and in the distance, I saw / proud, solemn/fern-wild

-

In Ballad, they’re like wild animals, caged and starved as a form of revenge

In Sunrise, Haymitch being likened to some kind of pet by his prep team and in the afterparty of the games

In The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, they’re like celebrities trapped in a sick parasocial relationship with the people who will, in a week, get to see them die

Usually prequels are a dangerous thing to write because unless they’re planned out well in advance, they risk contradicting lore in the main series. Even still, we knew barely anything about Haymitch’s games. They were the perfect stomping ground for new information, with a rough series of events but without a close temporal connection to the main books.

But though she had this freedom and safety net, while she could have just written a story that aligned with what we knew, Collins leaned into the idea of contradicting past lore head on and made it the damn thesis of the book; that yeah, actually, it did play out entirely differently from how the characters saw it, and yes that contradicts what you were told, that’s the point.

We didn’t really know what happened in the 50th games until we read it from Haymitch’s perspective, because what little information we did have was spliced up and edited. The video evidence was processed through the Capital, and twisted to serve their purposes.

The Everdeen family + their flower namesakes

renesmee: renesmee

new classmate: that’s… interesting

renesmee: my mom was on crack when she named me

bella, sitting literally two seats away: 

Rolf Winkler (1884–1942) - “Laughing Jester Skull”

vignette from ‘Der Orchideengarten’ Vol.1 #3, 1918

Just after sunset Venus can be seen in the western sky appearing as a bright star. 

La Fuente de Los Olvidados (Hardcover Design) by VladFaustoA