Suzanne Collins Wrote A Trilogy Where A Main Media Propaganda Strategy Was To Market A Horrific Act Of

If Taylor Swift used her power for good she would be such a great stochastic terrorist. She would post on Instagram "Hey guys, Tay here. Just wanted to say that whoever delivers me the head of Ron DeSantis on a platter will get free Eras Tour tickets. #ShadeNeverMadeAnybodyLessGay." It would be at her doorstep in two hours.

I love this and Irma

There’s a regular at the fabric superstore. She’s at least 80 years old, and she just got back into sewing after giving it up for 40 years. We’ll call her Irma.

I love Irma.

Irma is constantly surprised by the newfangled sewing gadgets our store sells. Today she bought some extra-fine glass-head pins and a magnetic pincushion. As I’m ringing her purchases up, she tells me very seriously, “did you know, if you’re careful, you can sew RIGHT OVER those pins? You don’t need to take them out!”

I told her that I liked that you can’t accidentally melt the head of the glass pins with your iron, and she nodded. “They used to all be like that, but times changed.”

I love old sewing machines and asked what kind of machine she has, and she goes, “Oh, it’s an old Singer Featherweight that my husband bought me when we were first married. It’s probably not worth anything anymore, but the thing sews fine. Have you seen the ones those girls over there–” indicating the sewing machine sub-store in my location “–have? Those things go in every direction and the needle always comes to the top when you stop sewing! Imagine how handy that is!”

I mention that I used to sew on my grandmother’s Featherweight but now there’s a intra-family war about who owns Grandma’s Featherweight and so no one gets to use it. It’s genuinely the best portable straight-stitch machine I’ve ever used.

I warn her to never let anyone tell her that Featherweight isn’t worth something. “I know, I miss my husband and it’s always going to have a place in my heart, just like your grandma’s.”

“I mean, Irma, there’s that, but they’re also worth a really notable amount of money. The Singer Featherweight is really financially valuable. I almost never see them for sale around here for less than about $400, and that’s in bad condition.”

“It’s a good thing my husband’s dead, honey, because if you told him that he managed to buy a sewing machine that’s worth more in 2021 than he bought it for in 1950, well, he’d be so smug that I just wouldn’t be able to tolerate driving home with him.”

Sometimes it's really hard being emotionally intelligent and self-aware, and also being good at analyzing people and yourself, especially when combined with being an overthinker. I know I'm right, even if it doesn't appear true yet, because my brain recognizes the patterns and has this cycle of self doubt that probably leads to self sabotage. I'm so tired of people not being able to be as emotionally intelligent as me, as it just leads to the loss of relationships and me being jaded, when everything could have been avoided with just simple communication

Part of the writing process is listening to the same song on repeat until the words are absolutely meaningless and you're absorbing the pure, undistilled VIBES.

And then you go adding that essence to your draft like motherfucking vanilla extract, baby.

katniss usually reserves the term beautiful for things of the capitol (or the capitol-esque districts). whether that be cinna's beautiful costumes (thg, 139; cf, 20) or the district one tributes (thg, 69, 192; cf, 54). the role of katniss's prep team is to make her beautiful (mj, 54). 

and because of this association with the capitol, katniss prides herself on not taking pleasure in it. she is eager to "scrub the scent of beauty from her body" when she is in the capitol (thg, 139). and she jokingly teases peeta for being susceptible to the capitol's beauty unlike her (cf, 60). even as prim compliments her on her beauty before the first reaping, katniss is quick to counter that she is nothing like herself (thg, 15).

because while she might describe her woods and the nature around her as beautiful, katniss does not directly call anyone in her close circle beautiful. she will imply that prim is beautiful like how her mother once was (thg, 3). or point out gale's beautiful hands as they assemble the snares (cf, 28). she will allude to the beauty of these people. but never directly coin them as beautiful. except for one person.

because in her overwhelming relief, the peeta that she eagerly rushes to embrace for the first time after the games is clean and healthy and beautiful (thg, 360). it is almost like her mind lets it slip in at the last second. that he is beautiful. and afterward, all of the items that peeta produces are labeled beautiful. his cakes (thg, 95), his cookies (cf, 8), and his pearl (107). it seems like everything that his hands touch become beautiful from association.

and for all of the talk katniss gives about not having an eye for beauty, she relies on it in what she thinks are her final moments. after katniss gives peeta the life-saving medicine and collapses in front of him, her eyes fall on a beautiful green-and-silver moth (thg, 189). and she eagerly searches for a final piece of beauty before the quell arena explodes. but she can't find peeta (cf, 108). she can't find his pearl (cf, 108). so, her eyes eventually settle on a star to give her comfort (cf, 108).

and so it is even more tragic that the one person she allowed herself to deem beautiful was morphed into something else. just like in haymitch's games, where all of the beauty of the eden-esque arena turned into a deadly facade (cf, 56). only now snow has turned katniss's beautiful boy with the bread into a personal weapon against her. and it is so demoralizing to katniss that she vows vengeance and then hopes for a quick death in the process.

but then that makes it even sweeter that peeta is the only person that truly comes back for katniss in the end. because the war was almost successful in taking away everything beautiful from katniss. gale's beautiful snare-constructing hands became the means of senseless violence. prim's face was no longer there to be reminiscent of katniss's mother's beauty.

but there he was. and although burns licked his forehead and scars were scattered throughout his body, no amount of fire could ever burn away the beautiful blue of his eyes. slowly, her beautiful boy came back to her. a long glance across the breakfast table. an awful joke directed towards him that was quickly rewarded with a smile that not even the games could take away (thg, 360). his embrace that hints of cinnamon and dill still there after all this time. because while the war may have convinced katniss that she was unworthy of beautiful things, her dandelion in the spring reminded her that she always was.

We go months without a single song from Rep and then we get two in as many days

When I was a kid, my dad hated when I hung up anything on my walls. My art, band posters, movie posters, anything. Not with taxks, not with tape (it “ripped the paint off”) not with anything. At one point in 5th or 6th grade he came in my room and found me hanging up a Diary of a Wimpy Kid poster with tacos and he was like “EVERY HOLE YOU PUT IN THE WALL TAKES $10 OFF THE VALUE OF THE HOUSE.” so when I was mad at him, I’d insert tacks into the wall in places he couldn’t easily see just out of spite. Whoever owns the house now is probably wondering about it.

You ever just go through an author’s body of work, fic after fic and like want to cry because everything is just so good and you know that this author has got you and you trust them implicitly to take your heart on a wild ride of angst and pining and love and happy feels?

Yeah.

Seriously, bless fic writers. We owe them so much.