#fandom so small I'm nearly starved to death

[lethaeomedusa]

I'm the kind of person who would google translate my own fics into another language and read it while pretending it was written by another person.

[katnissdoesnotfollowback]

🔥 Happy Birthday Katniss Everdeen 🔥

What's your first impression of Katniss after reading or watching The Hunger Games?

Do you find Katniss likable? Do you think her characterization is realistic?

What do you think the strengths and weaknesses of Katniss?

If today, you can make new movie/series adaptation, who would be suitable as Katniss? Based on visual description and acting talents.

Thank you :)

@curiousnonny

This actually from last year @curiousnonnyblog because I just... year it's been a bit of a ride the past year.

Okay so! Confession time. I am an unabashed Everlark shipper, but honestly? I fell in love with Katniss first. I loved her so much that when she was suspicious of Peeta throughout the first book, so was I. I took her word for it. If this guy was shady in her mind, then I didn't trust him either. Somewhere between her saying that she tried to drown Buttercup because he'd be one more mouth to feed, the line "District Twelve, where you can starve to death in safety," and her frantic volunteering for Prim, I was 100% behind Katniss. She was just so delightfully prickly, but also... caring. Compassionate. She tried so hard to present this front of badass, untouchable survivor, but then she tries to be kind to Madge when Gale's a jerk. She tries so hard to comfort Prim, and she just seemed so darn lonely that I wanted to hug her.

There are many aspects of her character that feel realistic to me, but I want to focus on one that maybe doesn't get a lot of attention (?). I could be wrong about that lol. I know there are a LOT of oldest children in this fandom. Welp. I'm a middle child and I am here to tout the realism of Katniss thinking she's responsible for literally everything in Prim's life to the point that she volunteers to take her place in a death match because "Prim's afraid of her own shadow." But also... my dude, we younger siblings are not nearly as helpless and dependent on you older ones as you want to think we are.

Do I think Prim had a real shot at winning the Games? Mmmm not really, but that has less to do with the Katniss's perception of Prim and more to do with the reality of their situation. At fourteen, Finnick is the youngest Victor ever and he had a boatload of sponsors, which Prim likely wouldn't have been able to garner.

So that aside, Katniss tends to see Prim as more helpless and more perfect than she really is. Prim proves her mettle in small ways through the rest of the series. She seems "bland" or "too perfect" because that's how Katniss portrays her. In reality, Prim has bite. She sasses Plutarch Heavensbee, she takes on the role of healer beside her mother which... Katniss herself admits she's not good at that because she's squeamish about blood and pain. Prim just dives in to deal with it, proving that she's got way more of a spine than Katniss sometimes gives her credit for. And then she runs into combat as a medic at age thirteen. Without hesitation. Basically, Katniss doesn't know her younger sister as well as she thinks she does.

Anyway, I find that older child syndrome aspect of Katniss's personality supremely realistic.

I don't know that there is someone who'd I want to see recast as Katniss if they were to remake the movies or if they actually made a series like they should've in the first place. Mainly because I'm not familiar enough with the current young actresses out there. Because I live under a rock where celeb culture is concerned. I'd rather see someone young and relatively unknown be cast, though, so she could grow with the series and it wouldn't be a blockbuster franchise that's more about the names in it than their ability to portray the characters.

Thanks for the ask, even if it took me ages to answer this one!

<3 kdnfb

[troublecominghq]

character name(s)/alias/etc: kaz brekker / dirtyhands

character age and date of birth: 21 // year 100

character's pronouns/gender identity/romantic & sexual identity: he/him, he sold his gender for like ten kruge years ago, bisexual/romantic but leaning into the demi zone.

character faceclaim: freddy carter

oc or canon + which fandom affiliated with: canon, grishaverse

currently located: ketterdam

moral alignment + people/groups etc they are aligned to: chaotic neutral. leader of crows/dregs.

tell us about their personality/the kind of character they are/what kind of goals etc they have: kaz brekker doesn’t need a reason. that’s the thing various citizens of ketterdam would say. they are wrong. most people see kaz brekker as a soulless, and even somewhat demonic being, with no morals and no loyalties except his own greed and benefit. they aren’t entirely wrong. kaz does think that any means justify the end if the reward is big enough. he likes to pose his greed for money alone as his primary motivation, thus masking his real goals. in general, kaz is a master of deception and manipulation, he likes to stay a couple of steps ahead in any given situation, and hates losing control. he acts like he doesn’t care about other people, and is convincing enough to sometimes believe it himself. despite this, however, when someone does earn his trust, loyalty and affection, which is not an easy feat, he looks out for these people and is willing to do almost anything for them.

his ability to forge relationships is hindered by his severe ptsd and haphephobia.

currently, his primary goal is to take full advantage of pekka rollins and jan van eck being moved out of his way, securing the now vacant positions in the city for his dregs.

he also wants justice for his crows, and, although he might rarely admit it even to himself, he does genuinely care about their future past his own profit.

biography: kaz brekker was born in ketterdam’s harbour, birthed by the city, its greed and the cruel hand of queen’s lady plague, a monster born from monsters.

of course, there is a story to precede this. a story about little boy named kaz rietveld, who came to katterdam with his older brother after their father’s death, with money they managed to get by selling their farm near lij, a little and naive boy, who trusted his equally naive brother too much. two little pigeons, ready to be plucked by whomever came first.

two little pigeons, left on the streets to starve by the kind hand of jakob hertzoon, whom most of ketterdam knew better as pekka rollins, the king of the barrel.

kaz rietveld died on the reaper’s barge, in the fire of the plague’s fever. kaz rietveld died in the water’s near ketterdam, clinging to the ice of his dead brother’s flesh.

kaz brekker was born, and soon the barrel named him dirtyhands, because where kaz rietveld had been soft and childish, kaz brekker was broken, but only stronger because of it.

the dregs didn’t choose him as much as kaz chose them, and over the years he accumulated enough skills and knowledge to turn them from nobodies into one of barrel’s most influential gangs. officially he was still a lieutenant to per haskell, their glorious leader, but in reality it was kaz who hired his own people, it was kaz who brought money to the slat, and it was kaz who struck down those who wronged them, causing fear left and right.

still, kaz’s goal wasn’t just to secure himself a little cozy spot in the criminal underbelly and call it a day, no, he had followed pekka rollins for years waiting for the chance to sink his teeth into his throat. bring him down, brick by brick.

when the job to kidnap the alleged sun summoner came to his doorstep, promising the reward of one million kruge, kaz saw his chance and didn’t hesitate to reach for it.

it all went quite wrong. oh, he did cross pekka, rather delightfully, did get his small crew across the fold not once but twice, found alina starkova and even got convinced about her indeed being the sun summoner, but after the dust settled, he didn’t have his million, didn’t have starkova, only his battered crew and a pile of jewels worth a small fortune, but not big enough to take off the bloody mark that was now hovering over them all as they returned to ketterdam.

but he was kaz brekker, and he had a plan.

universe seemed to show him some fortune, bringing his crew together with a heartrender he knew he would need for a successful return to his city, and so the crows and nina zenik worked together for the first time. it took a couple of months, blackmail, bribery and some minor property damage, but kaz managed to get dreesen of their backs. it helped that the word of sun summoner’s death had spread by that point.

pekka rollins was more complicated, but he was temporarily sated by their failure and watching the dregs suffer to regain their property and positions. but kaz knew that it wouldn’t last forever, that he had to strike first.

the next opportunity came to him completely unexpected, in the form of another merch, this time jan van eck, who approached him just as the money from jewels had almost ran out covering the damages, getting back the crow club, freeing inej from the menagerie. and, oh, kaz would have been wary after the last time, the bitterness still poisoning his every breath, but this time the final offer wasn’t just a million. it was thirty millions, and he just couldn’t refuse that.

all he had to do was break into one of the most secure prisons in the world and safely extract the scientist holding the secret of making a drug that could turn grisha from dangerous to nearly unstoppable.

so he gathered his crew of people possessing both the right skills and desperation, and set out to fjerda, to ice court. this time his plan worked out slightly better than the one in little palace, if he ignored some details like breaking out from ice court in a tank, destroying the fjerdan holy tree and nina being forced to use parem to save them all. his biggest concern was that the scientist they managed to rescue wasn’t bo yul-bayur, but his son kuwei yul-bo. but kaz figured that it could be the merch’s concern.

one thing he hadn’t foreseen in enough detail was that jan van eck wasn’t working for the merchant council at all, and had no intentions of paying them their thirty million and making sure that the secret of jurda parem never got out to the world. instead, he wanted to seize it for himself, and simply dispose of their crew.

kaz and his crows managed to escape with their lives, albeit with inej taken hostage, but they were forced to hide in ketterdam’s old graveyard, low on resources and hope for success. all odds were against them.

there was only one thing jan van eck hadn’t taken into account. he hadn’t crossed just another bunch of barrel rats. he had crossed kaz brekker, the monster that crawled out of ketterdam’s dark waters, and now the monster would come to devour him whole.

his plans weren’t perfect by any means. they managed to get back inej, crafted a plan to discredit van eck by messing with his sugar silos, but then encountered a setback after setback, an obstacle after obstacle. first it was nina wanting to help katterdam’s grisha escape, to which he had to agree not to lose inej, something that he couldn’t afford. something that he couldn’t bear. then came pekka rollins, and with his help van eck cornered them all, flooding the city with stadwatch and barrel grunts.

and so kaz had to craft a new plan, the most daring and mad he had ever made.

that was exactly what he did, and after the dust settled, ketterdam having witnessed one of the largest indenture auctious, appearance of ‘the council of tides’ and even being temporarily frightened by the promise of a new plague, the crows stood victorious.

jan van eck was in prison, his property now in the rightful ownership of his son wylan, pekka rollins had fled the city forever.

now kaz could do whatever he wanted. build something new, burn it to the ground. and, perhaps, not burn some things. like the wonderful laughter his wraith now gave him more often than ever before.

for those writing canon grishaverse characters particularly from the s&b trilogy, please outline any instances of divergence you wish to include within your portrayal, even if it's already been mentioned in the biography: I'm cool with everything in the show and books, but wouldn't mind discussing possible changes in the details if future crow writers wanted to bring in something new.