#chaff thg

[thefloatingwriter]

the victors as complex characters will always be more interesting than making them amazing people.

like these are people who did absolutely everything in their power to survive something as traumatic as the games. most of them probably sleep with weapons in their hands. the thought on the forefront of most of their minds is survival. everything else—anyone else—can wait.

they sacrificed everything to crawl out of a killing game. their mental stability. their innocence. their childhood.

and after all of that, they realized that the games never really end. that they would sacrifice ever having a good night sleep without being plagued by nightmares. they would sacrifice their brains to help the capitol. they would sacrifice their bodies, something that should have always been their own, now snatched away from them. all for surviving a killing match that twenty-three children didn’t.

no victor is immune to this either. do you think cashmere doesn’t regret being so excited to go into the games after her brother after staying the night in a strange man’s bed that she doesn’t know? do you think gloss doesn’t regret not warning his sister about the horrors that await her after she wins? do you think brutus doesn’t sometimes wake up in a cold sweat after having yet another nightmare about being on the receiving end of his weapon, just as all of his victims were before everything faded to black? do you think enobaria doesn’t run her tongue over her sharpened teeth and wonder if it was worth it?

do you think beetee doesn’t flinch every time he sees lightning? do you think wiress doesn’t think of how if she hadn’t learned acrobatics that the 48th hunger games would have gone very differently? do you think finnick doesn’t see nets in the same way ever again, after he saw the girl from nine begging for her life tangled in a net he set up before he stabbed her with a trident? do you think annie doesn’t think about if she hadn’t spent all of that time on the beach growing up, playing in the water, that she wouldn’t have survived the dam breaking in her arena? do you think mags doesn’t think about how she left her district partner to die in the first ever traditional career pack? how if maybe, if she had been there to take the blow for him, there would be a different victor of the 11th hunger games?

do you think that blight doesn’t wonder what would have happened if the boy from two had looked up a little bit sooner, looked a little bit closer at the treetops above him, before the knife previously in blight’s hand found it’s way to the boy’s back? do you think that every time johanna picks up an axe, she doesn’t think about what if felt like to stab someone with it, what blood felt like when it splattered you? do you think she doesn’t wake up in a sweat, thinking the moisture on her skin is blood, that she’s back in the third quarter quell? do you think she doesn’t ever walk into her house in the victor’s village and think she sees a glimpse, a shadow, of her lost loved ones?

do you think that woof doesn’t use real knives anymore because every time he sees one, he remembers how it felt to stab blindly at the boy from seven? that even when he was seventy-five and the male tribute from eight for the third quarter quell, he couldn’t even look at the utensil and had to get cecelia to take it away from him? do you think cecelia can’t look at seashells anymore, that she could barely stand district four on her victory tour, because the girl from four was her last kill? that her necklace, a pretty one her sister made for her with a seashell strung through the string, was what cecelia used to choke the life out of her?

do you think that chaff doesn’t ever feel the phantom feeling of his hand? doesn’t ever touch the stump where it used to be and feel the phantom pain of it being sawed off like it was yesterday, even thirty years later? do you think that seeder doesn’t ever feel the hot sun of her arena on her body, doesn’t ever think she’s back, waiting for her death to come?

do you think that haymitch doesn’t start shaking every time a blowgun is provided at the cornucopia? do you think that he didn’t see the gold pin on katniss’ arena wear and have to sit down, remembering a very different girl with blonde hair and a quick witted humor with the same pin? do you think that peeta doesn’t hear foxface’s voice during her interview, over and over and over, until it’s so distorted he can’t even remember what she had actually said? that he doesn’t ever think of the girl from eight, a girl he might not have even known the name of?

do you think that, years down the line, katniss doesn’t realize the fate that waited for glimmer if she had won? do you think that she doesn’t wonder what would have happened if cato was a little quicker to get to the cornucopia to save clove? do you think she doesn’t wonder what the girl from four was like, what her name was, what her parents were like, what she was like? do you think that she doesn’t think about what would have happened if marvel was just a little bit quicker with his spear than her with her arrows, what would have happened if she was just a little bit slower to get to rue?

the what-ifs plague them. their games will never leave them. they will never escape their experiences. their lives will never be their own, if they ever were, ever again.

[gutfaced]

black characters in thg appreciation ♡

[incubationformadness]

CHAFF / The Hunger Games Trilogy ; a mood board

[imasradiantasthesun]

idk something doesn’t quite sit right with me with the common headcanon that finnick and mags overplayed annie’s condition to help protect her and discourage the capitol from focusing on her. i’m not trying to start any sort of arguments or debate rn just thinking out loud bc like. what if it isn’t being overplayed. can’t we have a very visibly mentally ill woman. annie dissociates and cries in public and laughs at strange moments and physically reacts to her flashbacks by closing her eyes and covering her ears, all in public, all even in front of people she doesn’t know personally, and i think that should just. be ok with the fandom. while it’s a sweet mentality and i can see why people believe it, there shouldn’t have to be some ulterior motive behind any of her actions or how she portrays herself.

also. we as readers learn more about the victors at the same time as katniss, essentially providing us with how victors are seen in the eyes of the audience vs how they really are without the cameras. and in that earlier perspective, there are victors who are visibly affected by their trauma: haymitch and chaff drink, and the victors from d6 use morphling, and annie is “insane.” we learn later that they’re all broken, both bc katniss gets closer to them but also bc they go through even more trauma: finnick is barely holding on in d13 before annie’s rescue, and johanna is angry not just bc that’s her personality but also bc she’s in so much pain, and she eventually turns to morphling.

and just. idk. everyone else is able to keep up a facade that the capitol is willing to put up with if not outright use, and those who can’t keep that facade up become addicted to something that keeps them docile: the morphlings may not be outright usable, but at least they’re too out of it to do anything, and chaff seems to generally be a positive presence (at least in the eyes of the capitol), with or without alcohol. and johanna, while not abusing any substances until d13, (eventually) constructed a coping mechanism that was deemed palatable: with her family gone, she became angrier and more aggressive, both bc she had nothing to lose but also as a reaction to her trauma, and in the audience’s eyes anything she says or does can be brushed off as “oh that’s just angry johanna, she used to be such a crybaby but she sure fooled us, she’s so tough and feisty!” it’s all just a part of her shtick to them.

and even wiress, who has her peculiarities and is later broken further by the blood rain, is “useful” and invents in her spare time. hell, even haymitch manages it: sure, he tends to be very aggressive and grumpy, but that’s not what the audience sees. to them, he’s comedic. he’s the bumbling fool who arrives late to the reaping, yells some drunken stuff about how he likes the new tribute, messes with the escort, then falls off the stage. caesar even brings it up during katniss’s interview, and when the cameras pan to haymitch he goodnaturedly waves it away then turns the attention back to katniss

the only one we know of who can’t manage to reign in their symptoms in a way that the capitol can use to their advantage is annie. she’s also the only one aside from maybe wiress who we see really display the mental impacts in a way that is commonly thought of as “insane.” and i don’t think that has to be a problem, at least to fans.

[thehungergamesmemes]

Annie: Welcome back to another episode of keeping up with the victors

Annie: When we left off, Cashmere had stolen Enobaria's dress, Chaff had stolen Haymitch's drink, Johanna had stolen Finnick's trident, and Cecelia somehow ended up with a live baby

Annie: On this episode, we will wait for our responsible mentors to return whilst I hide

Annie: If anybody needs me, I'll be hiding in a closet

[britney-rosberg06]

i’m sick i’m Sick because before Chaff and Katniss hold hands on stage and before the old man whistling to Katniss and Peeta, before Thresh saves her, before 11 sends her bread as a thank you and before Rue is even a name in a bowl there’s Reaper. Taking the bodies of his comrades and enemy’s laying them down in a row and closing their eyes and covering them with the best “burial shroud” he could find and sitting vigil beside his nations flag begging them to do something about this rebellion

[thatthingilovewith]

trick or treat! 🦇

Here’s a fun Haymitch Tweet. Happy Halloween 🪓🍺

[goldrushenthusiast]

What are your thoughts on the District 11 tributes in the 74th (Rue and Thresh) and 75th (Seeder and Chaff) The Hunger Games?

How do you think life differs between Distinct 11 and 12?

*Spoiler alert*

What do you think about the inserted scene of rebellion in District 11 in the first movie (scene after Rue's death)?

Thank you :)

@curiousnonny

I think district 11 is a fascinating district! On surface level it seems similar to 12, which I think deep down Katniss believed too, but it really isn’t like it at all which I think impacts how Katniss eventually sees it.

You know how there’s the Seam and the merchants in District 12? I think it does exist. It has to. I think Dill and Chaff are from it, for reasons I explain later, but I had to get that out of the way because in the same way Peeta & Katniss have fundamental differences from growing up in the Seam vs Merchant, I think it affects the tributes as well.

I think we should also consider Reaper and Dill from BOSAS, so I’m gonna do that lol.

I think that, for Thresh, the hunger games were an opportunity. A chance at something beyond working on the farms, no matter how terrible it might seem. While I don’t think he was excited for it, I think it would’ve been a glass half full situation he was going to utilize. I genuinely think he stood a chance at winning.

He would’ve shared the same knowledge of plants and stuff as Rue, would’ve kept his moral compass working (the thing with Katniss & owing), and it makes sense he got as far as he did. District 11 is definitely a competitor in these games, noticed even by Coriolanus in BOSAS.

For Rue, on the other hand, this was worst case scenario. I saw someone else mention there was a higher chance for her to be chosen because she had so many siblings and probably took out tesserae, and I think that’s exactly right, and having so many would only make the whole thing worse. I don’t think she had a huge chance of winning, but would’ve even more than the average 12 year old and if she fought hard there’d be something there.

Her climbing skills, of course, give her as much of an advantage as Katniss, plus her stealth. I think she could’ve survived till top 8, especially if she’d stayed in the trees. I also think her knowledge of plants would both help her, and hurt her enemies if she was willing, although I don’t think she would be. She could pull a fox face & Peeta move almost, leaving some poisonous and some not harmful berries or something in a “hiding” place for the careers to find. I just don’t think she’d survive in hand to hand combat. Plus, if she ever found him, I think Thresh would help her even though it wouldn’t help him.

Seeder and Chaff, I can’t be as sure about as I don’t remember as much about them, but I think at least one of them (Chaff, I think) would’ve been from the merchant part of D11. Both being statistically liking, and from his outlook on the games, both before and after he became a victor.

Just read up on him at Hunger Games wiki, and the fact he lost a hand but refused a capitol prosthetic is really very interesting, especially in the farming district. He was so assured that he’d be fine, he’d be taken care of, that he didn’t need one. It was probably an act of rebellion, but goes to show how self assured he was about what the capital would do for him.

Seeder grew up in the seam part to me, given the fact that she never turned to drugs, alcohol (like Chaff did) or any type of escape. She’s mentioned as looking strong despite being 60, and you can’t really achieve that without working hard in childhood and stuff, and continuing to, which I think she would’ve felt was her duty.

Thresh and Reaper also have some interesting similarities, both with their thing (& Katniss’) about owing people. I think D11, and their strict policies, force a sense of community upon the residents that binds them together and helps them trust others both more easily and still more carefully, because of how risky it is if you’re wrong.

If anyone is wondering what Reaper’s thing about owing people is, let me remind you how he apologized to the tributes about having to kill them before the games started (also relating to how strong the residents of D11, or at least the men, interestingly enough, are), and promised to make the capital pay. This was before Jessie spat in his eye btw, so there’s really no excuse for him to be saying other than a strategy or actually meaning it.

Reaper collecting the tributes and lining them up, however, could for sure be attributed to the rabies, but I don’t really know. We’re led to believe it is by Coriolanus because of how unempathetic and unfeeling he is, so of course someone caring is automatically categorized as crazy, and of course that part is used as foreshadow, but it’s still something to think about. How d11 views things and people and companionship.

Dill, however…she’s Dill. She’s tiny. Sickly. Couldn’t tell you much about her, and sometimes I honestly get her confused with Wovey, except Wovey lived longer. Dill was literally the first official death in the games, ofc excluding everyone who died from the bombs and such.

Something curious about Dill is that she’s a snitch, and by that I mean she told a capitol guy Reaper killed a peacekeeper (also, what the hell Reaper? Goes to show just how strong he is and why he considers himself so capable). I think Dill was probably merchant, also she did have tuberculosis, which would’ve been not as rare there.

She also probably knew she was dying no matter what and wanted to get everything out there, which I don’t blame her for.

Woah ok I did not expect to write so much about the tributes. Woah.

Anywho, life in 12 vs 11 is definitely as different as, say, life in 2 vs life in 7. Honestly, 12 would probably be more similar to 2, because of the mining and huts as houses and stuff like that.

In 11, you’re expected to be outside. All the time. Working, working, working. Jobs are assigned, roles specified, it’s very orderly and there’s not much anyone can do about it. Work also starts early, probably as old as 10 due to how experienced Rue was working in the trees. Meanwhile in 12, you can only start mining at 18, which Katniss acknowledges as a weakness.

This is a bit off topic, but the mining age probably started to be an issue after Coriolanus showed up and realized just how much worse he could make the lives of d12 people by raising the mining age (both in the games and money wise)

Back to the original point, In 12? If you’re outside, that’s fine. The peacekeepers love the hunters, and we know some townsfolk venture to the edges of the meadow and the woods to forage as well. Getting your own methods of food is fine, nearly encouraged.

11 is also way more strict, which Suzanne makes clear to us a lot. When Katniss visits 12 and they shoot the old man. Talking with Rue about punishments. Lots of stuff that makes Katniss do a double take and realize maybe she was lucky to grow up in 12 instead. It certainly has more freedom, despite 11 having the same working conditions. Truly, I think 11 would be the worst to grow up in, even though it helps so much with the hunger games.

Love the scene, btw!! It really supports my point about the strictness of D12 and how it forces a sense of community and stuff. It was a nice addition and realistic I think.

Also, the fact Rue knew the boy who was slow and his story about forgetting to put back the night vision glasses is so much more than an introduction to the glasses!! it shows how much the residents know about each other and how well they remember based on what the peacekeepers enforce.

Ok this has got to be one of my longest ramblings to date, but I loved it! I don’t focus as much on the original series as I should when I usually do these, and it was a fun change of pace actually having to go through the wikis instead of just remembering like I do for BOSAS.

Thank you for the question @curiousnonny , and I hope you enjoy my answer as much as I liked writing it! As always feel free to debate (but not argue or insult) with me in the comments as I always love having these combed through and stuff and getting a chance to learn more.

[pumpkinrootbeer]

It makes me sad how ignored chaff (and seeder too) is in the fandom, especially in terms of haymitch centric fics. he's the only person we see in the books that haymitch is actively close to and visibly fond of. he wanted to introduce both chaff and seeded to katniss and peeta, they were his first suggestion on who to team up with, chaff the only victor katniss can recognize immediately just because of his proximity to haymitch, and describes him as "...good for Haymitch, whose thoughts run so darkly"

And it makes me so sad because there's almost no fics I can find that explore this just apparent fondness for Chaff and Seeder he clearly has! like he is protective over every victor, obviously, but this just friendship he has with Chaff I feel is so overlooked! How long did it take Haymitch to realize these people he could allow himself to be close to without fear of getting them hurt? How did he navigate that? What was it like to finally find a friend in Chaff, probably the closest one he would have ever have had in those 24 years? just ugh. sad forever abt them

[fantasy-nerdddd]

I'm wondering how did the other tributes drink water? The careers I guess could have also gotten a spile because they had sponsors. But Chaff survived almost as long as Brutus did (and longer than Gloss or Cashmere) and I bet he didn't have a lot of them. By the end of the third day he must have died from dehydration considering that Katniss was crawling hours before the 3 day mark (if not more) and she was at a much cooler environment.

[thefloatingwriter]

chaffnathy is the haymitch ship that makes the most sense in canon, y’all are just cowards.

[gutfaced]

ahhhh. something something. seeder doing rue's hair before she goes into the arena. chaff coaching thresh on approaches and pep-talking him about staying true to himself no matter what. yeah. yeah...

[laceylavender]

do you think haymitch and chaff explored each others bodies?

LMAOOO

Jokingly I’d say yes! In one of their drunken sessions… 👀

Realistically I’d say no, whenever they got together to drink they mostly did trauma dumping and understood each other, seeing the curse of being a victor, seeing each other as hurt people while the rest of the world saw them as victors. They definitely did a lot of crying, object breaking, awkward hand holding and weird hugs until they fell in the floor and continued drinking from there until they passed out. Haymitch has lost everyone in his life and I know it hurt him to lose Chaff too in the arena again, after everything they’d gone through.

(Now I’m feeling angsty😭)

[imasradiantasthesun]

The Victors of the 1st-73rd Games

here is my list of all of the victors of the Hunger Games prior to the first book! DISCLAIMER: this is not an attempt to assert anything about canon. in fact, some of this actually (intentionally) contradicts both canon and fanon! this is simply a reference list for my AU thg fic, holding bright, in which i mention a good amount of my headcanon/AU versions of past victors

Some notes:

Some nicknames:

Magdalena Flanagan goes by Mags

Anemone Cresta goes by Annie

Emmeline Lin goes by Lyme

Some people in the Capitol call Adrienne Hughes "Mercy"

Dylan Kahale winning at 19 is not a typo; he was 18 at the time of the reaping, but his 19th birthday occurred on the seventeenth day of his Games

The idea that Seeder won the 31st Games comes from the fic The Victors Project by Oisin55

The idea that Cecelia won the 57th Games comes from Fall Into the River by Oisin55

The headcanon that Annie's name is short for Anemone comes from the fic Valor, Valeria by aimmyarrowshigh

A list of the victors sorted by district can be found below the cut :)

[lost-in-beacon-hills]

Someone has probably already pointed this out but mentoring is hell. When Snow and all the other kids get assigned to being a mentor for the games they all end up falling for their tribute in a way. Or at least most of them do. They develop soft spots for them. Snow falls for Lucy Gray. Lysistrata fell for Jessup. Even Juno shows remorse over Bobbins death. Nearly all these capitol born children find out when mentoring that the kids they watch die are actually people.

At nearly every turn in the ballad of songbirds and snakes you see all capitol born citizens get personally involved with them. And when they inevitably lose them they all become different. It changes who they were. Each of them gets a little more convinced that their kid isn't district. Snow even pushes the idea that Lucy Gray is practically capitol. Within the mentoring they all view their tribute as the exception. The one that doesn't belong to a district. Their tribute is always better or smarter or kinder than the rest. A few of them even get saved by their tribute. The tribute didn't have to do it but they did. So to them they can't possibly be from a district.

Making the victors mentor the children from their own district is fucked in a lot of ways. Every year they are forced to get close to another kid, knowing their families back home are depending on them to do their best to bring them back. They try their damnedest to save them but the odds aren't always in their favor. It takes away the opportunity for their capitol citizens to humanize them while making them isolated on all sides. They don't want the capitol citizens getting too close because if they do then they'll realize these are people. They allow the winners to go home while being the richest in the district. In twelve, we see that everyone is starving while Haymitch is fine. This helps isolate the victors even more.

Who would want to look at their winner when people are dying and they are doing perfectly fine? Who would want to look at the person that didn't bring your child home? They may know the capitol is to blame but the mentor always shares that responsibility in their mind.

It's part of the punishment for the victors too. It's not enough to force them into prostitution and sex slavery. You need more than bodily control over them to keep them broken and beaten down.

The capitol does such a good job at isolating and punishing victors. You're forced to mentor a child every year that you may or may not know. Half of them are already dying or too weak to fight back and yet you are their only chance of survival. You have to be willing to forgive your fellow mentors for the actions of their tributes because they are the only ones who will ever truly know the hell of losing everything. They are the ones that understand the hate from all sides. The victors are hated by the president, their own districts (outside of the career districts but they have their own fucked problems) and by the kids they have to shepard to death.

Snow's games is designed to make them view the other districts as the enemy and for the most part it works. They want the victors to hate each other but by having control over everything else all they are left with is each other. Even if they wanted to hate each other there would be no point. They have no one else. Their games change them. No one back home is able to pick up their pieces.

In bosbas he reflects that all the capitol mentors now are bonded. It's a club with an unbreakable connection. I think he saw how dangerous it was to let their citizens be too close and just how painful it was to do that job. Imagine being one of the few like Haymitch that had 20+ years of failure to haunt them with a district full of children blaming them for the losses.

[briarlovesclara]

fun (?) headcanon of mine about the hunger games:

Haymitch's injuries were super grotesque, but his scars weren't removed because he asked them not to be. Only after this was it mandated that victors get a full body polish without consent. It explains why some previous victors may have had them, but helps show why they let Chaff not have a prosthetic. Just something fun :D