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new favorite chappell look just dropped

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Things Set to Occur in 2024:

Terminators!

Hockey: outlawed!

Irish Unification!

What else we got waiting in the wings...?

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thinking about the locket peeta gave katniss with everyone’s picture. i know people like to joke about gale having to sit for the picture.

I like to picture it as peeta walking by with a camera, yelling “gale!” so he’s looking his way. snaps the photo and walks away. leaving gale like ???

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the problem with gale is that he can't distinguish between the privileged and the oppressors. the career districts and most of the capitol citizens benefit from the system as it is. they don't experience the same hardships as the rest of panem but it doesn't mean they aren't oppressed. they're so quick to defend the capitol because they have no reason to believe they are oppressed and gale lacks the ability to see things from other ppls pov so he sees it as complicity rather than something they've been conditioned into.

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Maysilee Donner and Gale Hawthorne came from strikingly different backgrounds but they had the same anger inside them.

Gale is from the Seam. He has to take out tesserae, illegal hunt, and later go into the mines all sacrifices that risk his life. All in an effort to help provide for his family.

Maysilee is from Town, not just from town but the richest family in District 12. She doesn’t have to take out tessare or participate in risky behavior to barely get by.

Both of their anger manifested in the form of lashing out at the wrong people. Harsh words and meanness made them unlikable to many in District 12.

They both hated the cards they’d been dealt. And they both strongly believed in not letting the Capitol treat them like animals. They insisted on their personhood.

Town or Seam all of District 12 was oppressed by the Capitol.

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Gale's whole arc was so perfectly set out and foreshadowed from the begining it's making me go absolutely insane.

When Katniss introduces us to Gale, the first thing he does is mock Effie - and by extension - Capitol. This clearly shows his distain and contempt which is very valid and understandable.

Next he talks about how he would want kids, if he didn't live in district 12, or in Panem at all, showcasing the urge to change it all, the underlaying hope of things being different, which Katniss didn't share. Katniss talks about how she'd never be able to leave Prim, how Prim is her life and all she does is FOR Prim. I would wager to go as far as speculate that this is the first sign in the fundemental differances between Gale and Katniss. While he is able to hope and wish for better things, Katniss is firmly rooted in the current reality not seeing an out and not really having any revolutionary spark. This shows the begining of how Gale would be able to prioritize "if" instead of "now" if it meant, things could change.

Later on, there is interaction with Madge, Gale letting his feelings talk over his rational mind. He snaps at her, shoving her privalage in her face, even though, he rationally knows that it's not her fault and that she is also opressed under the same system, also under the constant threat of the Reaping.

At this point of the story, Katniss and Gale are very similiar when it comes to their mindsets, they live the same reality, have almsot exactly the same circumstances, their differances are minimal.

As the books progress though, their lives start to difffer greatly. Katniss goes through the Games, seeing the Capitol's cruetly up close, yet also being confronted with two things:

How it is to kill a person

How most Capitol citizents are brainwashed pawns of the system who are raised to think that the cruelty around them is normal.

Katniss is confronted with horrific reality of actual murder and also with humanity that Capitol citizens still hold, how even if arrogant, they're still human and they are still being hurt by the system, in a different, more privalaged way.

The lesson Katniss learns in Catching Fire is to remember who the real enemy is. Gale does not get taught that lesson, only thing he gets, is fuel for his hatered for the Capitol.

This further leads into the Mockinjay, where Gale, a hopeful, angry, young man is further manipulated by Coin into growing his contempt and further dehuminzing Captiol citizens, making all of them become his enemies.

That is why he comes up with the bomb. (Side note here, it wasn't all his idea, we can't just keep saying that, Beetee also had his hand in this but it's another can of worms for another post). The bomb which targets innocents, medics, the demographic that fits Prim perfectly. He is able to come up with that because he not only doesn't see captiol citizens as human, but also since he can prioritise the "if" over the "now". This directly lead to the tragedy which was Prim's death.

Did he ever regret letting his feelings take over his rational thought? Was Prim's death an awakaning for him or did he stay validated in his belief that "if" was more important than "now"? We will never trully know that.

Gale's arc is a cautionary tale, of not letting your feelings dicate radical actions which bring harm to other and also of trully remembering who the enemy is.

Katniss states it the best in the ending, he was a fire she didn't need. He burned so bright that his good intentions got turned into a weapon. He burned innocents, his loved ones and himself.

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I wouldn't wish that walk home on anyone

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see. the thing about gale is that people act like who he is in mockingjay is what he'd always been like, secretly, and by then he just had no reason to hide it. in reality, gale in mockingjay is a completely different person than he was in the first two books because of a culmination of everything he'd experienced until then, topped off by literally the worst thing a human being can experience in the district 12 bombing. like. he just went through an extremely traumatizing experience and saw exactly what the capitol is capable of. saw exactly what they Will do to anyone who steps out of line. Of course he's different, more violent and angry and completely unsympathetic toward the capitol. Trauma changes a person on a fundamental level.

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Me: *reading a post that makes the joke “Peeta dropped the baby bomb, Gale drops bombs on babies”* haha good one

Also me: you’re missing the point! You’re missing the point! YOURE MISSING THE POINT! He grew up starving. His best friend almost died of hunger. Most of his people live in poverty. He watched children die in a bloodbath every year for the capital’s entertainment. The girl he loved went into the games. Was tortured by the capitol. His district was bombed out of existence. Nearly everyone he knew was killed. Their only crime was being fed up of being hungry and oppressed and sharing the same district as Katniss. All those innocent people. Murdered. He had to take refuge in a district that was bombed out of existence and forced to live underground. Of course he joined the war effort. Of course he designed unethical bombs and battle tactics. He wanted revenge. He wanted the capitol to have a taste of their own medicine. He wanted the rebellion to succeed. And tell me you could live through what he did, and that no part of you would be screaming for Justice and vengeance. Gale is you. You are Gale. He represents a part of feelings and actions that reside within us, even if you don’t act on it.

“But he killed prim!” Exactly! Gale loved prim. She was a second family to her. He looked after Katniss’ family. He saved them from the district 12 bombings. He loved her. He never would’ve put her in danger. He never would’ve put in order for a bombing if it would kill Prim. But coin would. And did. She took what was meant to be a tool of Gale’s righteous revenge for all the suffering he and his people suffered through, only for someone in power to take it and use it to kill someone he loved.

There’s some many lessons to take. We can’t control the things we create. War spares no one. Even justifiable rage and actions can end up rebounding and hurting those you love instead of your targets.

“He drops bombs on babies” is too simplistic of a takeaway and does a disservice to the story and Gale.

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peeta : suffered an abusive childhood, low self-esteem, survived two hunger games, was willing to die multiple times throughout the series, lost his leg, was captured and tortured by the president and his men, his entire family died, lost his entire memory/sense of self, practically had nothing left to live for.

gale : lost his father at thirteen, had to risk his life every day to provide for his mother and all his younger siblings, watched the genocide of his people and was powerless to stop it, was whipped publicly until he almost bled out and died, was manipulated and exploited by a president who saw his trauma as a weapon she could use.

people who zero reading comprehension : “those boys only cared about katniss! she had a revolution to lead and they just dragged her down and focused only on kissing! the books would have been more nuanced without romance!”

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this is a message for everyone who is 22. if you’re 22 please stop worrying. take a deep breath eat a bagel maybe. everything that feels impossible is going to work itself out. have a great day

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— LEONARD COHEN, Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye

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SO APPARENTLY MY ENTIRE LIFE IS A LIE HOW HAS YOUR GUYS’ NIGHT BEEN

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TSITP girls being

✨pretty in pink✨

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Ive been told by a lot of people, including close friends and my wife, that they totally thought i didnt like them at first. Which always surprises me. But apparently the emotions in my head dont always make it out to my bod and its very hard to notice

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born to hank green forced to john green