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most important thing about odesta to me is that they are not soulmates. they are life rafts in a storm. the foundation of that relationship is desperate clinging both in the hope of being saved and in the fear of being separated. they would not find each other in every universe. not to the same extent, at least. it takes the set of circumstances they're in for them to be so deeply intwined, knotted tightly together as if against a strong wind. that is the core of them, to me. that is what they are. and ya know. maybe that's beautiful. who's to say.

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i tried writing something about it a while back and it occurred to me that it would've been a shock and awe moment in districts 1 and 2 especially. i cannot begin to imagine what it feels like to be a patriot from a district that stayed loyal through the whole war and then you're told...that. i suspect there were riots in 1 and 2 that day.

personally i think they told them and took the tributes at the same time. that way there could be no organized effort to protect the kids. like the annual reading of the treaty of treason, but more horrifying and confusing.

honestly, the first few were probably pure chaos. i'll bet they didn't even read names---they wouldn't be able to corral people into pens based on age until everyone got a little more resigned to the whole thing, maybe after the third or fifth time. initially, i suspect, they just grabbed two at random from the crowd. maybe didn't even find out what their names were.

i also think the first one would've had decent viewership. they talk, during the tenth, like the lack of viewers is new. people tuned in for the first couple of years, mostly because of the train wreck effect, but then the shock wore off and they decided they'd rather not, actually.

but that's just my two cents.

i want to know about the first games so bad but not in a “show me how they played out ear by ear” way. i want to know how it actually got implemented (the drunk assignment thing was so stupid, but hey. some government dork must have been like “let me see what we can do with that”). i want to know how they let the districts know!! and i want it to see how they organized it all. sorry guys i need things spoon fed to me

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Finnick and Annie ─ The Hunger Games Trilogy

And suddenly, it's as if there's no one in the world but these two, crashing through space to reach each other. They collide, enfold, lose their balance, and slam against a wall, where they stay. Clinging into one being. Indivisible. A pang of jealousy hits me. Not for either Finnick or Annie but for their certainty. No one seeing them could doubt their love.

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oh my god guys did you hear about that new rule tumblr made? yeah its where every tuesday everyone has to be talking about odesta. yeah its crazy. anyway can we talk about odesta

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thanks, guys.

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constantly and forever rotating the fact that the two places where roses pop up in the series are in snow's famous white roses, and in the namesake of katniss's sweet little sister, primrose.

it's funny, actually, the fact that snow is heavily associated with two major symbols of purity. white roses, which represent innocence in most flower symbology guides, and we're all familiar with the concept of being, as lucy gray put it, pure as the driven snow.

he and primrose actually have a lot in common, if you think about it. both lost parents at a young age, both were stuck with a maternal figure who wasn't equipped to take care of them, and both had an older sister (or cousin, but whatever), still a child herself at the time, who stepped in to protect them. both had childhoods of cute little nicknames at home and trying to pretend they weren't starving at school.

here's the thing, though: primroses grow wild. their latin name is literally vulgaris, sharing a root with "vulgar"---common. they bloom in forests and hedgerows in the spring, occasionally white but more often yellow. they're local native plants in district twelve, just like swamp potatoes.

compare this to snow's white roses. white roses don't occur in nature. and his in particular are highly cultivated, genetically modified, and grown in a greenhouse. he gives them to people as a veiled threat. the one and only instance in the series in which it isn't a threat is when he gives one to lucy gray, and even then, it's a performance of trustworthiness. it's calculated. he literally uses the smell, bred into them intentionally, to mask the scent of blood.

the crucial difference, i think, is in authenticity. prim is a wildflower. she's not curated, no one made her the way she is, she's not looking for personal gain. she just earnestly is a kind and trustworthy person. and snow can only imitate that. he can only ever pretend to be what comes so naturally to prim. grow your roses all you want, we can still smell the blood on you.

or, i suppose, in other words: to be pure is a different thing entirely from being innocent.

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i see katniss as a gilmore girls enjoyer. she likes how inane their problems are.

okay divas, time to get serious. which tv shows do we think everlark would enjoy? i’m very much in the camp that they’d love watching anne with an e together. also that peeta loves ted lasso and katniss is obsessed with bad sisters

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hii

deep dive annie moodboard 💙

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promise this was not directed at any particular fic lol it was just on my mind. but also, which fic are you referring to? i might like to read an exploration of that.

you know, i've read various and sundry descriptions in fic of victors having scars. and personally, i think it's so much more horrifying that they probably don't. i mean, isn't that worse? isn't it worse if there's no evidence that haymitch was once disemboweled, that he had no choice but to collapse in front of the forcefield? isn't it worse if there's no hint of a scar on katniss's forehead from trying to save peeta? if her leg is smooth and unblemished despite the gamemakers trying to burn her alive? isn't it worse if finnick has perfect skin, if no one ever has to face visible proof of what's been done to him?

it's such a casual denial of autonomy. these people don't own what's happened to them. the capitol does. the same force that subjects them to these atrocities purges the evidence from their bodies, so nobody has to look at it too closely, so the world never has to face the reality of what it's put them through. they are torn apart and then made beautiful. they have nothing, they own nothing. they don't even get to keep their scars.

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and like. i get it. it's tempting. it's so tempting to say "and annie finds the scar where..."

"and in an effort to persuade them, haymitch shows them the scar where..."

"johanna looks in the mirror and contemplates the scar where..."

"peeta traces his fingers over katniss's scar where..."

but no. they don't. they don't get to. even that small comfort has been taken from them.

you know, i've read various and sundry descriptions in fic of victors having scars. and personally, i think it's so much more horrifying that they probably don't. i mean, isn't that worse? isn't it worse if there's no evidence that haymitch was once disemboweled, that he had no choice but to collapse in front of the forcefield? isn't it worse if there's no hint of a scar on katniss's forehead from trying to save peeta? if her leg is smooth and unblemished despite the gamemakers trying to burn her alive? isn't it worse if finnick has perfect skin, if no one ever has to face visible proof of what's been done to him?

it's such a casual denial of autonomy. these people don't own what's happened to them. the capitol does. the same force that subjects them to these atrocities purges the evidence from their bodies, so nobody has to look at it too closely, so the world never has to face the reality of what it's put them through. they are torn apart and then made beautiful. they have nothing, they own nothing. they don't even get to keep their scars.

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you know, i've read various and sundry descriptions in fic of victors having scars. and personally, i think it's so much more horrifying that they probably don't. i mean, isn't that worse? isn't it worse if there's no evidence that haymitch was once disemboweled, that he had no choice but to collapse in front of the forcefield? isn't it worse if there's no hint of a scar on katniss's forehead from trying to save peeta? if her leg is smooth and unblemished despite the gamemakers trying to burn her alive? isn't it worse if finnick has perfect skin, if no one ever has to face visible proof of what's been done to him?

it's such a casual denial of autonomy. these people don't own what's happened to them. the capitol does. the same force that subjects them to these atrocities purges the evidence from their bodies, so nobody has to look at it too closely, so the world never has to face the reality of what it's put them through. they are torn apart and then made beautiful. they have nothing, they own nothing. they don't even get to keep their scars.

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honestly the best thing about peeta saying “if it weren’t for the baby” is that it was grammatically correct

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they are Cancelling me for dealing with my grief as best i can . also for the vicious war Crimes

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"Can I just say that we don't have a clique problem at this school and some of us shouldn't have to take this workshop because some of us are just victims in this situation?"

"That's probably true. How many of you have ever felt personally victimized by Regina George?"

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confession: I think odesta is a better ship name than everlark

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Queerness In Panem

this fandom is, frankly, lacking in the homosexuality department. so i'm here as your resident queer to share some headcanons.

katniss says that one of the few freedoms they have in 12 is the right to marry who they choose. i believe that this extends to gay marriage.

if it's legal in 12, it's probably legal throughout the country.

diversity win! the fascist child-murdering dictator isn't homophobic!

however, i do think social stigma varies from region to region.

in outlying districts, it's common for homophobia to stem from fear of labor shortages and population decline.

conversely, it's a common tongue-in-cheek argument among local queer people that fewer couples having children means fewer mouths to feed.

career districts have interesting types of homophobia.

in district 2, there are standards of masculinity, which are tempered somewhat when career training takes off and they have to start training girls alongside boys, but they never fully go away. i don't see them thinking that it's bad to be gay, necessarily, but i do kind of see them thinking that it's bad to bottom. a proper man doesn't allow himself to become the more submissive partner.

i almost see some good old-fashioned victorian "third sex" style homophobia happening around this. not only is it unmanly, it literally makes you not a man.

girls have a little more freedom in this regard, especially if they're not training for the games. girls training for the games are held to roughly the same standard as boys.

district 1 is very image-oriented. and while having a queer person in the family, or even a same-sex partner, doesn't necessarily paint a bad picture, the best picture is painted by a marriage with children. so while there's no danger or judgement in being openly gay, lavender marriages are still known to happen, especially among wealthier families.

trans people do, of course, exist in the districts. there's no medical recourse for most of them---no horomones, no surgeries---but some legal recourse.

a trans person who's done the paperwork can in fact have their chosen name drawn from the correct reaping ball.

lots of trans people manage to socially transition in the districts, often the support of their communities. though the districts prone to homophobia are also often prone to transphobia.

on the subject of chosen names, there are districts where a trans person can choose themselves a new name, and there are others (this is my vision for 7, 4, 1, and 8) where it would be considered disrespectful not to let your parents weigh in on what you name yourself.

you can get horomones in district 1, if you're rich enough.

in fact, district 1 is one of the only districts where medical transition is not only possible, but expected. if you're going to be a girl, you'd better put in the work to be a pretty one.

"non-binary" isn't really a commonly understood concept. it's definitely the experience of some people, but they usually either opt for binary social transition or just. choose not to worry about it. cementing that sort of thing as a commonly understood idea takes a little more critical theory than i think most of the districts have time for right now.

the capitol has gender-affiming surgeries, of course, but you don't get one unless you're prepared to have the entire country very invested in your genitals.

and you don't publicly transition unless you're prepared to have surgery.

so it's not as common for trans people to be out as one might think.

androgyny is very socially acceptable, though, so there's some wiggle room in terms of presentation.

homosexuality is known, understood, legal, and not particularly stigmatized, but rich families are patrilineal eugenicists and adoptees don't count. people will notice and care if you don't try to produce at least one child.

you can have said child out of wedlock, but it's considered crass and undignified. this causes a lot of marriages of convenience. however, these marriages tend to be open, and this is socially acceptable.

the covey, partially by virtue of having seen quite a bit of the country and picked up culture, are pretty open about queerness of any kind.

a trans victor would be expected to have surgery. like. asap after the arena. this could be a blessing or a curse, depending on the person.

nowhere in panem really differentiates between "gay" and "bisexual." they don't even have words for it, really. it's just what some people are like.

overall i think most of the stigma revolves around familial expectations and beauty standards, and has very little to do with christian ideas about sexual purity or gender roles, with a few exceptions.