thieving magpie (in fox tones)

mag, mags, pie, magpie, not maggie. young 20s. catching fandoms like Pokémon.

[desolationcleo]

Acting like there needs to be a single unified fandom consensus on imagery and fanmade lore and symbolism and things left ambiguous in canon and the like with no deviation will kill the patient she needs a ton of different interpretations that all contradict each other to live

[thesmileykate]

right before peeta enters his private session with the gamemakers in the first book, katniss impulsively blurts out a string of suggestions for him (thg, 100). suggestions for him to show off his strength to get a better score. because, first and foremost, she is adorable. and, secondly, because she wants to help him.

peeta is genuinely surprised by the sudden outburst. because katniss has just spent days refusing to indulge in his friendly gestures. because why did it matter to act like friends if there was no one around to see them (thg, 100). they would become enemies soon enough. 

so, in his surprise, peeta searches for a suggestion of his own. and his mind awkwardly lands on one. as he reminds her to shoot straight (thg, 100). 

and thus, they move onto another step of their game. one that started with a tribute parade. and continued to a private session. then an interview. and ended with the games itself.

and the cycle of the games continues. with children being dolled up and paraded around as they await their slaughter.

so, it only makes sense that the 76th hunger games follows the same pattern. after all, katniss and finnick were quick to recognize squad 451's deployment to the capitol as the beginning of just another game (mj, 215). 

a game of mutts. of terror. of lost allies.

but these games don't follow the typical timeline of the games. because every single game, at least in katniss's timeline, begins with a tribute parade. one that ends in front of the president's mansion. 

but this game doesn't start with the tribute parade. it ends with it.

ends as peeta and katniss enter the president's circle. just in time for the parachutes to go off. engulfing them in fire (mj, 296).

because the game up to this point? that was snow's game. a game bound to end. bound to die off. a game merely building up to the actual one. 

because with this fiery entrance in a symbolic tribute parade, coin's game starts off. 

and now with the tribute parade checked off, katniss would be whisked away to her next event. the private session with the gamemakers. gaining their approval by showing off her skill. demonstrating her loyalty by aiming an arrow at a target. at snow.

and right before she leaves for her symbolic session. she is met by a fellow tribute. one already entrenched in the games. ready to keep playing under coin's rules. gale.

 who leaves right before katniss. but not before he can remind her to shoot straight (mj, 312).

and the parallel to the first games should make it clear to the reader what will happen next. 

because in katniss's private session for the first games, her arrow shifted its aim from its intended target to the gamemakers themselves (thg, 102). and now, her arrow would shift to find its mark in coin (mj, 316).

because if she hit the intended mark, gaining the approval of this set of gamemakers? the cycle would continue. a new symbolic hunger games would begin. 

because in a government under coin, nothing would change. because no one is safe in a world where government leaders place such a great disregard for children (mj, 320).

so, with the shift in her arrow, katniss changed the trajectory of the games. because she was done being a piece in their game (thg, 141; mj, 185).

[noisyfoxcloud]

So many people misunderstand the Ides of March.

The roman republic at that time was incredibly corrupt and filled with oportunists. Republic is not immediately better than empire. The republic was ruled by the aristocrats, Caesar was actually from the group Populars which was about trying to promote ideas that the more ordinary people had. His support was literally in the common folk. The other side was called Optimates, optimus in lating means the best. They were the senators and priviliged.

When Caesar was murdered, the common folk were sad and enraged and his murderers had to immediately flee. Yes, Caesar was a dictator - for a few years, because that was a literal republic title! It didnt have bad connotations, it just meant he had special powers. He did hold the office for longer than he should have, but there were precedents for that as well.

And no, Caesar wasn't the first emperor, that was his adopted son Augustus.

So yeah, if you're celebrating this because of the wrong reasons, I hope this urges you to not read blindly. Republic is not better just because its republic, it was in decline and the common folk lived better under the Empire.

[incorrectsmashbrosquotes]

Look, as much as I love celebrating Caesar’s death as the next Tumblrina, there’s an element to this that I think we need to address. About Caesar, about his assassination, about our reaction to it.

It didn’t work.

Killing Julius Caesar didn’t stop Rome from becoming an Empire. If anything it expedited the process. Because all the assassination did was turn Caesar into a martyr for his family and followers to turn into a standard to rally behind. The Republic fell, the Empire rose, and Caesar’s Assassination was the tipping point of it all.

In fact, there’s evidence Caesar had knowledge of the planned Assassination and went anyway, knowing what his death would turn him into. But why?

Fascists don’t get turned on by their followers when they die. They get turned on when they look weak.

By the time of his death, Caesar was sick. There’s evidence that he was incontinent and beginning to have mental problems. All in all, things that made him look weak.

I can’t say what would have happened in Brutus and the Senate had stayed their hand, but history would not have turned out the same way. Certainly, Caesar would not have been turned into a martyr with his assassination. If his followers had seen Caesar as he was, a shambling, dying, sick old man, would that have turned them on him? I can’t say.

The assassination of Julius Caesar isn’t a happy event, it’s a cautionary tale. I’m not saying this to ruin our Ides of March celebration, but I feel it needs to be said. Make Dictators look weak, and then stab them.

[sassy-cass-16]

look i know the hunger games fandom is entrenched in songbirds and snakes brainrot right now but i just wanna mention how horribly genius the tesserae system is

like. it's designed to keep the poorest districts from ever winning the games, by keeping the population of those districts on the verge of starvation without ever tipping the line too far. the poorer you are, the more you need your children to take tesserae. the more tesserae your children take, the more times their name is added to the reaping pool. the more times a name appears in the reaping pool, the more likely they are to be drawn over a person who doesn't need to take tesserae. a kid who's been surviving off of tesserae grain and oil is exponentially more likely to die early on in the games due to the effects of malnutrition (low muscle mass and body fat, not to mention the mental consequences).

pretty much the only reason katniss was physically capable of surviving the games was because she'd been able to catch meat in the forest. surviving on just the tesserae she was taking for her mother and prim, there's no way she would've had the physical strength to make it out alive.

say what you want about the realism of the hunger games but the tesserae system is horrifyingly well-designed to do exactly what it's supposed to do.

[magpieanalysis]

“Tesserae”? I am sure it has been said before, but I would just like to say it again: Snow's shirt buttons are called tesserae, the thing he will use to make the poor have their names in the reaping more times. That is a diabolical detail.

[heartlessmarvello]

Alright. How is it cheating that Haymitch used the force field to win. The game makers put it there, he just used the environment to his advantage, the same as if Katniss impaled someone with a stick you know. Plus the capitol citizens would probably have loved the ingenuity. I don’t think Haymitch was punished for cheating, because he didn’t really. I think he was punished for being a victor from 12. Because Snow is mad. And he hates 12.

[magpieanalysis]

Although you are right, it also is because Snow recognizes a rebel. Haymitch is using a capitol weapon - like Snow did - to win in a fight he could (and likely would) otherwise lose. He uses the Capitol’s tool of subjugation as a personal power play. It is a power he should not possess. Where he is expected to be submissive to the Capitol force-field surrounding the arena - and inherently, the Capitol's absurd constraints upon the districts - Haymitch toys with the system, submitting the force-field itself to his own domination and victory. Symbolically, that's an issue to Snow; it's cheating the system designed for subjugation, not victory. Haymitch might not be cheating according to the rules we know, but he is cheating under the rule of an abusive, manipulative, authoritarian. Especially one who would likely see an exposure of the constructed nature of the Capitol's creations (symbolically or in a literal physical sense) as a threat; a young Coriolanus used that very understanding (knowing that the snakes were accustomed to not attack a recognized scent) to "cheat" Lucy's game (according to the scary authoritarian and the abusive adults of that arena), so he would understand how such an exposure could be a weakness. Authoritarians tend to enforce their own non-explicit rules to mask their flaws, shifting blame and responsibility to attempt to avoid vulnerability.

Snow’s greatest achievement was his own survival, and so although he cannot take that right from Haymitch, he can take it from everyone Haymitch cares about. Because he’s a petty little twat like that.

[magpieanalysis]

I love that every victor from District 12 won by breaking the rules.

Katniss was proficient with a bow and in a forest because she went past the fence and hunted game illegally; Peeta survived because Katniss threatened for the games to not have a victor after the promised rule (presumably influenced by Haymitch?) if he wasn’t saved; Haymitch won because he used the capitol forcefield against his opponent, bringing their weapon into his game; Lucy won because of rat poison brought into the arena and Snow feeding her scent to the snakes.

There was not a victor from twelve that didn’t backhand the Capitol with their survival. lmao.

[magpieanalysis]

What do you know about loss?

“Kazumi-san,” Tanjiro starts in episode seven of Demon Slayer. “No matter how many people you may lose, you have no choice but to go on living. No matter how devastating the blows may be.” Kazumi grabs Tanjiro by the haori in his grief, his anger, and aggressively responds, “What do you know about it? A kid like you?”

I have been thinking about this scene because yes, Tanjiro’s open expression of his soft sadness portrays to Kazumi that Tanjiro does know much of loss. But Tanjiro is not passive in his sadness in this scene. It is also about Kazumi grabbing the haori.

This haori pattern was clearly important within the context of his family. Kazumi literally grabs Tanjiro by a memento of his dead and asks him what he knows of loss; when Tanjiro grabs Kazumi’s wrist and removes it from his clothing, that speaks louder than his face did. He is protecting the memory of his family.

[magpieanalysis]

We really gloss over the Demon Slayer corps sending children to die, don’t we?