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no one should entirely despise and hate gale for the death of prim and for the death of prim only.

no one ever talks about how beetee played a ginormous role in the capitol bombing, and it wasn’t gale’s decision to have prim stationed there. that was coin.

coin had basically groomed gale, and of course that doesnt excuse everything that gale did but it does provide a very provable explanation to how he acted in 13.

almost all everlark stans dont want to admit that gale was another underprivileged, impoverished, malnourished and desperate teenager living in a dystopian hellscape where he HAD to hunt otherwise he had no food nor income for his family aside from being a coal miner, just like katniss, just like prim, just like every kid in the seam or arguably district 12 as a whole.

gale is well written and complex, he isnt just a surface level douche that wanted to bomb children for the fun of it. he was a vulnerable, traumatized teenager that was radicalized by the adults above him.

he obviously played a part in the death of prim, but he was the main reason anyone from district 12, including prim and asterid, lived to be in 13.

of course i really dont like gale and am nowhere near the level of those “team gale” freaks (there is no team gale nor love triangle imo). he had a very odd view of his and katniss’ relationship. it was solely transactional to him, and that was it. he acted like katniss owed him love when she was in a horrible headspace and constantly jacked up on meds. what he said about peeta when peeta was being tortured day in and day out day out was horrendous.

and even when he realized that he “loved” katniss was in a transactional situation. darius was teasing katniss that one of his kisses was worth a squirrel, and gale realized that “he minded” if other people talked to katniss that way.

and on another note i dont think katniss ever really saw him as more than her best friend. in the books the description of him kissing her was kind of a nothing burger. all that really was said was “i felt his lips. it smelled like trees”. meanwhile there are multi paragraph descriptions of when her and peeta kiss that is much more emotional for the reader/watcher and katniss herself. even when she says that she would probably marry him it’s only really because other people expect her to, not because she wants to.

thank you for coming to my ted talk and me and my boyfriend will have matching katniss and peeta pfps after i indoctrinate him into the hunger games fandom

I might translate this article later today. This one was the most complete one, even in Italian news it's not talked about that much.

sometimes i have to remind myself that im also a real person thats interacting with other real people

But the more I think about it, the longer I believe that headcanon doesn’t really hold up.

Because I think what actually draws Sejanus to people is kindness. People who are good, who are selfless, people who go out of their way to help others. It’s the reason why he still remembers Marcus doing something nice to him ten years later. Marcus didn’t have to help him with the swelling in his hand, and he still did. It’s such a small gesture but it speaks volumes to what Sejanus values in a person.

And the thing about snowjanus (and I’m basing this in the book only) is that Coriolanus was only ever nice to Sejanus. All the horrible stuff he thinks about him and his family he never says out loud. From Sejanus’s perspective, Coriolanus was the only person in the entirety of the Capitol who treated him with the barest decency. It’s easy to see how he could mistake Coriolanus not being openly horrible to him for kindness.

I also have the headcanon they weren’t really close until the 10th Games — and it’s during this period where they get closer and Sejanus’s opinion of Coriolanus as a good person cements. Because again, he’s not privy to Coriolanus thoughts, so what he sees is a fellow classmate who goes above and beyond to help his tribute, that cheats and defies the system to protect her (just like Sejanus does) and even jokes about being a rebel.

To Sejanus, Coriolanus was only ever a good friend. A good person. How could he not be drawn to that?