#the morphlings

[kald-dal-art]

THG Sketchbook dump old drawings and requests so thanks to people who gave my drawing suggestions 🫶

[kald-dal-write]

Everyone shut up and look at these BTS photos I found of the Victors

[vesteneris]

Cheers to the March 13th birthday girl, Maureen Trevi!

The Victor of 49th Hunger Games, that belongs to @kald-dal-write

[dancingdaffodils08]

Finnick and morphling girl after dragging Peeta through the games:💀💀

Katniss after dragging Peeta through the games:😏👩‍🍼

[mollywog]

"Do you think we'd have ended up like this if only one of us had won?" he asks, glancing around at the other victors. "Just another part of the freak show?"

Actually - yes (though they’re not freaks). Under slightly different circumstances or over time, Katniss could have become the next Haymitch, Johanna, Finnick, Annie, or morphling

Haymitch Abernathy

Maybe he wasn't always a drunk. Maybe, in the beginning, he tried to help the tributes. But then it got unbear-able. It must be hell to mentor two kids and then watch them die. Year after year after year. I realize that if I get out of here, that will become my job. To mentor the girl from District 12. The idea is so re-pellent, I thrust it from my mind.

~

"Is that what happened to you?" I ask Haymitch.

"No. My mother and younger brother. My girl. They were all dead two weeks after I was crowned victor. Because of that stunt I pulled with the force field," he answers. "Snow had no one to use against me."

"I'm surprised he didn't just kill you," I say.

"Oh, no. I was the example. The person to hold up to the young Finnicks and Johannas and Cashmeres. Of what could happen to a victor who caused problems," says Haymitch. "But he knew he had no leverage against me."

"Until Peeta and I came along," I say softly. I don't even get a shrug in return.

Johanna Mason

Where you can starve to death in safety," I mutter. Then I glance quickly over my shoulder. Even here, even in the middle of nowhere, you worry someone might overhear you.

When I was younger, I scared my mother to death, the things I would blurt out about District 12, about the people who rule our country, Panem, from the far-off city called the Capitol. Eventually I understood this would only lead us to more trouble. So Ilearned to hold my tongue and to turn my features into an indifferent mask so that no one could ever read my thoughts. Do my work quietly in school.

~

"Of course Peeta's right. The whole country adores Katniss's little sister. If they really killed her like this, they'd probably have an uprising on their hands," says Johanna flatly. "Don't want that, do they?" She throws back her head and shouts, "Whole country in rebellion? Wouldn't want anything like that!"I can't help catching her hand as she passes me.

….

"Don't go in there. The birds -" I remember the birds must be gone, but I still don't want anyone in there. Not even her.

"They can't hurt me. I'm not like the rest of you. There's ho one left I love," Johanna says, and frees her hand with an impatient shake.

Finnick Odair

"President Snow used to ... sell me ... my body, that is," Finnick begins in a flat, removed tone. "I wasn't the only one. If a victor is considered desir-able, the president gives them as a reward or allows people to buy them for an exorbitant amount of money. If you refuse, he kills someone you love. So you do it "

~

I'm left with Haymitch in the rubble, wondering if Finnick's fate would have one day been mine. Why not? Snow could have gotten a really good price for the girl on fire.

Annie Cresta

"You're not leaving me here alone," I say. Because if he dies, I'll never go home, not really. I'll spend the rest of my life in this arena trying to think my way out.

~

"Yeah. Annie's the one who went mad when her district partner got beheaded. Ran off by herself and hid. But an earthquake broke a dam and most of the arena got flooded. She won because she was the best swimmer," says Peeta.

The morphlings

Surely she could afford food, but turned to the morphling just as Haymitch turned to drink, I guess. Everything about her speaks of waste - her body, her life, the vacant look in her eyes.

I revise my suicide plan to slow death by morphling. I will become a yellow-skinned bag of bones, with enormous eyes.

[olya-roo]

POV: you are so delulu that you write a fanfic of a fanfic, which most recent chapter crushed you completely.

“Pieces of frozen flesh”, a small AU based on “The old familiar sting” by @kald-dal-art

Titus Domery may have been brought back from the nightmare that were the 66th Hunger Games, but Capitol never forgets the ones who don’t play by their rules.

Now leaving other Victors of District 6 to deal with the fallout of a tragedy on the Arena and a burden of completely broken boy who has suddenly became a part of their small family, can those 5 damaged people move forward?

AU of “The old familiar sting” by Littlefroid, that has Titus actually winning his Games and showing the consequences that came with it.

[imasradiantasthesun]

Ez’s Hunger Games aesthetics, part 14: Victors of the 40s (part 2 of 2)

Brutus Kumar of District 2, Victor of the 40th Games

Onyx O’Hara of District 1, Victor of the 42nd Games

Adrienne Hughes of District 6, Victor of the 43rd Games

Chaff Santana of District 11, Victor of the 45th Games

[fordkisser08]

My love💕💞💖💗

[heavensbeehall]

More about the other victors & chapter 16

They're a little strange, but I'm pretty sure neither of them is going to try to make me uncomfortable by stripping naked.

Again, Katniss is not a sexual being yet. She is most comfortable with Beetee, Wiress and Mags because she understands those type of relationships. Also the three of them are awsome.

I glance around the Training Center. Peeta is at the center of a ribald circle of knife throwers. The morphlings from District 6 are in the camouflage station, painting each other's faces with bright pink swirls. The male tribute from District 5 is vomiting wine on the swordfighting floor. Finnick and the old woman from his district are using the archery station. Johanna Mason is naked again and oiling her skin down for a wrestling lesson. I decide to stay put.

Peeta is much better with people, all kinds of people. Katniss doesn't know what to do with naked people. So she stays with the nerds.

I want to know what Finnick and Mags talk about at the archery station.

I feel bad, knowing that their district must have suffered much worse than ours. I feel I need to defend my people.

Here's a chicken or the egg question. Are the victors from 3 and 4 rebels because their districts are rebellious. Or are the districts rebellious because their victors are?

Plutarch Heavensbee in the magnificent purple robe with the fur-trimmed collar that designates him as Head Gamemaker. He's eating a turkey leg.

I don't know why I find it hilarious that he's eating a turkey leg, but I do. I am imagining one of those rlly big ones from fairs and stuff.

When we make our way into the dining area, I see some of Peeta's gang have other ideas. They're dragging all the smaller tables to form one large table so that we all have to eat together. Now I don't know what to do. Even at school I used to avoid eating at a crowded table. Frankly, I'd probably have sat alone if Madge hadn't made a habit of joining me.

I wonder whose idea this was. I suspect Chaff. But we can see some of the school versions of Katniss and Peeta. He was always with a group from the town kids. She prefers to be alone.

Chaff doesn't seem as bad at lunch. He's sober, and while he talks too loud and makes bad jokes a lot, most of them are at his own expense. I can see why he would be good for Haymitch, whose thoughts run so darkly. But I'm still not sure I'm ready to team up with him.

This description of Chaff reminds me of my dad. He's a people-person and feels the need to entertain everyone all the time. (It can be exhausting and I can see why someone as introverted and inhibited as Katniss would be put off.) But the fact that he makes an effort to seek out Haymitch--who pushes everyone away--makes me love him. You know Haymitch says mean stuff to him and he just laughs it off.

After lunch I do the edible-insect station with the District 8 tributes--Cecelia, who's got three kids at home, and Woof, a really old guy who's hard of hearing and doesn't seem to know what's going on since he keeps trying to stuff poisonous bugs in his mouth.

I think Woof knows exactly what he's doing when he puts poisonous bugs in his mouth.

Finnick appears again when I'm picking up fishing tips, but mostly just to introduce me to Mags, the elderly woman who's also from District 4. Between her district accent and her garbled speech--possibly she's had a stroke-- I can't make out more than one in four words. But I swear she can make a decent fishhook out of anything--a thorn, a wishbone, an earring. After a while I tune out the trainer and simply try to copy whatever Mags does. When I make a pretty good hook out of a bent nail and fasten it to some strands of my hair, she gives me a toothless smile and an unintelligible comment I think might be praise. Suddenly I remember how she volunteered to replace the young, hysterical woman in her district. It couldn't be because she thought she had any chance of winning. She did it to save the girl, just like I volunteered last year to save Prim. And I decide I want her on my team.

Do we thinks Mags did have a stroke? I have a headcanon that she's had a speech impediment her whole life but that's just in the imaginary Mags story I write in my head.

In fact, I feel as if I've somehow been initiated into the victors' circle. During the next two days, I spend time with almost everybody headed for the arena. Even the morphlings, who, with Peeta's help, paint me into a field of yellow flowers.

Yellow flowers again.

Mags, who I can understand a little better now, decides she's just going to take a nap.

Queen shit. I love Mags.

[andshewas-mp4]

thought a lot about the morphlings today. they were humanized so much, even with the scene where peeta shows the female morphling the colors of the sunrise before her death just so she doesnt die panicked and wheezing to breathe, even to the extent of the fact that district 6 is stated to have a huge drug problem+ the fact that they were ripped away from the thing that kept them tethered to reality (as awful as it was) and probably cut off entirely from it too. we knew so much but so little, they were never even named.

[mintaikk]

Calling the Morphlingss Chassis and Autus because Morphlings sound so insulting.

[kald-dal-write]

How to explain to strangers the longest piece of writing I've ever done is about a character with like 7 mentions in a book and their canon name is "Junkie 1"

[acekoomboom]

I think this is my favorite scene in all three books. It is so human. So kind. I am overwhelmed at the humanity he displayed in this moment to this dying woman, this addict, this discarded child entertainer.

Peeta sees the person inside of her because he was already kind to her in training, and bc of that he already knew what would mean something to her in her final moment. And he used his skill with words to describe his skill with painting. He gave her joy, support and affection in her last breath of life. Peeta Mellark, the man you are.

This is why he is one of my favorite characters of all time, in all media.

Your honor, I love him more than words can express.

[thesweetnessofspring]

The rebellion might have told the other victor rebels to keep Peeta alive for Katniss's sake, but I truly 100% believe Mags and the morphling woman would have sacrificed themselves for Peeta regardless. And not for Katniss or the rebellion, but for him.

He was a 17-year-old boy, just a kid. A kid who has already had to deal with more than he should, who still had a chance of living a good life should the rebellion succeed. After all of the years Mags and the morphling woman spent mentoring other children to watch them die, to be so powerless against such evil, that choice to offer up their lives in place of Peeta's had to have been an easy decision. A relief, even, to finally to stand up against Snow and protect at least one child.

[gutfaced]

re; ableism in the hunger games, infantilism of the traumatized/shunning of the traumatized.

okay so i woke up & my awesome mutual @ongreenergrasses made a post about this too (i JUST saw it and like oooh my god. i agree so hard and so much) and i'm just going to talk about what i've been thinking.

the hunger games is doused in some really nasty thinking when it comes to mental health, and then even more so when it comes to disabilities, addiction and PTSD. i'm going to break down this post in parts based on each character who represents this, and any misc. ones will simply be the issue at hand alone. i find that suzanne writes a certain stereotypical sort of rhetoric that goes unchecked by this fandom because the majority are not those who have experienced these things, but the ones who *have* should at least bring this to more attention if possible. katniss to me, is one of the most ableist characters (not of her own knowing) as the good and mighty protagonist, and seeing people headcanon her as autistic is very interesting when her takes on people with any sort of difference in mental states is.. it comes into question constantly.

𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐄

annie is very truthfully, a character who is only based on being the ‘poor mad girl who wins finnick's heart’ and yes, a victor with more severe PTSD which has come to affect her daily life, or at least when it comes to the games. suzanne collins’ constant use of the term ‘mad girl’ comes from katniss as protagonist, which reads as so ableist. watering anyone to their inpairments or their level of health is dehumanizing, and it reads to me like she regards annie as a sort of special case, like a wounded animal almost. the only positive talk about annie as a character minus her wedding, minus her relationship with finnick is when peeta explains annie's experiences in the games, which comes with empathy and understanding that most,,, are overbearing with. i see so many people water her down to just, being finnick's, and only being whatever level of trauma has enabled her consistent struggles. this i won't put a label on because i don't know what collin's was trying to achieve.

i even believe that finnick as her lover commits a level of ableist thinking in their relationship. he withholds information of the rebellion from her (despite her being extremely smart and just as career as anyone else from four,) and despite that not changing anything because she's still tortured, still abused in some way, he has a level of extreme overprotectiveness that reads as infantilism of his partner, and it seems to me like everyone considers finnick as annie's carer, and doesn't consider annie as his partner. yes his *lover,* but not someone on equal ground as far as their mental health issues go. the way annie is seen on both coins of fandom and book are incredibly ignorant and very, very harmful to disabled people. just because someone has a debilitating issue does not mean you get to treat them like they're a child, does not mean you go onto label them from that single trait. like i said, the phrase ‘the mad girl back home’ is so, so degrading to annie, who is a survivor and has overcome her experiences with respective scars. respect her humanity, because it's sub human thinking to call someone mad based on PTSD. leave that in the 1910s/20s.

𝐌𝐑𝐒. 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐃𝐄𝐄𝐍 & 𝐇𝐀𝐘𝐌𝐈𝐓𝐂𝐇

(note that the haymitch part will be longer than the rest because i have enough content to go off of & this is my specialty)

mrs. everdeen and haymitch as characters both experience deprecating grief, to the extent where their mental health is tarnished from that. mrs. e becomes withdrawn and stiff from family; only able to function for the sake of work. her love, her husband dies and it emotionally disables her and severs a proper relationship to her two daughters. her mental health being dependant on the man/the loss of him and the fact that she discards her family is not only somewhat realistic for *some* cases, but also equally spitting out ideas of tradition and how "women need a man," with hazelle contrasting this and having to work for her 4 children to the point of blood. katniss’ perception of her mother's issue do come from hurt, but also internalised prejudice against those with mental health as she can see the extent of agony her mother is in and still loathes her, never leaving the door open for empathy.

the treatment of haymitch in both book and fandom is equally prejudiced and incredibly uneducated on addiction, and again — grief. haymitch self-medicates because his trauma, the extent of it is so mutilating to the point where he has to be flushing out memories on a constant basis. the fandom calls him a stupid drink, looks down on his intelligence. the books make him look volatile, squalored. the way in which suzanne collins describes his kitchen (which is filthy with old food, hazards, bottles and mice droppings) is VERY true of several people with severe mental health. katniss makes fun of him while he's in a state of approaching withdrawal, saying that the smell brings tears to her eyes, and at the end of the conversation ‘to take a bath.’ people with depression (which is what mrs. e and haymitch both have in different cases) find it difficult to do everyday chores and simple tasks, and katniss also repeats the idea of haymitch being unhygienic when she says ‘he's disgusting, but I'm greatful’ alongside commenting that it must've been a long while since he had bathed. haymitch is the richest man in the district, but not even that can stop the blatant hatred that katniss parrots. haymitch is to me, ill, and it reflects in his attitude during the games and when he's in withdrawal. suzanne hones in his mental state the most, and what he is a functioning alcoholic, and while that differs from regular alcoholism, people are consistent to demean his character with misconceptions and text books beliefs of what an alcoholic looks like. there are *many* takes, many examples of these sorts of people in society, but the constant abusive, violent, hateful, squalid, hedonistic ideas are parroted in fics when it comes to haymitch when he isn't.. any of those things. the society around him cares to consider the extent of his suffering and he doesn't have a good enough support system, as all whom he has loved are dead. i finish this by saying what i always do; he's extremely intelligent, extremely empathetic and wholly feeling, extremely caring and protective, and is meant to *defy* stereotypes. his ending however diminishes his ability to get better, and practically undoes any hope of his betterment despite it all.

𝐌𝐑𝐒. 𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐄

mrs. undersee is mentioned a few times through the trilogy, and when it isn't related to her late twin maysilee donner, or her daughter madge, it's her chronic illness. katniss basically only mentions her when referring to her constant headaches and her morphling addiction, which makes me wonder why suzanne collins doesn't go into depth about how she's taken care of, who she's getting support from as the wife of the district mayor, and how she functions as a mother. she is basically made useless to the narrative despite her important role as a mayoral first lady & family member to someone who experienced and was slaughtered in the arena. i see next to no content on her which upsets me as she does play such a big role in the scheme of things, and has connections to the everdeens, to haymitch and to the donner family. she's got next to nothing on her wikipedia, and it's unfortunate as she could've been a good example of chronic ilness in an already revered YA series (which now comes under scrutiny for the faults being uprooted.)

[olya-roo]

Chapter 2 of “Pieces of frozen flesh”, an AU of “The old familiar sting” by @kald-dal-art is out now!

While the Games are over, the problems for the five broken people are not.