watch is a bit like making a baby watch you set fire to their favourite toy. Sure, the baby will find a new favourite toy eventually, but they're not going to be happy when they lose the old one.

I'm not saying every district's reaping in the Quell was rigged. Some were probably legitimate (especially in the non-rebel districts). But Plutarch had a lot more to gain from certain people going into the arena than Snow did, so with that I rest my case.

[alistairlowee]

so i'm going to go ahead and cry for like 3 days now. thanks suzanne

[alistairlowee]

Peeta Mellark is an integral member of the four D12 victors. He is literally the sunset on the reaping! How is this not clear? I’ve never wanted to report people for bad literary analysis more and I’m only half joking. It has forced me to commit a cardinal sin: analyze in anger!

1. Him being chosen by absolute accident is the point. Not only does he represent every single other tribute who simply gets chosen because they live in a messed up country but he represents how even with some odds being in your favor (older siblings, merchant family, being white, being popular, etc.) you are still very likely to be victimized by the oppressive structure of Panem.

2. When Haymitch says, “But she was smarter than me, or luckier” - the luck is all the people around Katniss who created the circumstances for her to lead a successful revolution (her father teaching her to hunt, the arena having woods, Rue healing her with leaves, Thresh not killing her, Haymitch consistently giving her support, her mother teaching her aspects of medicine, on and on and on) and Peeta is the number one, most important part of her luck in the first book. She has someone in the games actively putting her life before his… are you kidding? There is legitimately no better luck than that.

3. Even if we take Katniss out of it, Peeta is so impactful as a victor because most of his scenes would not be cut/doctored. What’s there to edit out? Instead, the viewers get a full view of him loving a girl so selflessly, using trickery and strategy instead of violence, keeping himself alive through art, joking on literal death’s door, and sharing so much of himself with the audience it becomes harder for them not to see him as a real human boy. How rare do you think that is for the games? Haymitch and LGB are caricatures of themselves in the games, playing roles that flatten them down. Even Katniss becomes one dimensional on screen without Peeta (and Rue, of course). It is also heavily implied that he does not kill anyone during the games (in a straightforward way) and even if you count Cato or the girl from 8 or even foxface, it’s never him hunting them or seeking out a kill - again how rare do you think that is to see on screen for Games viewers?

4. I didn’t think this needed to be said but: Katniss dies without Peeta in the first games. a) she goes for the bow and dies in the bloodbath; b) she is hunted and killed by Careers; c) she is killed by game makers because there’s no love story angle to keep them from just burning her entirely; d) she dies from tracker jacker stings or Cato because Peeta doesn’t defend her or tell her to run… I could go on…

5. But even if she does win and wins alone - the victory means as much (I would argue less than) any other rebellious victor winning, certainly less than Haymitch’s win. The biggest rebellion for their games is that two of them win! This is legit the only thing that distinguishes them from any other sympathetic, kind child who would have won the games. Like if Haymitch or Finnick or Wiress winning isn’t jarring enough for the Games to end… why do you think Katniss killing Peeta and winning solo would be? It would not.

6. And finally, I cannot stress this enough: There is no peaceful end to the rebellion or the trilogy without Peeta. “Peeta’s a whiz with fires” (HG) for a reason! Collins, over and over, shows us how fire can get out of control and destroy even those who are innocent and who you love (Gale, Beete, Peeta’s family, Haymitch’s family). If everyone really burns, there’s no one to clean the ashes. The reason not everyone burns is because of people like Peeta who can coax the flames in a way that is nurturing and consistent. I mean…. “Peeta fashioned some kind of incubator” is such an obvious detail. Those goslings don’t hatch without Peeta, life does not go on in peace and joy without Peeta.

It is no coincidence that when Maysilee says Lenore Dove got the “jump on us all” (in being a rebel), she is referring to LD using orange paint to make protest art!

We must stop pushing Peeta Mellark out of the narrative! He is literally the sunset on the reaping!