#lavinia thg

[diddlesnap]

everyone say happy pride month katniss!!!

[thesweetnessofspring]

Trick or treat! 👻

You can ask one question to a Hunger Games character and they have to tell you the truth!

Who would you pick and what would you ask them?

Ok so I'm taking this question as a team effort to get the most info from this world as possible, and as @notsocooljess has Cinna's selection of District 12 covered and @mollywog is asking Mr. Mellark about his history with Mrs. Everdeen (so we have at least one side of that triangle covered), I would ask Lavinia what happened that led her to be an Avox. I'm so curious what her life was like before, if she was rebellion or did something else the Capitol didn't like, who the boy with her was, how she got to the woods of District 12. I really want to know everything about her but I'd start with that.

[rafeysmenace]

The Hunger Games masterlist

Key: ♪ = smut ★ = angst • = fluff

Requests ALWAYS open

Katniss:

Gale:

Johanna:

Madge:

Lavinia:

Lucy Gray:

Reaper:

[jesse-pinko]

My personal headcanon for Lavinia (Avox Girl) is that the boy who died in the woods w her was her older brother, who was very protective of her, and that maybe they were on the run from the capitol bc she was the one who did something to piss them off and he was the one who risked everything to help her escape, and so he essentially died in the process of trying to protect her. So when she sees Katniss volunteer to die in place of her sister, what choice does she have but to forgive her? Even if she doesn’t want to; even though she doesn’t want to. She can’t help but forgive her.

[deadboydoodling]

Let me know whose your favorite and if I should do a part two! ❤

[fantasy-nerdddd]

The rooftop scene(s)

Today I'll talk about the rooftop scenes. Mainly the first one, from The Hunger Games, but a bit of both. Both of them are quite passable at first, but mean a lot, each in their own way.

In Catching Fire, Chapter 11, Peeta says to Katniss while working on the plant book: "You know, I think this is the first time we've done something normal together." Well, the rooftop scene is the first time they have done anything fun together. Not drawing some plants, not staring at each other's eyelashes (cough cough KATNISS YOU THIRSTY LITTLE GIRL), two teenagers laughing and having fun together just days before they need to go into an arena and kill each other. So rebellious, having fun with your opponent and getting closer before the games, just behind using CPR in the arena. Also, it is the first insight that there's something more going on. Because for Effie to not to train Katniss on walking on heels, it means that Katniss won't need the sponsors.

The first rooftop scene... Well there's two more? I think? The first one is in a garden, however the garden is still on the rooftop so I'll count it. I think these scenes played a big role later. And I also think they are proof that Snow had bugged the rooftop, too. Lavinia was only acknowledged by Peeta in two moments. One, where he covered for Katniss and said that she was Delly Cartwright. That was for just a moment, and for all Snow knows, it wasn't even a lie. And when Katniss explained to him how she knew her. That Katniss didn't protect her. And I think Peeta seeing the girl Katniss couldn't protect being brutally killed, might have helped with the hijacking later on, because it would prove in his mind that Katniss just didn't care about any life, or even worse wanted to see suffering, and that she was heartless towards everyone, not just him. He'd think that anyways, but seeing Lavinia die in the hands of the Capitol just underlined this.

And of course, the elephant in the room... The "I don't want to be another piece in their Games" rooftop scene. Firstly, even though Katniss is the unreliable narrator that she is, we can clearly see Peeta's true character in that scene, if we are not too caught up in Katniss' thoughts and can consider the possibility that Peeta isn't lying. That he values self-awareness, agency and staying true to yourself. Personally, that made me love him even more, wanting to resist the corruption. And of course, that makes his character arc even more tragic. That he became exactly what he resented. A piece in their Games, a monster he's not. And that is another reason I think Snow was watching them the entire time. Snow could have known from the Games that Peeta was against violence. That he adored Katniss. That he'd do anything to save her. But he couldn't have known that Peeta's dying wish was to stay true to himself. Not to be changed by the horrors of the Capitol. He couldn't know that Peeta would absolutely resent himself once he was lucid enough to realise what was going on. And also, yeah I am going to add that this scene might be my favourite foreshadowing of all time. I don't know if Suzanne had planned it all along, she probably didbut I like to think that she didn't, and instead her decision to hijack Peeta went like this:

Suzanne, rereading her own book: I'm stuck. What could I possibly do that will move the plot forward? But doesn't seem cheap? No, I have to reuse an idea. It'd be out of place to just invent facts about Panem. Wait a minute. I could turn a fan favourite (and Katniss favourite) character into an insane 17 y/o so that Katniss will be desperate for revenge and the story has a bit more Angst. The readers will hate me and I don't give a shit

Or maybe

Editor: The love triangle isn't working.

Suzanne: I know. I have expressed my opinion towards the love triangle

Editor: Yes, but it sells more. And you cannot just abandon the idea.

Suzanne: Who says that Katniss can't choose her own boyfriend in the middle of the book and not the end

Editor: Listen... There's still a lot people who like Gale. You can have anyone win her. In fact, I would advise you to stick with Peeta. But the idea of a romance between Gale and Katniss has to have a satisfying ending. So no one can doubt Katniss' decision. But it also needs to feel like a hard choice. Or maybe make it impossible to choose between them anytime before the end.

Suzanne: What if I make Gale kill Prim?

Editor: Wha-

Suzanne: And make him unfathomably annoying the entire book and have him become a violent b*itch because of the war.

Editor: What's preventing Katniss to choose-

Suzanne: What if I make Peeta go insane?

Editor: What!?

Suzanne: What if I make him go insane? He's already in the Capitol, it wouldn't be a hard feat

Editor: But then Katniss couldn't choose either of them!

Suzanne: Not permanently, idiot! You know I have a weakness for Peeta.

[f1llory]

i know this all started like 11 years ago but i'm still so mad at how the hunger games movies have removed practically every trace of the avoxes that they can. i know that movies can't include everything from the books, but the avoxes are so important to the story and it does a real disservice to the movies by removing them. also, it would have added maybe a couple minutes per movie to include them the way they were in the books.

there are mentions of them here and there, and we do see lavinia briefly, but the only avox who's there in any meaningful way is pollux. and they couldn't take him out of the movie! not only is he important to include with the camera crew, he has to be there because he's the one who leads the group through the tunnels. if it were possible to cut him out of mockingjay, i think they would have.

removing so many scenes with lavinia genuinely detracted from my enjoyment of the first movie. especially witnessing her capture & carrying the guilt about it. when there are avoxes waiting on her, katniss does treat them politely, but i think it would have been so important & impactful to see her truly recognizing lavinia and her humanity and trying to communicate with her like anyone else. fixing this probably wouldn't add more than like 5 minutes to the runtime, but it would be such an improvement.

and don't even get me started with darius being removed from the movies. maybe he shows us a little less about katniss's character than lavinia would, but the mentions of him in catching fire add so much to our imagination of the hob and illustrate just how different peacekeepers were in district 12. this is also the first time this has happened to someone katniss actually knows. i think this would take maybe a minute and a half to fix? at most. really all we would need to see is darius talking to katniss in the hob, then being one of the peacekeepers getting captured when thread takes over.

obviously they kept pollux in because they literally couldn't remove him from mockingjay. i don't really have any complaints about his portrayal in the movies, which is kind of surprising given how passionate i am about him. also, the movie actually portrayed castor's death better than the book! it wasn't really in the book, basically castor was there and then he wasn't. so the movie version has a lot more impact.

also, it sucks that we didn't get to hear what happened to lavinia and darius. i always have intense second-hand embarrassment at the fact that in the book, peeta realizes pollux is an avox then immediately starts trauma dumping about seeing lavinia and darius tortured to death. if it were done as written in the movie, i might have experienced literal physical pain. but at the same time, i think it's very important that katniss finds out what happened to them. also in the books, squad 451 hears all the avoxes in the tunnels screaming as the mutts kill them. i feel like that would have been really easy to add in.

anyways we are moving on before i write an entire dissertation on pollux.

it was even worse in tbosas! the movie cut the scene where snow sees dr. gaul experimenting on and torturing avoxes. it would have been absolutely horrifying to see that translated to the screen, but it's incredibly important to snow's character development and his transformation into someone who both allows and perpetuates that cruelty. also, justice for ma plinth! i think it would have been incredible to see more of her and the way she treats people. in the book, she is so kind and caring to the avoxes working in her house. they're able to communicate with her, and she cooks food that will be easy for them to eat. since treating the avoxes as remotely human is so unusual, treating them with such love and respect is a revolutionary act, and goes to show what kind of person sejanus was raised to be. i know that this would add quite a bit to the runtime, but it probably should have been two movies anyways.

i know that side/background characters are cut from movies all the time. it happens. but even without getting a lot of lines, the avoxes are incredibly important to the story. these are people who have been enslaved, tortured, and dehumanized more than basically anyone else in panem. once characters truly see the avoxes, they're forced to confront the true brutality of the capitol and what they'll do to keep people in line. i think the movies don't truly force audiences to confront the brutality of this punishment. any rebellion is punished by literally robbing people of their voices and cutting them off from everything they've known. even if there's someone left to buy their freedom, they're physically disfigured for life--even removal of part of the tongue can have catastrophic side effects.

also, characters' perceptions of avoxes can say a lot about the kind of person they are. avoxes are the lowest class in panem, and treated with about as much agency as a piece of furniture. people aren't supposed to treat them like people. they're only supposed to talk to avoxes when giving them an order. despite this, there are certain characters who choose to show them kindness and love.

anyways i'm gonna end this here before i write a post so long it crashes tumblr but pls ask me literally anything about pollux i am in love w him <3

[diddlesnap]

more katniss Yuri pretty please

I love seeing her with the girls she should've had

I want her to stay until I fall asleep. To be there when I wake up. I want the protection of this girl, even though she never had mine.

[heavensbeehall]

"Just like I was watching the Games." -- Katniss, on how she watched Lavinia and her brother. Chapter 6, "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins

Our first impression of Katniss is someone who is selfless, and gives herself up for Prim. But with the appearance of Lavinia, Collins stresses that Katniss is not some saint. She has stood by while other people died, literally in this case. But she has also watched the Hunger Games her entire life. The Capitol wants the citizens of all districts to be okay--relieved even--when others die.

She knows what happened to Lavinia is wrong, which shows her moral compass is not bent in the wrong direction the way many of the Capitol people we meet. But she is an ordinary girl, with very little power, and the system relies on people like her staying quiet for their own safety.

Lavinia's brother, whose name we never know, was probably not much older than Prim, or Rue but it prompted no acts of defiance like when Prim is Reaped or Rue is killed. Perhaps because Katniss was only watching that time.

[jesse-pinko]

One thing that really worked for me w The Hunger Games trilogy was the attention to detail given toward developing even the most decentralized of background characters and how it doesn’t detract or distract from the story as a whole but enhances it, by driving home the theme of every life being precious and worth protecting and every human person being just that, fully, indomitably human. Esp the female characters!! When does that happen with female characters? Every character could in theory get their own book no dice, and that’s that’s how I want to write

[barbreypilled]

[mollywog]

My spirit. This is a new thought. I’m not sure exactly what it means, but it suggests I’m a fighter. In a sort of brave way. It’s not as if I’m never friendly. Okay, maybe I don’t go around loving everybody I meet, maybe my smiles are hard to come by, but I do care for some people.

‘Maybe my smiles are hard to come by’ is a top 10 line

[firstkil]

thg ask, I was just thinking about this today but do you have a really out there rarepair that intrigues you? mine personally is Finnick/Gale

funnily enough, i sorta do? obviously i have to turn my head away from all the hayrem rarepairs to give some screentime to the Non-related ships, but i really liked the idea of katniss/lavinia. yeah, the avox girl.. but i think they could've been something sweet if not for circumstances. portia/octavia is also one that interests me, my darling mutual and good friend @ozzieinspacetime and myself crafted beetee/chaff having a bit of funny fling sort of history. and i hate to say it but i DO like the weirdness of finnick and gale. d13 situationship. totes not making it back home. only other one i could think of is paylor/plutarch or paylor/coin. evil woman vs morally good woman yuri i supposes.

[kipperlillycopperkettle]

well since you’re offering up the chance to send cannibalism asks!

do you think any other mentors/capitol citizens have ever had to (or willingly chose to) eat another person. if not, do you think there’s any that would?

okay so i am not a huge ballad stan so i've only read it twice i think? so i'm going to just stick with the capitolite characters from the original trilogy for this question bc i don't have enough of a sense of the mentors as characters, y'know? (i also am not a super huge mockingjay stan so i don't think about tigris or cressida or messala or fulvia enough to weigh in on their cannibalism; pollux and castor are Exceptions bc of my thoughts on avoxes re: disability in thg. sorry to mockingjay enjoyers in the chat).

effie: i don't think she would do cannibalism as the series is presented, i think she would find it gross and icky and disgusting. HOWEVER, in a universe in which cannibalism is En Vogue (eg, titus wins & changes capitol culture in a way that makes cannibalism interesting and popular and trendy in a way that leads to the capitol participating in cannibalism rather than in a way that's like. ohhhh look how far we can push victors oh look how horrifying and scary it is) she would do cannibalism. she would hop on that trend so so quickly. she has the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair etc etc

cinna & portia: i think they're both too principled to do cannibalism, no matter how En Vogue or Out Of Vogue it might be. i think they'd both starve rather than do cannibalism, even in a desperate survival situation.

president snow: no, UNLESS there was a way in which it would benefit him. if eating people would somehow advance his political career i think he would do cannibalism.

lavinia/the unnamed boy: i think they're also largely too principled to do cannibalism if it were trendy, however we don't see enough of them in canon to say if they wouldn't do it in a desperate enough situation where they needed to survive. honestly idt either of them was particularly well prepared for surviving in the woods around the districts and i do fully think there's a fic in there somewhere about them in the run in the wild and doing cannibalism a la yellowjackets.

castor/pollux: i think that the capitol keeps the avoxes Fed. i don't think it's good food, i don't think it's particularly exciting, i don't even think it meets 100% of all their daily nutritional requirements, but i do think they feed them — there's no point in having an unfed labor force, and the capitol does seem to be using avoxes as a labor force, so there's no reason for pollux to resort to cannibalism to survive. i don't think castor had to resort to cannibalism either — while clearly not well off, he was a capitolite, and he managed to save up enough money to get pollux a better position as an avox; i think he was likely a cameraman or crew member on a capitol tv show. he was not exceedingly WELL paid by any means (see: it took him five years to save up money to move pollux to a better position) but he was still able to save up the money. also i think doing cannibalism (a crime) would be bad for him re: trying to help out his brother, an avox. the pre avox version of pollux that exists in my head might do it for similar reasons to effie (if it were En Vogue) but the pre avox pollux is something so far removed from canon it may as well be a completely seperate thing so i won't go super into it on this post.

atala: she might out of curiosity tbh?? she's so affiliated with the hunger games that i can't imagine her not watching them closely, taking notes on what skills tributes may want to practice, etc, and so ofc she's watching the games when titus does his thing. while i do think reruns of the games are heavily cut and edited to avoid even implying cannibalism, that first initial airing was not, and atala was certainly watching. so i think if cannibalism was a thing in capital, atala would try at least once because she's Curious. i don't think she'd go out of her way to do cannibalism in the world as it exists but i do think she'd try it at least once if it was trendy, and i don't think she would be against survival cannibalism if it came down to it.

plutarch: i don't think plutarch would participate in trendy cannibalism, however i do think similar to snow, if he needed to do cannibalism to further his goals, he would. the difference between him and snow is snow would do cannibalism only if it helped himself and plutarch would do cannibalism if backed into a corner if it allowed him to keep his cover/otherwise somehow furthered the greater good/rebellion.

[trampled-and-melting]

District 2 Names

Ajax (M)

Antigone (F)

Bellona (F)

Cylon (M)

Fidelia (F)

Flint (M)

Hadrian (M)

Iphigenia (F)

Juno (F)

Lavinia (F)

Lucretia (F)

Luther (M)

Magnus (M)

Martia (F)

Medea (F)

Nero (M)

Nike (F)

Priam (M)

Pyrrhus (M)

Shale (M)

Slate (M)

Terra (F)

More THG Names

[gerrydelano]

4 or 5 for the writing ask game?

4. pick an alternate setting you would want to put either the main cast of your work or [specific characters] in— zombie apocalypse, medieval fantasy, regency era, office hijinks, etc. describe what it would look like and/or write 100+ words in this universe.

honestly? i have to come clean. the first AU we made for this story was a hunger games AU, and it actually helped us develop a shitload of stuff for the main story LMAO. some TW for under the cut of mentions of sex trafficking and exploitation, finnick style etc.

ask game

firstly i have to celebrate that it gave us osa, a bear shifter who is ayla's mentor for the games and in the original story is another captive in the fighting ring who helps her stay sane. osa is a big fat butch and she's hot and married and so fucking excellent i love and aspire to be anything close to half as cool as she is someday and also yes i am aware that her name means bear in spanish. would you believe me if i said we picked it as a name and made her a bear before we knew that. LOL.

but yes THG AU okay so. i also have to be upfront, when me and ren make THG AUs we tend to focus on the post-games finnick side of things because that's just the part of the story that resonates with us both the most and it's important to us to explore those kinds of stories, also like... life after the games is the bulk of the story until a revolution takes place, and not every AU actually contains characters who can slip easily into katniss' position so sometimes they're just existing and exploring that is the meat of what we tend to do sometimes until a revolutionary figure naturally comes across. moonstained already features a character (pruitt) being sex trafficked while ayla is Some Other Kind Of Trafficked With Hints Of Sexual Exploitation Because What The Fuck Do You Think Happens To Women In That Kind Of Underground Fighting Ring Setting In General so like. it's not far off to place them in that kind of situation in another universe, it's more true to them than pretending it wouldn't happen.

pruitt is the first to enter the games. he's in D1, and a career like his mother, lavinia, was. (she was reaped properly and no one volunteered for her. LOL.) but she's famous for being a very charismatic and lethal killer, so he's favored to be a legacy win, and that gives him trouble in the games with the other contenders. she actually convinced him to volunteer for someone a little earlier than he was supposed to, age wise, and it's a really fucked up situation to put him in. however! once he's actually in the arena, he mostly hides and doesn't kill anyone until the very end, at which point he takes on the last three careers when they come for him. canon pruitt refuses to kill for lavinia's evil purposes, but he does have a body count of 3 until the end of book one because he snaps and kills people who have actually abused him personally, or are in the middle of posing a threat to casey. sometimes those people overlap! a la first gunman in the alley. eek!

but there's a big nasty strangle-stabbing fight with the last one and he just keeps stabbing after the cannon fires and it's replay-material on the broadcast which is un-fun. but he's pretty and mysterious and quiet when he gets back and it creates intrigue, which leads to interest from weird people, which his mother has no small hand in facilitating because it probably happened to her too and she thinks it's normal/fine/even beneficial, and she has no problem exploiting pruitt in general to get what she needs: security and wealth. so pruitt just kind of lives this life and is primarily alone in it until a bit after ayla and casey each get involved.

ayla and casey are from D7, ayla's mentor is osa (butch bear<3) and casey's is sal (a guy from his support group in the canon story, who is a tiger shifter! also a big fat burly guy who is so fucking chill and excellent but he definitely almost killed his father who MAY HAVE killed his mother when he was 16 so that's a man with some rage in him. love you sal.) ayla's arena is a Colosseum, while casey's was an abandoned city block/urban jungle sort of situation.

they're a bit of a spectacle, too, because they're twins and were in back-to-back games. ayla had been reaped first, as a boy, because she hasn't come out yet in her district and to her parents but now that she thinks she's pretty much guaranteed to die anyway, she wants to do it as herself. she comes out during the interview portion of things and it's Intriguing and Interesting and Fresh and Startling and all those annoying things the capitol ascribes to normal ppl's lives, but it actually gets her some fans and supporters because it's also brave and different and makes her stand out.

when she's being interviewed she says something to the effect of, "yeah, it's funny coming here with secrets. if i tell you, do you promise not to tell anyone? [glances at the audience as they laugh]" and her stylist gives her a light cape on one shoulder and it's made so she can swish it off and pin it around her waist into a skirt. not a cinna-level dramatic quick change but a bit of fun and very attention catching.

so they pretty her up and she gets to live this tiny piece of her life in a way she never thought she would have access to in a million years and then she cries herself to sleep because it's all a dream, it's all temporary, it's not going to last because her life is slated to end so soon, but surprise! she's a FIGHTER. to a degree she didn't know she had in her. i think we ended up saying she bites someone's throat out (call to her hyena shit in canon) and later when she gets facial feminization surgery, they sharpen her canines without her consent for The Look and osa is SO PISSED. but she tries to vibe with it because at least she's getting resources here and she's finally some strange version of the self she didn't even dare to dream of back home.

but alas. even before i made her trans, it would have been a struggle for her to NOT end up finnick'd, but being trans actually cements that as a distinct risk because of the fetishization and exoticism that people pin on the backs of trans women, and she did a little too good of a job making herself special. the thing is, though, she's also just emotionally different after the trauma of the games; she's sharper, snappier, harsher, quicker to lash out. if she said the wrong thing to someone while getting used to her new station in life, there could be consequences.

and so casey is reaped, due to some rigging.

he relies on snappy humor and hijinks to survive and it actually works. he has a few replayable moments, too! shenanigans with fire escapes and such. he doesn't expect to win any more than she did, but he's also riding a bit on the tailcoats of her victory in terms of sponsors and it's a big fucking mess in general.

he doesn't know how to engage in the capitol parties and crap but ayla ends up doing party drugs and shit, and pruitt is like... weirdly inseparable from his mother until he escapes to drink a shit ton of alcohol just to get away from her and eventually one day casey sees pruitt and ayla laughing uproariously by a table together and they don't even remember what was so funny but it's a significant moment because until NOW, pruitt had seemed like some random untouchable piece of shit career like all the rest of them, but he's also just. so solitary and has sparklies in his hair and casey is the only person to really notice that his mother always has a hand on him somewhere and it's really uncomfortable actually.

there's more development and plot stuff going on but there is a scene where casey witnesses some abuse from lavinia on a balcony and pruitt is mortified but casey makes it a point to try and be closer to him after that because clearly every victor here is fucked up in some way and it's not JUST ayla and her obvious suffering (even though she tries to roll with it still) it's not JUST him and having to watch her suffer (and eventually deal with his own bullshit because Spectacle) it's just a phenomenon that cannot be denied and it needs to stop.

and then we have philomena.

she's in D13 originally, and she has infiltrated the capitol in some way on instructions from diana, the coin figure, to get information for the revolution. part of the revolution here is her bringing to attention that the victors are not happy with the arrangements they're stuck in and many of them want out just as much as some of them like the false sense of security. she's scouting for people who would be willing to help and manages to get them in contact with the movement and if anyone is the actual driving force behind anything, it'd be her probably. her or ayla. though me and ren like to have people kind of share the burden of the revolution rather than force it all onto one figurehead, especially since their stories all differ so much from katniss' like there's just a bunch of finnicks and they're adults by the time anything happens for real and it's wild.

we have more little extraneous details than that but i THINK i'm done for now LOL