sarahwrites1234

[thgfanspotlights]

@sarahwrites1234 | sarahwrites1234 | Sarah

What's your THG origin story?

I started reading THG in middle school when I was obsessed with all things dystopia. My friends and I loved the series and went to see the movies together when they came out.

What are your favorite things about the series?

I really appreciate Katniss’s limitations as a narrator. Rather than info dumping everything about Panem from the beginning, we get to discover it through Katniss’s eyes, with one layer after another being peeled back to reveal the full horror.

I also like that unlike many critiques of authoritarianism, the Capitol is all too recognizable. It’s very easy to write an evil regime as an allegory for Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, etc. and then condemn it without any further soul searching. In my opinion, THG does something a lot more interesting by showing our consumerism and appetite for exploitative entertainment taken to their logical extremes.

What’s something about the series that’s stayed with you or become more meaningful to you over time?

When I first read Mockingjay, it was my least favorite installment of the series. To my preteen/young teen tastes, it just wasn’t exciting and wasn’t what I expected. I wanted action, the Games, Katniss saves the day.

As an adult, I now realize that not getting that is the whole point. Katniss is written as a traumatized teenager who adults want to use as a symbol in their war, not an action hero. THG holds up for me as an adult because I can reread it and see an entirely different story than I did back then.

When did you begin creating? What inspired you to begin?

For fanfic in general, I think I’ve been writing it in my head since before I even knew what fanfic was. I started actually posting it during the Covid pandemic.

For THG specifically, it was when I read SOTR that it really stuck in my head. It struck me just how much about Haymitch we never saw through Katniss’s eyes. Then, I thought about how each and every one of the victors in the Quarter Quell probably has a story that is equally complex and real — including the careers. Especially the careers.

I got to thinking that the books, and even more so the movies, don’t do the careers justice. Katniss is definitely starting to get it by the end with befriending Finnick and including Enobaria in her immunity request, but the waters get muddied by Enobaria voting to continue the Games and the baffling decision to make D4 not a career district in the movies.

I wanted to let a career tell their own story rather than seeing it through Katniss’s eyes. I wanted a story where they are neither cold-blooded killers who think the Games are wonderful and want the glory of winning nor innocent lambs who end up in the Games by accident and somehow have their fishing skills translate perfectly to child murder. Thus began my Finnick fanfic, “Blood in the Water,” which has since grown to 224k words and counting, plus several spinoffs.

What is your favorite thing to depict in your work?

I really like taking people and events that are part of our public consciousness and then depicting what lies underneath what is visible to the public. We generally see a very carefully curated version of public figures, but what goes on behind the scenes for a child star, a tech magnate, or a nepo baby?

What’s your personal favorite of your works?

I really like my modern AU fic, Panemonium, actually. It’s quite unusual for me because modern AUs aren’t typically my cup of tea, but I very much enjoyed translating THG characters into their equivalents in our world. Some of them fit disturbingly well.

If you could recommend just one, which would it be?

Well, I have to recommend my ongoing longfic “Blood in the Water,” but if you aren’t looking for that much of a commitment, I would suggest “First Impressions” as a good starting point. It is the story of Johanna and Finnick watching each other’s Games and the misconceptions they initially had about one another.

What are the main characteristics of your favorite canon characters you always try to maintain in your stories?

Oh, man. How long have you got?

Finnick is always funny, charismatic, and shameless on the surface while breaking underneath. He seems like the most confident person you’ve ever met, but actually he’s dealing with immense shame and is desperate for no one to see it. It’s very interesting to me to explore how much of Finnick’s public persona is an act versus how much is real. I think he is legitimately an extremely outgoing, charismatic, and social person, but then the Capitol takes all those core traits and dials them up to a ridiculous extreme. Finnick has been performing that role for so long that sometimes even he doesn’t know where Capitol Finnick ends and real Finnick begins. He’s also incredibly socially perceptive and intelligent, though he doesn’t see himself as intelligent because school was never really his thing.

Annie is interesting because we don’t get much of her in canon, so she’s kind of a blank slate. My version of her is artistic, observant, confident, unapologetic, and intensely loyal. She’s Finnick’s best friend long before they are romantically involved, and she will absolutely go to war if anyone insults him.

Mags is just about the strongest person to ever exist. She has been there since almost the beginning of the Games and has experienced more personal tragedy than most people can even comprehend. Even so, she has never given up and continues to care for her tributes and victors in any small way she can. She is deeply maternal and loving, but also incredibly clever and strategic. She is loving, but never coddling. You would be a fool to underestimate her.

Katniss I haven’t written too much of because of the timeline I am working in, but she is definitely one of my favorite characters. She can be judgmental and distant at first, but once she decides she likes you, you’re in. She’s intensely loyal to those she loves and motivated to defend the weak. She tends to underestimate herself. She’s very competent and confident in areas she perceives to be her strengths, but often that perception is too narrow and she downplays other areas. She can be very perceptive about systems yet hilariously clueless about people and their motives.

Haymitch is a character who I try never to sanitize. He has a good heart, but it is buried beneath decades of grief, alcoholism, and cynicism. Still, he is clever and can be darkly funny. His care comes out sideways on occasion, and he often manages in his drunken haze to cause trouble for the right people.

Johanna is definitely not everybody’s cup of tea. She is opinionated, blunt to the point of rudeness, and by no means warm and friendly. However, if you take the time to get to know her, you will come to realize that her prickly demeanor is largely defensiveness. Johanna has a strong sense of justice and hates feeling weak more than anything.

Tell us about an OC of yours. What inspired them and what purpose do they serve in your works?

Ovidius Tang has got to be my favorite OC. He’s a horrible person but a very fun character to write. He is loosely inspired by a certain tech mega-multi-billionaire who shall remain nameless. I originally intended him as a one-off character whose main function was to put Finnick in contact with a drug dealer, but he really stuck with me and ended up with a much larger role.

Ovidius is the second richest man in Panem (maybe first by now, IDK) and controls much of the tech infrastructure. He is not by any means a good person, but he also has no real loyalty to Snow or to the Games as an institution — only to himself. He develops something of a fixation on Finnick and comes to be his “least bad” buyer, if such a thing exists. He’s the sort of guy who can work miracles for Finnick, who can make problems disappear — but always at a cost.

My one-shot entitled “Spaceships, Fairy Dust, and a Blue Dog” is the story of Ovidius’s relationship with Finnick as told from his perspective.

Tell us about your favorite relationship (of any kind) in the series. Why is it your favorite?

I’m a big Odesta fan, largely because we get so little information in canon. Katniss is not a nosy person, so her conclusion is just, “Finnick loves her, so that’s good enough for me,” but I absolutely want to know more! There is something so beautiful about these two broken people who are facing every possible barrier to love somehow finding it anyway.

Anyone you would like to shout out in the fandom?

@aliceinthinkland for being my first regular reader/commenter in the fandom and because everything she writes is incredible!

[sarahwrites1234]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

New chapter is up for my fic, Blood in the Water... and it's a huge one for everyone's favorite future rebel stylist

[sarahwrites1234]

I think one under appreciated aspect of Katniss’s limitations as a narrator is that we get a very warped view of the Capitol. I see a lot of people taking the behavior of characters like Plutarch, Effie, Drusilla, etc. and then extrapolating that out to all Capitol citizens, and I don’t think that is accurate at all, even if Katniss thinks it is. The thing is, most of the Capitol characters we encounter, at least during the first two books, are part of the elite class. They are from old money families, ones that were at the Academy alongside Coriolanus. Judging all Capitol citizens based on Plutarch and Effie would be like judging what all Americans are like based on the Kennedy family.

There is a lot of selection bias when most of the characters you meet are directly involved in the Games or otherwise visible on TV. First of all, most of the more visible roles (stylist, escort, gamemaker, etc) are considered prestigious, so they usually go to people with a great deal of nepotism on their side. So these are elites who are well aware of the full evil and depravity of the Capitol and benefit from it. The less prestigious grunt work positions (e.g. preps) may not go to elites, but they are still going to be almost universally social climbers who either lack the intellectual curiosity to question the games or lack the moral fiber to care. Because anyone who did care would get burned out of a job like that super quickly.

So what is the average Capitol citizen actually like? I think a lot closer to the Capitol rebels we see (Cressida, Messalla, Castor, and Pollux) than the crowd involved in the games. More privileged than district people, sure, but not grotesquely rich. Squad 451 even hides in a capitol apartment, and it seems very much like standard, middle class type housing. The sort of people who can afford to keep their pantry stocked with cans but aren’t regularly wearing designer clothes or attending parties where it is normal to make yourself sick so you can continue stuffing your face. That probably still seems like insane privilege to someone like Katniss who grew up in extreme poverty, but it’s really just ordinary middle class.

I also suspect that the average Capitol citizen isn’t quite so comfortable with the games as Katniss assumes. Naturally, the people who attend the parties and parades are, but those may just be the vocal minority. Keep in mind that these people are living under an authoritarian regime where speaking out gets you killed and where all the media they consume is propaganda. So you can’t exactly go around openly saying so if you think the games are bad. You might feel like the only person in the room who has that opinion, even if 9 out of 10 people actually agree with you. You stay silent because it’s dangerous, and you still watch the games because a) they are wildly entertaining no matter how awful you find it and b) it’s literally illegal not to.

So yeah, it’s not exactly admirable to do nothing, but it is very realistic. How many people throughout history have actively resisted evil regimes versus how many people just kept their heads down and lived another day? People like Cinna and Cressida aren’t the only ones who think the Games are bad; they are just the only ones brave enough to risk everything to stop them.

[mamawasatesttube]

the thing about media literacy is that understanding why the author chose to specify that the curtains are blue is the same skill set as understanding that the way the author characterizes all black characters as angry or all chinese characters as meek and silent is racist. it is the same skill set as being able to identify when a news source is biased or when someone is feeding you propaganda. the ability to ask "why did this person choose to present this premise in this specific way?" is a critical skill in a world full of misinformation. why are the curtains blue? maybe it's a characterization detail. maybe it's extraneous worldbuilding. why is this character written as being right all the time? maybe you're intended to disagree with them. maybe it doesn't matter. maybe you should still ask why.

[hyperrbolic-orange]

My hot take RE: The Hunger Games is that Beetee doesnt get nearly enough shit.

I include myself in this. Post Mockingjay I was like, the #1 Gale Hater for what happened to Prim but I rarely implicated Beetee in my hatred (mostly because I didnt like Gale prior to this but did like Beetee a lot and partly because I started to picture Jeffrey Wright when thinking of Beetee and I like Jeffrey Wright).

But like, Gale didn't really have the foresight to see how the weapons and traps he was designing could be used against them, or the true devastation they could cause. He was angry, basically little more than a kid himself. He trusted the adults around him to aim his weapons at their enemy, not to make more sacrifices in the name of peace.

Which brings me to Beetee, who consistently uses children as pawns in his plans for rebellion, regardless of the consequences for those children.

Children who want to rebel, who are willing to give their lives and shed blood for the name of the cause but cant fully understand the full scope of what theyre being pulled into, because they dont know the whole picture. They're never told, never fully brought into the loop.

When Haymitch wants to help, says he wants to "paint his poster" or whatever, he cannot fully conceive of the consequences of his actions. He thinks it's his life they'll come after and since he's a dead man anyways he might as well go out making a statement. He seems to believe that his death would be the end of any repercussions. Unlikely, but he's not thinking beyond the games here. Why would he?

Beetee should be. Beetee has seen these consequences play out again and again, he understands exactly the kind of horror Haymitch is signing up for. He uses him anyways.

Ampert too. Even his own son, whose death is already being set up as his punishment, he still takes this as an opportunity to use him one last time.

And yeah, Ampert was going to die anyway. But he didnt have to die like that.

Beetee is the smartest guy in Panem. He knows the consequences, knows what will happen to these kids, the likely horrors they're inviting by engaging in this rebellion. He's done the math and he considers their sacrifice worth the cost.

At the end of Mockingjay, Katniss thinks there is something significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its children's lives to settles its differences. This is when she decides to kill Coin, I believe, because she realizes she's not fundamentally different from Snow.

Ultimately I dont believe Beetee is the same as Coin at all, but this quote does still apply to him. It applies to Plutarch, too.

What do you call the good guys when they do so many horrible things?

[danadelion]

Just finished reading the Hunger games trilogy.

I wanted to capture the book versions, but the film adaptations still have an iron grip on me, so you might see some similarities

[batcavescolony]

the difference between Haymitch and Katniss's narration is so funny. Haymitch would give us everyone's social security number if he knew them, while Katniss wouldn't even tell us her mom's name.

[irlplasticlamb]

so after, when he whispers, “you love me. real or not real?” i tell him, “real.”

prints + merch + commission info pinned to profile :)

[fakelawyerbug]

I've seen a bunch of "fandom etiquette" posts on my dash today and I'm going to say something that is maybe going to be unpopular but;

The absolutely pervasive mentality that unwanted criticism or critique shouldn't be given and should be ignored is why fans of color don't stay in fan spaces.

And I am not going to mince words here:

A lot of you are racist. A lot of your fan works are racist.

That might have been difficult to hear. And if it was, you should probably reflect on why that was.

"Fandom etiquette" has created a space where fans of color either bite our tongues and eventually leave or say something, get dogged on, and then eventually leave.

So much of "fandom etiquette" seems to be about insulating creatives from Feeling Bad and hostility to any kind of negative feedback is a pretty big contributor to why bigotry festers in these spaces.

[sarahwrites1234]

This is somewhere that I am genuinely conflicted. On one hand, I don’t personally mind constructive criticism. If anyone feels that I am portraying a minority group in a harmful way, I absolutely want to know so that I can grow as a person and as a writer.

But on the other hand, I will say that fan work communities are ripe with content that would 100% not fly anywhere else, and the lack of censorship is very important. It’s meant to be a safe space to explore even the most taboo topics. When you start policing content, even if it is intended in a polite and constructive way, that is a very slippery slope to shaming and dog piling.

But on the other other hand, some of the stuff out there is really vile, and I hate for people of color, survivors, or anyone else to feel unwelcome in fandom spaces.

So in summary… I don’t know. I’m not going to personally comment on fan works I disagree with, but if anyone else does, I respect that.

[nondelphic]

the concept of "canon" is fake anyway. if you write a fanfic with better emotional arcs than the original you win. i said what i said

[entnoot]

Johanna Mason my beloved 🪓

[kito-oh-kito]

I was doing an art study but accidentally drew Katniss

[sarahwrites1234]

new fic

Spaceships, Fairy Dust, and a Blue Dog

Summary:

The fact of the matter was that Ovidius found most people, male and female alike, to be dreadfully dull. They all spent their lives obsessing over pointless minutiae, never once having an original thought or asking an interesting question. There were simply so many things Ovidius found more interesting than people that he really couldn’t be bothered with most. All in all, it seemed highly unlikely that he would ever fall in love.

Sometimes Ovidius thought that perhaps if he had children, he might love them. Most people did, after all. It was genetically hard-wired into the human brain. But Ovidius had no particular desire to have children, and given that he was hardly able to stomach sex with Anaya Quinn once, the odds that it would happen without intent were negligible. So Ovidius fully expected to go his entire life without ever experiencing love.

And then there was Finnick.

This is the story of a morally bankrupt, genius multi-billionaire and the closest thing he ever knew to love.

It is not a pretty story.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

[sunthoon]

Project Hail Mary fans after finishing the book and the movie

[tyler-the-geek]

im dyinggg

@conartist170

[bebx]

“if you love this character then you must make him happy in your fics, right?” wrong. the horror. suffering. internal hemorrhage. hospital. immediately

[rosiethorns88]

"Frozen Moment"

Dropping the latest Sketch-a-Wish, voted on by my lovely Patreon members for December! Featuring Katniss and Peeta from Catching Fire when they take a day off on the roof of the Capitol training center.

It's been a while since I've seen the Hunger Games movies, and working on this whetted my appetite, so I jumped straight from Catching Fire. It was sad that they skipped this scene though, I could tell the exact moment it was cut. Y'all know how I like symbolism, and I wanted to think that Peeta was a bit more optimistic finding an opportunity to spend some downtime with Katniss (hence, why he's cast in the sunset light), where as I feel like Katniss was just taking solace in the afternoon bubble they carved out for themselves, resting in the shade.