#I know the original team Peeta fans would be like:

[atelierlili]

There had to be social media campaigns for tributes during the hunger games. But instead of it being led by the a Hunger Games network, it’s done by the fans etc.

Like people would have their solo stan teams Cato or Team Glimmer while other might have their favorite districts, like 2 & 4. Then there’s the people who stan the tributes who have little to no chance of winning, but they’re there for the memes and the content.

And you cannot look me in the eye and say that Mr. Peeta Mellark was NOT the meme tribute of the 74th Hunter Games. Like my man’s was pretty handsome, good build, plays it up for the audience and has a decent score. He’d get some fans- but then he drops a love confession in the middle of his interview?? Who the tf does that??

Xitter would eat. that. shit. up. They’d clip it and share it all over Panem web. Team Katniss would go berserk. Someone already started an Everlark account and they’re already at war with Clato fans .

And the the fan edits would roll in and-

[princessjaqulinechess1031]

I posted 182 times in 2022

41 posts created (23%)

141 posts reblogged (77%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@shenanigans-and-imagines

@miicachii

@borkthemork

@zarinaa113

@oifaaa

I tagged 93 of my posts in 2022

Only 49% of my posts had no tags

#amazing - 15 posts

#young justice - 10 posts

#batfam - 7 posts

#m*a*s*h - 7 posts

#this is beautiful - 6 posts

#amazing art - 6 posts

#miraculous ladybug - 5 posts

#oc - 4 posts

#awesome art - 4 posts

#zutara - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 93 characters

#taylor is such a lyrical person and jason seems to enjoy reading so i think he would enjoy it

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Icicle Jr. was at the wedding. Amazing. Beautiful. Undeniably the best part of the episode.

34 notes - Posted June 9, 2022

#4

Raquel deserves better. I never really had any thoughts about her before this arc, just because she showed up in the last episodes of season 1 before immediately being delegated to basically a background character. But from what the brief moments we’ve seen of her in this arc, she seems like a genuinely interesting character.

Zatanna got the same treatment in a way, but not this bad. But at least with Zatanna, we had half a season from season 1 to get to know her. With Raquel, with have none of that. So when she’s put in the background again, it’s worse because this was our chance to finally to see who she was.

I’m happy for Green Lantern: The Animated Series fans, that they got to see Razer again. I consider myself a huge fan of Conner, I think he’s the most dynamic from the original cast and seeing him in the Phantom Zone is interesting. I think Gar’s storyline is compelling and I liked seeing him finally get help. But it was done at the expense of Raquel, a character who still has not been given her due and a chance to shine.

I’m not sure that makes sense, just how I feel.

37 notes - Posted April 28, 2022

#3

*ahem*

Katniss Everdeen is “Anti-Hero”.

Peeta Mellark is “You’re On Your Own, Kid”.

Thank you.

39 notes - Posted November 11, 2022

#2

Okay, real question, why did they send Artemis undercover in season 2? They had to jump hoop after hoop to pull it off, when they had a Team member with the ability to naturally change her appearance and could pull off playing a character for months on end? Yes, Artemis is most likely a better combatant, but they still could have had M’gann have access to telekinesis and/or telepathy by passing her off as meta human assassin?

Conner and M’gann could have had a really compelling storyline if they had them break up, and Conner believed he never got the chance to make things right before M’gann ‘died’ if they kept Conner out of the loop, at least for a couple episodes. Wally and Artemis could have spent the season realizing that they no longer were willing to pay the price of the vigilante life and plan to leave the Team post-invasion, which would have made Wally’s death hit much harder. As opposed to him being already retired, and doing literally nothing it seemed for six months.

I’m sorry, I just feel like the two storylines for the main couples should have been switched.

74 notes - Posted April 25, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Tom and Sabine should know Marinette is Ladybug.

I don’t mean that in the ‘Marinette is a bad liar and they should know by this point’ but in that Marinette should have told them from day one kind of thing.

I feel like it would have emphasized the distant relationship between Gabriel and Adrien. Gabriel and Adrien are cold and distant, keeping secrets from each other, locked in an unknown battle of wills for the soul of Paris. Adrien can not tell his father because he knows his father would find a way to take it from him, Hawkmoth or not being involved.

But in contrast, Marinette has no secrets from her parents. They unequivocally support her and are open and loving. They support her being a superhero and do anything they can to help her. Her parents are concerned, but know Marinette is smart and capable of being a hero. Until Marinette steps away on her own, they would never dream of taking it from her.

298 notes - Posted September 24, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[cdyssey]

Sorry

Summary: When both Peeta and Katniss's scores come back as perfect and punitive twelves, Haymitch finds himself in Effie Trinket's room with a bottle of gin.

A/N: I've been re-reading The Hunger Games trilogy and got all up in my Hayffie feels again. The grip that these two people had on me as a middle schooler, omg.

AO3 Link

—

It’s a corridor on the twelfth floor that Haymitch knows a little too well. Over the long and unending years, he’s taken to calling it Capitol Row because it’s where people like the stylists and their prep teams have been given temporary residences during the Games. All fully furnished and luxurious, the kinds of suites that would comfortably house entire shacks from the Seam. His uneven footsteps mechanically carry him to the door at the very end of the hallway, where a faint sliver of golden light seeps through the cracks and fans across the mahogany floor. He slams his knuckles against the paneled wood rather harshly, not even bothering to stifle the violence.

It's the only way he knows how to carry himself in the world.

“Not now, Haymitch, please,” Effie Trinket calls out from somewhere within the room, her voice high, pitched with audible strain. “I’m a little… indisposed at the moment. Hardly suitable for company.”

He laughs roughly at this, leaning heavily against the nearest wall to support his tenuous equilibrium. His other fist is clenched around one of the cloudy bottles of District 11’s gin that Chaff managed to smuggle on to the train. Strong stuff. Could probably clean the rust off of an old threshing machine. Was probably originally distilled for that very purpose anyway.

“Is that a fancy word for drunk, sweetheart?”

“No!” He can hear her bristling indignation in just the one syllable. “Just… I don’t have my makeup on or my wig… or any of my other necessary accoutrements! Furthermore, it is well past midnight, and—“

“And I’ve seen you without all your fancy shit on before.” He says this a little more quietly—far more carefully—wriggling it through his chapped lips as though he’s negotiating a key in a lock. He glances behind him, craning his head, but the six or so doors beneath Effie’s room are undisturbed, the hallway silent and dark. 

It’s just them awake after an exhausting day.

For the most part during the Games, it usually is.

“I’m… not in the mood tonight,” comes an even quieter reply—close to him, he thinks, just on the other side of the door, the sound pressed right against the grain. “Surely you’re not either, Haymitch—not after, you know…” She trails off awkwardly, but he has no trouble following her thoughts.

Dinner.

The kids’ tiny rebellions.

Their dual punishments of a perfect score.

The boy painted Rue in a bed of flowers.

The girl hung Seneca Crane.

Heavensbee is likely furious; they can hardly stage a proper mutiny if Katniss and Peeta are both immediately killed by jealous Careers at the Bloodbath.

“I’m not here to fuck you,” Haymitch agrees gruffly, taking a long drag of the gin, almost ecstatic that it burns his abused tongue. He swishes it around in his mouth a little and lets the pain erupt down the column of his throat before finally swallowing. “I just wanna talk.”

“So vulgar,” Effie whispers disapprovingly.

“Let me in,” he only returns, knowing that he’s won when her strongest counterargument boils down to manner—which both of them are well aware that he doesn't have. There’s an infinitesimal sigh and the telltale ker-clunk of a lock before the door suddenly sweeps inwards, and Effie Trinket is standing there in the triangle of light, bathed in golden fluorescence. As she had complained, she’s not wearing any makeup and that ridiculous orange wig is just behind her on a table, sitting neatly atop of a custom mannequin head. Her natural hair falls in soft waves across her shoulders, light and flaxen and not bleached to oblivion yet like her nonexistent brows. Beneath those very same brows, he can see that she’s been crying recently, the redness of her eyes unmistakable.

“I like you better without all that crap caked on your face,” he offers by way of greeting and waddles past her into the room, giving her the time she needs to collect herself. She closes the door with a quiet click, and he hears her sniff surreptitiously at the exact same time. With Effie Trinket, he’s come to learn that timing is never a coincidence with her.

They’re in her small living area where there’s a comfortable couch, a large television screen embedded into the wall, and a full mini-bar outfitted with all the precocious wines that District 12’s bubbly escort likes to drink. He heads there first and scoops up two crystalline glasses from the display cabinet, studying them with a knowing smirk. They’re far too elegant and expensive for the bootleg hooch that District 11 herbalists brew in their back rooms, but still, he pours himself a generous finger from his bottle anyway. And he reaches upwards towards the shelf, instinctively grabbing the Prosecco he knows to be Effie’s favorite, and fixes her a glass too, filling it to the rim.

“You only say that because you have no taste,” she accuses, and he hears her dainty footfalls as she comes up behind him. His entire body tenses, primal instinct, muscle reflex. Ever since his own Quarter Quell—almost twenty-five years ago to the day now—he doesn’t like when people approach him from behind, where he can’t see their faces and what they’re holding in their murderous hands. But then she’s right beside him, nearly a foot shorter than he is without her heels, examining the gin skeptically, and the moment passes. He lets out a breath he didn't know he had been holding.

“Case in point,” she frowns obliviously, tapping the bottle with one of her long fingernails, “this simply looks abominable, Haymitch. When is the last time this bottle was washed?”

“It’s gin, Princess,” he snorts, nudging her glass towards her. “It’s doing all the cleaning itself.”

“That seems like a dubious fact,” Effie shakes her head, capturing her glass in a delicate tangle of fingers. But she’s decidedly anything but delicate as she knocks back a long swill, nearly getting a quarter of it in one go. He almost laughs at her, almost calls her out on the impropriety of it all, but then he sees that her fingers are quivering.

“Hey, what do I know?” He shrugs gently, absently swirling his own drink around. “I’m just an alcoholic fuck up from District 12.”

She stops short and stares at him with wide, impossibly blue eyes. If he didn't know any better, he'd almost wager that they're surgically altered.

But no, she's Effie, and she's frankly vain about having all of her natural parts.

("Boobs 'n ass too?" He'd teased her less than a year ago, when they'd been sweating in the sheets in her room on the Victory Tour train. It was a damned better way to deal with the night than succumbing to the nightmares.)

("Crass," she had just rolled those vivid eyes, lithe and luminous in the faint light emitting from the overhead vents. "I despise that in a man.")

(And they promptly went at it for another hour.)

“You’re a victor.” She briefly touches his wrist, right on the jagged scar he’d gotten from one of those wretched birds that had skewered Maysilee. Its swordlike beak had nearly gone through bone before he’d hacked off its head with his axe, scaring the flock away. But it’d been too late for his once ally—his almost friend—the girl whose blonde hair cascaded down her back like water. He still nightmares her blood, how it bloomed across her sliced open skin, how his calloused hands were covered with it, long after he left the arena.

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” Haymitch says flatly before taking a long drink himself. “In fact, one caused the other.”

Effie doesn’t look like she knows what to say to this, gaping silently, and a ripple of familiar disgust shudders through him as he is reminded of the escort’s  utter Capitolness, how the stench of it rolling off of her is even stronger than her trademark floral perfume. She’s never known true suffering, never been driven to the bottle or a morphling drip ‘cause she’s seen the life leave someone eyes and maybe even caused it. Her hands, her mind, her sheltered life are perfectly manicured, and not for the first time since their informal bedtime arrangements began a few years ago, he wonders how he can lay in her bed and kiss that very same perfectly manicured body and be inside of her and—

But then, just as he’s thinking about leaving, she is carefully bending down and pressing her pink lips to the leathery skin of his scarred arm with all the tenderness of a lover. And when she straightens up again, he can see the fresh tears clinging to her pale lashes. 

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, almost inaudibly. He has to lean forward to really hear her. “I am.”

He freezes, unsure of what to do with an unguarded Effie Trinket, how to navigate this unexpected moment. He doesn’t want to say it’s okay because it damn well isn’t—none of this is. They’re all pieces in a chess game that ends in the deaths of twenty-three goddamn kids nearly every year. They are bodies shuffled around by the hands of a malevolent god. Reap. Kill. Rinse. Repeat. And sorry is insufficient in the cruel reality of that fact; tears are more than useless when the gong rings and the Bloodbath begins, whether for the tributes of the new year or in his nightmares every night, Maysilee just to the left of him, the candy-colored sky stretching like taffy above them both.

So Effie’s sorry isn’t sufficient because it just damn well isn’t okay, but still—both the fight and the need for flight gutters through Haymitch’s tired body, like a drain unplugged, replaced with an unpleasant epiphany that he has about the District Twelve escort every now and then.

She actually cares.

He can’t say that about many other Capitol lackeys.

“So many broken people goin’ into the arena this year, sweetheart,” he smiles at her sadly, “two of them my—our—kids.”

Of course they’re both of their kids. He remembers that last year, it was Effie by his side in the Donor’s Lounge, charming potentially sponsors and directing them back to Haymitch with a winning smile. She’d stayed up in the monitor room on many a night too, helping him keep an eye on Katniss and Peeta even if they were just sleeping in that cave, trying to stave off various infections. He and the escort were the first in the clinic after the star-crossed lovers had been pulled from the arena, bloodied and half-mad, the boy on the brink of death, and Effie had snarled at one of the doctors for daring to suggest that they might do some cosmetic alterations on them while they were both under the knife: breast augmentation, jaw sculpting, lip fillers. 

“They’re children,” she had shrieked, getting into his face, feral and ferocious, a lioness standing between a surgeon and her cubs. “Save them. Save Peeta’s leg, but don’t you dare, don’t you even think about—!“

It’s this visceral memory that prompts Haymitch to suddenly breach the space between them, gently lifting her chin so that she’s not staring at the ground—so that she’s looking at him—and he can see her that her lower lip is trembling from a concerted effort not to cry.

“Our stupid kids,” he laughs hoarsely, drawing his thumb across the soft plane of her cheek, over and over again, until he soothes the sadness from her. “Gettin’ perfect training scores because they wanted to stick it to the man. They’ve got balls, I’ll give ‘em that, but they’re not making it any easier for us to help them.”

To save them, really, if Heavensbee’s batshit insane plan works perfectly—not that the woman across him can know anything about that. Not yet, at least, until Haymitch is sure that he can secure her a spot on a rebel hovercraft. Because if the hijacking succeeds, and they can get the Katniss and Peeta out, then one of the first things that happens is that their teams will pay for it—arrested, tortured, interrogated, maybe even killed to prove some sick point to the people of Panem. He can’t save them all, and he’s so fucking sorry that he can’t, but maybe, just maybe, he can save one person.

It’s the responsibility of the mentor.

He always has to choose just one.

“No,” Effie sighs, leaning into the touch ever so slightly. “But they never have, our darling children. So naughty… always stirring up trouble...”

These final words stir the dregs of his memory, and he remembers why he had lumbered here in the first place. Because Effie had said something curious at dinner—shocking even—after she'd learned what the kids had done. She had betrayed much more knowledge about the unrest in the districts than he could have ever expected from a career Capitol.

You’ll only bring down more trouble on yourself and Katniss, she had pointed out, directly indicating that she was well aware that the young victors were in trouble to begin with. He’d suspected as much when she spent her entire post-Games interview circuit last year tearing up over her star-crossed lovers as she sat across from an emotionally sympathetic Caesar Flickerman. Most escorts during their winning years tended to talk about themselves and their overstated roles in their victor’s success.

But not Effie.

If the entire team, from the stylists to Haymitch, was consciously united in trying to convince Snow that Katniss extending those berries was the desperation of a besotted lover, then Effie, without having ever been prompted, contributed her ample talents to the machine as well. 

But what had surprised him most at dinner was that she’d known what had happened to Seneca Crane. Rumor has it that he was made to eat the nightlock berries that started this all: tumbling dominoes, a glass Capitol, and an even shakier nation of cards. From what he can tell, the citizens of the Capitol just think he’s retired to the Pax Romana Islands for a well-deserved retirement at the respectable age of thirty-six.

But not Effie.

Oh, Katniss…. How do you even know about that?

“So Seneca Crane,” he puts it out there bluntly, causing the escort to flinch so violently that she spills a little wine on the side of her hand. Letting go of her cheek, he swipes it off for her with the cuff of his very nice sleeve, earning a remonstrative glare. 

“Don’t,” she says sharply, turning away from him. With graceful footsteps, she heads in the direction of the couch, where he can see that her brightly colored notebooks are piled. She sits down next to them, places her glass on an end table, and fusses over them, even though they’re already immaculately arranged. “We shouldn’t discuss such matters.”

“And why shouldn’t we?” He challenges a little recklessly, following her, sitting down on the couch right next to her. He doesn’t give up his gin, though, keeping it close to his chest. “You’re a Capitol darling. Your room isn’t bugged.”

He’s already ascertained that at least ten times over the course of his nighttime visits, scouring every inch of her suite for a spying device and satisfactorily coming up short every time. She's Effie Trinket. The last thing from a threat to the perilous standing of the government. A model citizen. Voted the most stylish escort for three years straight.

The fact that she's such a reliable goody two-shoes occasionally has its perks.

Like freedom of speech in her inner rooms.

“And you’ll be the very one to change that,” she hisses without looking at him, now seemingly trying to reorganize the notebooks by color, “if someone gets wind of the fact that we were talking about forbidden topics in here. What is it that you always stress to me? Circumspection and precaution? Safety?”

Haymitch knows she’s right, as she annoyingly tends to be—but maybe it’s because he’s furious with his impulsive tributes or maybe it’s because he’s secretly impressed by their resolve—that he continues to push her anyway, wanting to see how far he can take this night and all the madness it already contains.

They're all probably going to end up dead soon anyway, so what the hell?

He’s got nothing to lose that isn’t being taken from him already. 

He turns up his glass again.

For liquid luck.

“There’s no safety in being anywhere near District Twelve these days,” he smiles at her mockingly as she now stacks her notebooks based on size, slamming one against the other with perfect and violent precision. “Surely you must know that by now, huh?”

Effie doesn’t say anything after this for a long time—hands carefully poised around the edges of what he knows to be her agenda—and he’s nearly decided that she isn’t going to say anything at all, too cowardly, too Capitol, but… then finally—

“Do you want me to say yes?” She asks in a cool, measured tone. “Will you go away if I acknowledge the unspeakable precariousness of our current situation? I fear for my own life, yours, and certainly Katniss and Peeta’s—though I can hardly do anything where the children are concerned. None of us can because this Quarter Quell, and it is... it's—" But before she can say anything that could potentially be construed as rebellious, Haymitch watches, in real time, as the escort, ever a perfect self-disciplinarian, cuts herself off, subjugating her feelings into a word that springs awkwardly from her accented tongue. "... unprecedented. Are you happy now, Mr. Abernathy?”  

“No,” he says plainly, any maliciousness sagging away from his face at her outburst. He had hardly estimated the depths of her feelings and the lengths she'd go to ensure that they never surfaced. “I’m never happy and definitely not about that.”

“Then why make me say it?” She barely whispers, her eyes glazed and her voice constrained. He has a feeling that if she lets go of her planner, there’d be nothing left to tether her to any sort of dignified display of composure. So she grips it far too tightly, her chest visibly fluttering beneath the silky fabric of her nightshirt. “Why do you insist upon hearing it aloud?”

It’s a pointed examination of what she believes to be his cruelty, and perhaps she’s right. Maybe he is just being a dick, pressing her to admit what she can’t possibly control, but Haymitch slowly shakes his head at the implicit accusation, his free hand tightly holding his knee.

“Saying it makes it real, Effie,” he tells her and doesn’t look at her, doesn’t want to see this particular realization register in her porcelain features like a blow. “We’re all in danger, and if we’re going to have a chance of makin' it out… it’s gotta be real. To you. To me. To those two unlucky bastards right down the hallway."

He hears but doesn’t see her shuddered breath, how a sob audibly hitches in the back of her throat. But to her credit, she pieces herself together remarkably fast, a rebuttal soft on her lips.

“I don’t want it to be real,” she says, almost whimpering it, like a child in the throes of a nightmare. He pities her, suddenly reminded that she’s young and terribly naïve—not unlike a child—and he is simultaneously disappointed in her for not realizing the ultimate truth of the Hunger Games.

All of it is real.

The brutality and the carnage.

The bodies and the bodies and the bodies and the—

“But it is, sweetheart,” he says. Almost kindly. “Seneca Crane's not sipping’ piña coladas at a beachside resort.”

Effie closes her eyes at this, the faint lines beneath them stark in the warm light that floods the room, and finally lowers her agenda to her lap, even as she continues to sit primly—with perfect discipline.

A single tear slips down the pointed architecture of her face, falling in such a straight line that he imagines that she arranged for it to do so.

“He was two years above me in grade school,” she murmurs, lacing her shaking fingers together just below her stomach. “Seneca. Our fathers were both product importation overseers, and Seneca would come over sometimes when they were working and talk to me about aesthetic game design.” 

“So you were friends,” Haymitch surmises, watching a uniquely painful expression twist her pale features into unsalvageable convolutions. “More than that?”

His gut inexplicably lurches at the added supposition, but to his surprise, Effie laughs humorlessly at this, finally opening her eyes again.

“Less than that,” she smiles faintly, as though she had heard what his stomach had done in the timbre of his voice. “Acquaintances, really. I partially despised his arrogance, even when we were children… but even still, I knew him, Haymitch. I played tag with him in our gardens. I danced with him at balls. We congratulated each other with bouquets and champagne bottles when we both assumed our respective positions. He didn’t retire. He would have never retired—Head Gamemaker was his dream job—so I searched until I chanced upon an answer that I had to live with.”

“He was dead,” Haymitch doesn’t sugar coat it, doesn't see the point in doing so.

“He was executed,” Effie amends, with unmistakable bitterness in her quiet voice, before she suddenly realizes what she has said. All of the color leaches from her face, and she presses a hand over her mouth. 

“He was a friend,” he repeats himself, reaching over again—a little awkwardly this time—and curling a hand over the one she’s still resting on top of her stomach. The spines of her knuckles peak sharply beneath his palm. “You're grieving for him.”

She nods but doesn’t take her hand from her mouth, looking faintly green. He’s starting to think that he’s taking this too far, pushing this Capitol sycophant towards and off the edge of no return, where he and so many other thousands citizens of Panem already are. But he can’t stop himself, the words spewing from him like the vomit he’s well-acquainted with from all the collective years of killing his liver.

“I know what it’s like,” he shrugs like it doesn’t matter. “I’m about to lose a lot of friends myself.”

Chaff. Seeder. Finnick. Johanna. Cecelia. Mags. Maybe even one of the kids if Plutarch can’t get them out. Maybe even both of them if his plan entirely fails. He’s not stupid enough to believe that the Head Gamemaker can make the impossible happen and save all of these victors from their imminent dooms, and he’s cynical enough to know that the cost of winning a war is going to involve losing a few battles. The other rebel victors intimately know this too, and they’ve calmly accepted their fates.

There will be no long and drawn out goodbyes over the next few days.

Just strategizing in the dark.

Exchanging notes.

Whispering secrets.

Hoping for rebellion and simultaneously understanding that they might never live to see it. Haymitch knows all of this—goddammit, he’s immersed and committed and so perfectly aware—but even still, his hand violently shakes around his glass of gin, and there’s blood on his palms again. Maysilee’s blood. He can’t stop the bleeding. He’s so sorry, Chaff. And he’s sorry, Finnick. Johanna. Seeder. Mags. Jesus, he’s sorry, Katniss, and he’s sorry, Peeta. They're both too young to be living through this shit. Wasn’t he once upon a time? Weren’t they all? There’s just too much of it, the blood. It’s bright red and sticky, and he can’t fucking do any—

Just as his gin falls away from his fumbling fingertips, he feels a pair of arms slide around his neck, slender and smooth. The glass hits the wooden floor harshly, exploding into innumerable shards—so much damage bisecting Maysilee's neck, the artery clearly nicked, and the eruption from the volcano, he's gotta find high ground quick, is that what flesh smells like when it's fucking burning?!—but there’s a chin resting against his shoulder preventing him from immediately assessing his immediate surroundings. The foul-smelling alcohol seeps unpleasantly into his shoes—all the water sources in the arena are poisonous, everything except the rain, tributes twitching on the ground, their skin an unnatural shade of blue. He's so thirsty. Just one sip wouldn't hurt...? District 12 tributes aren't supposed to live this long anyway...

The mouth pressed into the skin beneath his ear is unbothered.

“I’m so sorry,” Effie whispers against his jaw, her manicured fingertips curling into the nape of his neck, and the gesture grounds him in the same way booze makes it all sort of float of way.

“You’re bleeding,” he says numbly, his quivering fingertips finding purchase in her nightshirt. He’s looking down at her white leg, where shrapnel grazed the side of it, leaving pops of bright blood.

“That’s something I can handle,” she returns gently, but surely she must be crying again. He can feel a telltale wetness against the column of his throat.

“And me?” He rasps, burying his own face into Effie’s bony shoulder so he doesn’t have to look at the blood anymore.

Her blood. Maysilee’s blood. Katniss’s. Peeta's. Chaff's. Seeder's. Johanna's. Finnick's. He held his own guts in his stomach—waiting for District 1 to come and find him—and felt his intestines slide against the crumbling wall of his abdomen.

“How do I handle it?”

“It’s merely a simple scrape, Haymitch,” she says it dubiously, like she already knows that’s not what he’s talking about. 

“It never fucking is,” he growls, so relieved that he can’t see her face, already itching for another bottle, something to burn all these feelings away, to scald himself alive. But even in the midst of his sick cravings, he’s aware of a strangely gentle sensation along his scalp: Effie running her fingers through his hair—slowly, rhythmically, and smoothly. “Don’t pretend otherwise. This is just the pre-show for everything to come.”

He’s not sure if it’s fatalism or a subtle warning.

Maybe even both.

Probably both.

“Scrapes don’t have to become open wounds, Haymitch,” she insists fiercely, still clearly holding on to the delusional hope that none of this is actually happening: the danger, the Quarter Quell, the blood.

“And seventeen-year olds don’t have to become mockingjays,” he snarls into the sleek silk of her shirt and feels the desired effect course through Effie’s entire body almost instantaneously. She freezes in his arms, all ceramic and glass and an inhalation of utter shock.

A squeak and then absolutely nothing. She stops carding her fingers through his wiry, unwashed hair but but doesn’t let him go—even though she could—and he inhales the scent of her, all flowers and other lovely things that have no place in this godawful world.

Effie Trinket.

She scarcely knows that the world is godawful to begin with.

“Don’t say that,” she breathes, her heartbeat thrumming against his chest, quick and erratic, like the flapping of a bird’s wings.

“Why?” He tests and he provokes her. He resists the wild urge to press a kiss against her collarbone, where it sharply protrudes from the rumpled collar of her shirt.

“Because like you said, then the quiet part becomes loud.”

“Real,” he viciously offers her the exact word.

“Yes.” And he’s thoroughly surprised that Effie actually accepts it, though the sound is nearly unintelligible in the back of her throat.

But maybe she has no choice to otherwise. 

When he experiences rather than hears her wince, all her willowy limbs tightening against his own, Haymitch finally uncloses his bleary eyes and immediately sees all the blood, how it spirals down her shin in lovely ribbons—both beautiful and terrible to behold.

His fault. 

How many people?

His family.

His friends.

His fellow victors. He can't save them all.

District 12's stylists and prep teams.

Effie herself.

He might not be able to save fucking any of them.

His fault.

"Sorry," he chokes out as she wordlessly cradles his head to her chest, holding him and all of his endless horror; he doesn't think he's ever been held like this before, not since his mother was still alive, and he was just a gap-toothed boy scraping his knees on coal piles in the Seam. At the mere thought of her—the first person in the world who had ever loved him—hot tears prick his eyes and assault the sunken hollows of his face, dampening Effie's beautiful shirt.

"Sorry," he says again, even though he knows it's not sufficient; she could be dead three weeks from now, and she doesn't know it. Or maybe she does. Maybe it's all becoming real now. 

"Shh," she murmurs, easing the tortured syllable into his hair, and it is is not absolution. It could never be for either of them.

They are what they are, him and Effie Trinket.

There is no making up for the monsters they have become.

"Shh," she consoles him anyway and all the same.

[mermaidsirennikita]

Hi! What’re your thoughts on the vampire academy trailer?

Sooooo I have a lot of concerns about this lol

The trailer in general doesn't look great. I'm not going to judge anyone's acting because there was pretty little to judge it off of; a lot of action shots, very little lines. And tbh, I can see fans dogpiling on Sisi as Rose from spaaace and like... I don't think that has... fuck all to do with her acting. But in general, the trailer looks like a pretty dry, dated, 2008-2010 era moment. Like when people were trying to copy Twilight but make it more of a "world" and "actiony" because they thought that this!!! Would get them the asses in the seats!!! Kissing vampires sure but also ACTION!!!! FOR THE BOYS!!!

When, speaking as a hardcore Twihard from back in the day, nobody gave a fuck about the action. Twilight was successful because it gave the teen girls (and some boys and nbs) what they wanted--forbidden love, guys with their shirts off professing their undying devotion, boys fights over a self insert, and of course, the MASSSSIIIIIIVE virginity tension, both literal and metaphorical. Like, our girlhoods were trembling, and not for the meager action sequences. And few people got this, which is why shit like The Mortal Instruments flopped, and many YA follow ups that tried to go BIGGER! BIGGER!!!!! have had less of a lasting pop cultural impact (see: The Hunger Games movies--everybody and their mom knows Team Edward versus Team Jacob, but the pool of people who know Peeta and Gale beyond "the Josh Hutcherson one and the Liam Hemsworth one" is more limited).

So yeah, it looks very dated on that front. And to be fucking frank--I read all those books, and the Adrian/Sydney spinoff series. I wasn't picking all that shit up for the action. The fighting added stakes, but everyone was hanging on for the relationships. It's that fucking simple, and I wish more people got that.

But I'm also concerned because Julie Plec can't run a show to save her life, picks (usually white) actors to favor, and is honestly pretty fucking racist and a protector of right wingers like Matt Davis, which makes me think she is probably lowkey or highkey a sympathizer. So I'm super worried about how she's going to handle this. I fucking know she's gonna promote this show expecting a pat on the back because Sisi is playing Rose, Andre is playing Christian, etc. I'm for that myself. But do I think Julie Plec will sensitively navigate Rose being Black instead of white? Lmao no. Tbh, Rose does play what is really an explicitly, societally subservient role to Lissa. While I honestly don't know exactly how Daniela identifies beyond being Venezuelan (and Google has not given me anything), she's at minimum white passing in a way that Sisi never could be; so watching Sisi play a guard who's supposed to lay down her life for this princess is like...? Not great to me? Shades of Bonnie being expected to lay her life down for Elena and Caroline and Damon and everyone?

But also, to be frank, the books succeeded in a way that I honestly think people would be up in arms about today, and I don't really know how that hurdle is going to be covered. A part of the big appeal of that original series was shipping--and Rose/Dimitri was very popular (a ship I totally supported, lol). In the wake of Buffy/Angel it wasn't like... as weird, I think? But Rose was 17, he was 24!!!! Literally her teacher!!! And like, I think we'd be fucking lying if we said that the taboo element wasn't part of what kept us hanging on. You can't do that today. Fuck, you really probably can't do the "Adrian and Sydney get married even though she's like all of 18" shit from the spin off books either.

It's just. I don't know. I feel like the time to adapt the series has passed, they tried it already, and if it was going to happen everyone would probably need to be real cool with some shit I know they aren't cool about, and also get rid of Plec.

[staygoldsunshine]

I’d read your hunger games essay, I want to know more about your thoughts about it

Okay, bear with me, I'm really condensing here, the original paper was 30 pages.

"Real or Not Real," its the game that Peeta and Katniss play together in book three. At this point, they're both suffering from PTSD, Peeta is actively fighting brainwashing, they have to ask each other to see what really happened and what is just a result of their trauma or a result of the lies that the Capitol has fed to them.

Okay, expand that idea. How do we as viewers play real or not real with what we see? This is where the concept of media literacy comes from (something sorely lacking a lot of fandom these days, which was the basis of this paper in the first place). In the case of The Hunger Games movies *specifically* this is such an interesting thing to look at.

Early on, Haymitch makes the point to Katniss that she has to get the people of the Capitol to like her. In order to have a fighting chance in the Games, she realizes early on that she not only has to be capable, she has to be entertaining. This is why her team builds up the persona of the Girl on Fire. She becomes an icon, a character, a hero to root for. Later, when Katniss loses Rue, this idea really cements into her mind, because she thinks to herself - they are going to show a final shot of Rue before they take her out of the arena, if she's ever going to get a message out, if she's going to make a point, she knows this is how she can do it. And so she wreaths Rue in flowers, to show that she was innocent, that she didn't deserve to be used for their entertainment, and that what they're doing to these kids is wrong.

There's something to be said about power dynamics here. I drew on the image of the Panopticon. It's a prison designed in a circle with a tower in the middle so that every cell in the prison can be observed from the central tower. This is how the Capitol treats the districts, and how they treat the tributes in the Games. The power lies in who is doing the observing, right? But what if you have a captive audience? What if you realize that you have the eyes of the world on you, and whereas before you were powerless and voiceless, a scapegoat for the anger and aggression of others or merely a lamb for the slaughter as their entertainment, suddenly you've been put on center stage.

And nothing drives this home more than the moment Katniss decides to eat the nightshade berries. Direct quote from the book here, "Yes, they have to have a victor. Without a victor, the whole thing would blow up in the Gamemakers’ faces. They’d have failed the Capitol… If Peeta and I were both to die, or they thought we were…" This is a girl who realizes that in this instance, in this moment, she's got the power to end this one way or another.

But when they make it out, when they survive, and President Snow is incensed because they dared to defy his power? What do they do? They play up the love angle. Katniss couldn't imagine a world without Peeta, how could she? They're so in love? How can you blame them? How can you punish them for only wanting to stay together, even in death?

Okay, hold onto that idea.

Now, I don't know if you remember when the first movie released, but I do. I was roughly 12 or 13, it was the first time a book that I had read and enjoyed was made into a movie, and I followed the process with rabid interest. I recall a line of nail polish that was released where each District had their own shade (coal black for District 12, of course). There were news articles written about the emerging actors that would be making their debut appearances in the movie. There were "Team Peeta" and "Team Gale" buttons. Everywhere I looked there were products to hype this movie release. This was the first time I encountered fan-made merchandise online. The craze was all new to me, and I loved every minute of it.

Now, let's analyze that. District-themed make up. Trinkets and t-shirts sold by the thousands. Insider articles, shipping wars, the love triangle played up for young teenage audiences. What does that sound like to you?

It's sounds exactly and I mean *exactly* like what the Capitol does with the Games. Hollywood took a story about powerless people overcoming impossible odds by realizing that, as targets of a media frenzy, they held the power. And they turned it into a story about a teenage love triangle. It proves the whole point of the books so perfectly, and I am still baffled.

Media literacy is not about being hyper-critical of every piece of media that you consume. I'm not saying that it's bad to support people who make fan content even for stories that do have brutal, hard-hitting messages. It doesn't make you an evil person to enjoy on-screen violence. But there is so much to be said about being aware of the messages behind what you're viewing, because chances are, someone is trying to sell you something. I'll give you a nice paragraph straight from my paper that I'm really proud of and then I'm done:

In a similar manner, fans of The Hunger Games franchise are given these same tools of understanding. By connecting with Katniss’ story, they learn that what they see on a television or computer screen may not always be as real as it first appears. Through the trilogy, they are given the chance to peer behind the curtain in order to see the many small lies that make up the grand spectacle portrayed by the media. In the movie adaptations of the books, “Katniss, then, is not just our proxy, she is us projected onto the screen, so when she stares at us through the camera [in the first movie], the moment is literally us looking at us” (Ringlstein 384). With Katniss as the proxy for readers and viewers alike, they are allowed to become not only the source of the rebellion along with her, but they also become the very system that Katniss is rebelling from in the first place.

[the-sun-and-the-sea]

Why I liked the 10th Hunger Games

This post contains spoilers for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

First, I feel compelled to mention that I didn’t like the 10th Hunger Games in the traditional sense of the word; I didn’t feel that they were exciting or entertaining, nor were they supposed to be. They were disturbing and brutal and unsettling, but more on that later. 

When I heard that the prequel would be about President Snow’s rise to power and that he would be mentoring the District 12 girl in the 10th Hunger Games, I was fairly excited. Not so much to see Snow, although his character was interesting, but to see what the Games were like 64 years before the original trilogy. Seeing the Games in their most primitive and basic state was so fascinating to me. It added a lot of world-building to Panem that I very much appreciated. Something else that interested me, while unprecedented, was Snow’s contribution to the development of the Hunger Games. 

It didn’t surprise me that the Games were so primitive. I knew they weren’t likely to be the grand spectacle we knew them as after only ten years. Of course, I didn’t know exactly what they would look like or how they would work, but it was easy to assume that they would be more basic and less developed. Here are some of the major differences:

The tributes are treated more like animals than people. Upon reaching the Capitol, they’re dropped in a literal zoo, where Capitol citizens can go and ogle at them before the Games. 

They’re all kept in the same cage and are not fed or taken care of. In fact, they never even change out of their reaping clothes. 

Capitol children mentor the tributes, although many of the tributes have no interest in interacting with Capitol children. Similarly, the Capitol children don’t make an effort to care for their tributes, save for Coriolanus and Sejanus. 

The arena is an amphitheater, much smaller than the future arenas, and they use the same one every year. Nothing is cleaned out or changed between each Hunger Games. 

Before the 10th Games, the concept of sponsorships, betting on tributes, and mentoring were absent. 

The Games are considerably less technologically advanced. There are no trackers, so unless a tribute is out in the open, nobody knows where they are. No cannons sound after each death and the faces of the dead children don’t appear in the sky. 

The victor, as far as we know, goes back to their home district to live just as they did before; no Victory Tour, interference from the Capitol, or rewards from winning. 

That’s about all of the major differences that I can think of. As you can probably tell, this made the Games less entertaining and more blatantly disgusting. So much so that even Capitol citizens had no interest in watching them. The 10th Hunger Games, in particular, was boring because you were staring at an empty arena most of the time, as all of the tributes were hiding. 

I’m aware that many people disliked the Games in this book. And you should. They’re not fun, or entertaining, or glamorous. You should feel unsettled. That’s the point. I didn’t like the Games, exactly, but I like the purpose that the 10th Hunger Games serve. 

In the world of Panem, they’re a monumental Games that pave the way for new developments. They introduce many new concepts to the Games; mentoring, sponsoring tributes, ways to make the Games more enjoyable. Many of these ideas can be credited to Snow. It was so interesting to see how many of these familiar concepts came directly from him. It added some very appreciated history and background to the Hunger Games that I was very glad to get. 

In our world, they’re more of a call out. We romanticized the Games too much. We saw the fun costumes and the flashy Capitol and suspenseful fights in the arena and thought “how exciting.” I’m not saying that we never looked deeper than that. There are many people who saw the deeper meanings behind the books and Panem’s government and how it ties to our own. But what did the fans, as a whole, maintain a conversation about? Team Peeta or Team Gale. This debate, admittedly, is deeper than it appears in its own right, but so many people focus on the frivolous details or the romance and ignore the political and social messages. 

We are disturbingly similar to the Capitol. I know I’ve said this before and I’ll continue to say it. Our reaction to the Games in the original trilogy was not unlike the reactions of the Capitol citizens. A little less over the top, perhaps, but similar. 

This is why I’m glad the 10th Hunger Games played out like it did. There’s no room for that excitement. Nobody’s going to read that and think “what a thrilling Hunger Games.” Because it wasn’t. When all of the frivolous details are stripped away, we’re left with the core of what the Games are. And it’s not pretty, it’s disgusting, and horrifying. Perhaps President Snow thought that by adding the tribute parade and interviews and making it a grand spectacle, the sheer brutality of the Games would be covered up. And as we know, it worked on the Capitol citizens. They were oblivious to the real horror because they only saw the frivolous and trivial details. Unfortunately, it worked on us, too. 

This book was a wake up call, in a way. I was glad to see that it was more obvious in its political messaging and deeper themes. It was incredibly thought provoking. 

I think I’ve just about covered all of my thoughts on this topic. Feel free to reblog with your own thoughts, I’d love to know what you all think.  

[yeolkisses]

Get to Know Me Tag!

Tagged by the amazing @exosmutxoxo (I was honestly very surprised)

Rules: Answer the 20 questions in a new post and tag 20 blogs you would like to get to know better.

Nickname: Depends on who you ask. My family calls me “Goose” (I don’t know why) and sometimes @spcequeenren calls me Ari.

Gender: Female

Star Sign: Leo (but I read somewhere that I could count as a Cancer)

Height: 5′7″

Time right now: 11:14 pm

Last thing I googled: My school website because I needed to make sure my Language Arts teacher wasn’t collecting my (unfinished) essay tomorrow

Favorite Bands: American Authors, Oh Wonder, The Chainsmokers, DNCE, The Lumineers, Maroon 5, twenty one pilots...I don’t know, I haven’t listened to a variety of music in a while...I mostly play whatever I bought most recently on repeat because I’m too lazy to build myself a playlist.

Favorite Solo Artists: Daya, Passenger, Jaymay, Ellie Goulding, Adele, Alessia Cara...

Song stuck in your head: Boats and the Birds by Gregory and the Hawk...It just sprung into my head all of a sudden and now I’m wishing that I chose to do my Oral Interpretation for school with that song instead of the one I chose, because the one I chose is long and a major pain in the butt...

Last movie I watched: I think it was ‘So I Married My Anti-Fan.’ I stayed up super-late over the weekend to watch it.

Last TV Show I watched: We Bare Bears. My brother and I watched it while we were waiting for our parents to tell us to go to bed.

When did you create your blog: Honestly, never. This blog was created sometime in late July, like the 20th or something...Somebody thought it’d be a good idea to make me a tumblr for my birthday...*cough cough* @spcequeenren *cough cough*

What kind of stuff do you post: My original posts are usually me complaining about something or talking about Lord knows what. I mostly reblog a lot of EXO stuff, Luhan stuff, maybe a couple poems or something. There’s a little bit of Phan somewhere in here, and a picture I drew to enter a fanart contest a fic writer put on for ATLA. And there’s a lot of YOI reblogs too.

When did your blog reach its peak: I think that I’m still in the flatlands.

Do you have any other blogs: Yes. And I have not been maintaining it very well since I started it, and yet it is still more successful than this one, which isn’t surprising since this one is basically just a messy bunch of random things.

Do you get asks regularly: Hahaha, asks? What are those? (I’ve only had one ;-;)

Why you chose your URL: I didn’t. Again, a genius idea from someone. I would change it but I can’t think of anything to change it to, and I’d rather not bother at this point.

Following: Exo blogs, fic blogs, Lufan blogs, my friend, a mutual from WattPad, YOI blogs

Posts: Apparently, 1,655. Had no idea.

Hogwarts House: I don’t remember, it’s been a while since I took the quiz, but I’m prety sure it was Ravenclaw

Pokemon Team: I’m actualy what you could consider a Pokemon-virgin. Never got into it. don’t understand it. So...I’m on my team! Yay.

Favorite colors: Blue has always been my favorite, but I look good in reds.

Average hours of sleep: Suddenly I can’t count. This number changes all the time because I am an irresponsible, procrastinating insomniac.

Lucky Numbers: 1, 7, anything with 7, 23

Favorite Characters: Yurio Plisetsky, Phichit Chulanot, Guang-Hong Ji, Leo de la Iglesia, Donatello, Casey Jones, Zuko, Peeta, Katniss, Legolas, Kili, Cal Calore, America Singer, Prince Maxon, the Baudelaires, Kit Snicket, I could go on and on and on...

What are you wearing right now: My dad’s old shirt and a pair of blue basketball shorts because matching pajama sets are overrated.

How many blankets do you sleep with: Currently 4, I’ve found that it’s the ideal number for hiding the brightness of my phone screen when I stay up late, plus it’s very soothing to cocoon myself from life’s problems.

Dream job: Neurosurgeon and a writer 

Dream trip: Well I’d like to go to a lot of places, for the food mostly. New Orleans, New York, Hawaii, South Korea, Italy...

I don’t have many to tag, but I’ll pick

@rissa-annnn, @spcequeenren, @najelonx, @gossipgurl101 (Peaches you better do it), and @ourtwohands. I honestly doubt anyone I tagged will do this, so if you see this, feel free to do it!

[hutchercougarwife]

rules: answer the questions and tag 20 blogs you want to get to know better. I was tagged by Sammy, @joshua-ryans nicknames: Angie or Ang. My full name is Angeline. star sign: Aries height: 5′5' ish time right now: 11:38 last thing you googled: LAX flight arrivals. Picking up @papofglencoe for a visit with me! fave music artist: Hmm, so many. It's hard to narrow down because I enjoy multiple genres. Beatles, The Weeknd, Rihanna, Twenty one Pilots, to name a few. song stuck in my head: Holy Grail by Justin Timberlake/JayZ last movie i watched: Sideways (watched multiple times). last tv show i watched: Team Umizoomi. My tv is always on Nick Jr. what i’m wearing right now: Beige long sleeve shirt, jeans and Uggs. when i created this blog: Summer 2015. the kind of stuff i post: Josh Hutcherson and The Hunger Games. why did i choose my url: I wanted something humorous or original, and I'm an "older" Josh fan, so that's what it became. gender: female hogwarts house: Couldn't tell ya. pokémon team: I don’t play. favorite color: PINK average hours of sleep: around 7 or 8. lucky number: I can't say I really have one. favorite characters: Everlark definitely. There's probably more, but I'm obsessed with Peeta and Katniss. dream job: I've always wanted to be a stay at home mom, so I'm pretty much living my dream, but if it involved money, it would be something that had to do with helping others for sure. number of blankets i sleep with: 1 I tag @primsister @unpopularshipperworld @jennagill @jhutchmyanchor and of course anyone else who would like to participate.

[verifiedweird]

Top 4 cliche that every writer is guilt for

1 - The love triangle The number one cliche is obviously the magical love triangle. You know the lead character fall in love with his/her friend while dating someone else. Or my favorite two guys/girls are fighting over one girl and he/she just can’t decide who’s the better, the third option is that the lead character is trying to get over someone with someone else, but after they start dating the new friend the previous is slowly crawling back to the scene. And why everyone is using this method of love? Because it can make a pretty story with good drama, action and my favorite, fans has to choose to which side they are going to root for. Because everyone is remembering some triangles Katniss/Peeta/Gale the triangle from the Pearl Harbor or Harry/Hermione/Ron (I know this one is not canon, but you mean to tell me that at any point of the story, Harry didn’t love Hermione or Hermione didn’t think of Harry more than a friend… that’s from my point of view bulls**** and obviously the better pair will be Hermione and Harry)

2 - Copying other characters In this world is hard to be original, when someone already did the idea that you thought is so original. Yeah I know that feeling, 2 hours of research, buying a new book and one of my favorite ideas was thrown into trash (yep 150 pages of my book, gone). But back to the copying other writers. You know that you love one character so much that you are trying to find same personal values or even might start to look like and act like the character. That is similar with writing, every time you are trying to create a new character in your head you are cycling through the personalities that you know and after 2 hours of hard work you are done, you put in the desks and your happy with yourself. After some time you came to realize that she looks like Clarke Griffin, act like Tris and think like Hermione.  

3 - Putting themself as characters Everyone even if they don’t admit it to you, want to get a little famous, especially writers, want to have their name on thousands and maybe millions of copies with their name and might on the big screen. So it’s normal that writers put them self in the shoes of one of the characters for numbers of reasons. The big plus is that you don’t have to think that hard about how the character thinks, how he/she will answer the big question, because you just can think what you will do in the situation. The other reason can be, that the writer is not happy with themself, so they are making the character stronger, smarter or something else, that they have a lack of. So your not that smart, boom you are the number one to who everyone is coming for advice. Are you not popular? Boom you are the leader of the sports team. and so on.

4 - Killing the most favorite character If you are like me, you are having some sort of theme or story that the book is going to be about. I personally know how it will start, how it will end and maybe like 3-4 important things that has to happen. The other 80% of the story is written straight out of my mind. But in some point you have to had the story-breakthrough, something so important, that it will lead to greater good or that the characters have the motivation to move on. And what is the one thing that drive you insane and make what to do anything? Obviously it’s revenge. And obviously you have to kill someone important for the story or better the significant other to one of the lead characters. (I know it’s important, sometimes you are starting with the idea who is going to die, but every time I remember that one of my most favorite characters is dead, made me think if I want to read the book or see the show again and go through the pain one more time. But at the end we all have to admit that some characters just deserve to die, yeah I’m looking at you Voldemort.  

So I hope you liked this post, in my mind is building an idea that I will write some shorts stories every week. What do you think? Would you like this type of posts? And what do you think about this one? Should I do more top 4 (yep, because I’m not like everyone else so I have to write in 4 or 9 bullet points) about writing? Let me know, have a nice Sunday and remember it’s just another day to write your story.