thinking about how the hunger games were designed to prove that without society, order, government, someone to rule, we devolve into little more than animals, and how the games themselves prove over and over again that this is not true. We see it in every single game we witness.

Katniss placing flowers around Rue's body in the arena. Thresh sparing Katniss because she was kind to Rue, even though he was making it that much harder for himself to win.

Haymitch going back for Maysilee after hearing her scream even though their alliance had been broken. Haymitch holding her as she dies the same way Katniss did Rue.

Coral's "I can't have killed them all for nothing" when she realizes she's not going home. Lamina cutting down Marcus at great personal risk. And, my favorite moment in tbosas, Reaper collecting the bodies of his fellow tributes, his peers, even the ones who tried to kill him, into a pile. Taking the weapons from their hands. Closing their eyes and crossing their arms in the best approximation of a proper burial he can manage, covering them with the Capitol flag as a makeshift shroud.

The Games bring out the worst in people, yes. But despite the extreme circumstances, despite the exterior pressure of the Capitol, despite the fact that it could mean pain and heartbreak and death, it also shows that people have an enormous capacity for goodness. That even in a situation purposefully designed to make empathy impossible, people can't help but have it anyway.

Snow looks at the Games and all he can see is what's inside himself-- this pure animalistic drive to conquer and defeat. He kills and it feels good and he thinks that everyone else must feel that way too. He doesn't realize (maybe can't realize) that he is the exception, not the rule. He cannot see outside himself, outside his own warped perspective, to realize that the fact that people do show humanity in the games proves his entire worldview wrong.

STUDIO INVESTIGRAVE

I love first-person because it’s about what the narrator chooses to tell. What do they focus on? What do they leave out? What can you learn from reading between the lines? Are they lying to you? Are they lying to themself? It’s great for unreliable narrators and for epistolary storytelling! It’s intimate but there’s still a distance because you aren’t really seeing the narrator’s thoughts--you’re just seeing the story that they’ve constructed.

I love second-person because it’s a conversation. Does “you” mean a broad, indefinite “you”? Does “you” really mean “I” but with plausible deniability? Does “you” mean one specific person? Can they hear the narrator? Do they know the narrator? What is the relationship here? Who’s talking? Who’s listening?

I love third-person limited because it’s focused and intimate. What does the world look like from inside this character’s head? What are they seeing? What are they feeling? It doesn’t grant them the privacy that first-person does; the narrative isn’t something they’ve chosen, it’s invisible and inescapable. As a reader you’re not watching so much as astral projecting.

(I love singular point of view because of how much it leans into that limitation. You’re not getting the whole story; you’re not seeing anything unless this character sees it. How do you embrace that? What do you do with the gaps around the edges? How does that define--or warp--the events that they’re experiencing?

I love multiple points of view because of how it broadens your understanding of the story and the world. If two point-of-view characters react in opposite ways to the same thing, what does that tell you about them? About the world? How does it feel to spend time inside a character’s head and then see them from someone’s else’s point of view? How do all of these viewpoints work together?) 

I love third-person omniscient because the narrative is a character. It’s great for stories that know they’re stories! It allows for a camaraderie between the narrator and the reader! It allows for wider and more cinematic descriptions because you’re not limited to what a specific person can see! It lets you look at the characters from outside while still giving you the option to delve into their heads because you have full control over what you’re focusing on!

And I love authors who can combine viewpoints in ways you wouldn’t think would work but manage to pull it off! Stories with multiple point-of-view characters where one is first-person and the others are third! Stories that combine first- and second-person! Stories where the omniscient narrator suddenly refers to themself in the first person! Stories where you realize halfway through that you were wrong about who was narrating it!

Isn’t it fantastic that there are so many different ways to tell stories!!!!

Listen, friends.

Someone is going to be elected president in November. There are going to be two options. There is no world in which someone who is not Biden or the GOP nominee -- presumably, somehow, Trump -- win the election.

Is Biden my favorite politician? No.

Has he accomplished a ton of good things in the last three years? Absolutely yes.

Pretending otherwise is disingenuous and dangerous.

If you do not vote, you are voting for fascism, full stop. Because you know who always shows up to vote? Your shitty racist neighbors, and the white nationalists trying to stop affirmative action, and the homophobic gun owners who want the party that's made dismantling marriage equality and civil protections for queer people a part of their platform, and religious fundamentalists who believe that women should be the subject of their husbands. They vote in drives, because they don't demand perfection from their candidates, just that they hate the same way they do, and do it loudly.

This left wing thing where people yell about how voting for a candidate that doesn't check every box is a valid political protest is deeply stupid and absolutely wrong. All this accomplishes is to discourage voting and make people stop trying to push for better from our politicians.

Not voting for a candidate that doesn't do everything you want them to is giving a point to the one that wants to bring out loud fascism to the US.

There will be a winner in November, and it's going to be A or B. The system sucks, but it's the one we have, and if we don't vote for the one who is actively working for at least some of the right things, we're going to end up with the one that's working for stripping rights away from the majority of Americans.

Just fucking vote.

Men likers

okay I know the “do you bleed?” line in Batman V Superman was universally mocked, but imagine if you’ve spent your whole life invulnerable and some crazy motherfucker dressed in a bat suit who brands people for fun and has no problem crashing millions of dollars worth of military grade tech stares at you with a crazy gleam in his eye and asks if you bleed like he’s personally and scientifically invested in seeing you do so. I would’ve shit my pants, super powers be damned.

i think one of the things the pjo show has understood the best so far is specifically the isolation and insecurities that come with being neurodivergent, and how it reflects onto percy. the book touches on it a lot, but i think rick really wanted to push percy's own internal struggles more obviously to the forefront for the show.

Percy references again and again how inattentive and zoned out he is constantly, and how he blames himself for being stuck in his own world. He feels crazy and misjudged by everyone around him just for having what everyone else presumes is a very active imagination, hyperactivity, and a brain that works differently. and when people do acknowledge his differences, even attempting to spin them positively to him, like Sally and "Mr. Brunner," it only makes him feel worse, because again the only thing they can tell him is that he's "special," inherently other, something he's come to associate with being an embarrassing and shameful thing, with Nancy calling him "special" as an insult. I've seen "special" thrown at nd kids as an insult by their peers over and over again since I was little. So Percy can't help but believe it's a negative thing, no matter what the adults that do support him in his life try to tell him, because it's been internalized that he's just different in a way that's bad and inferior, and that that there's a reason he's lonely and troubled and delinquent. Even if it was a positive thing, like Sally and "Mr. Brunner" insist to him, he feels inherently isolated and confused and wrong in the mortal world for being different, and like there's nothing that can change that or make him normal.

We see Percy break down in front of Sally after being expelled about how he's terrified something's irrevocably wrong inside him now. And his immediate reaction of rage and confusion when the only thing she can tell him, once again, is that he's special. And I think that is really going to resonate with a generation of nd people who've experienced these types of scenarios.

🎆🥳🎉 HAPPY NEW YEAR 2024 🎉🥳🎆

Here's to many more games at Studio Investigrave 💞

thinking about how Humans Are Space Orcs stories always talk about how indestructible humans are, our endurance, our ability to withstand common poisons, etc. and thats all well and good, its really fun to read, but it gets repetitive after a while because we aren't all like that.

And that got me thinking about why this trope is so common in the first place, and the conclusion I came to is actually kind of obvious if you think about it. Not everyone is allowed to go into space. This is true now, with the number of physical restrictions placed on astronauts (including height limits), but I imagine it's just as strict in some imaginary future where humans are first coming into contact with alien species. Because in that case there will definitely be military personnel alongside any possible diplomatic parties.

And I imagine that all interactions aliens have ever had up until this point have been with trained personnel. Even basic military troops conform to this standard, to some degree. So aliens meet us and they're shocked and horrified to discover that we have no obvious weaknesses, we're all either crazy smart or crazy strong (still always a little crazy, academia and war will do that to you), and not only that but we like, literally all the same height so there's no way to tell any of us apart.

And Humans Are Death Worlders stories spread throughout the galaxy. Years or decades or centuries of interspecies suspicion and hostilities preventing any alien from setting foot/claw/limb/appendage/etc. on Earth until slowly more beings are allowed to come through. And not just diplomats who keep to government buildings, but tourists. Exchange students. Temporary visitors granted permission to go wherever they please, so they go out in search of 'real terran culture' and what do they find?

Humans with innate heart defects that prevent them from drinking caffeine. Humans with chronic pain and chronic fatigue who lack the boundless endurance humans are supposedly famous for. Humans too tall or too short or too fat to be allowed into space. Humans who are so scared of the world they need to take pills just to function. Humans with IBS who can't stand spicy foods, capsaicin really is poison to them. Lactose intolerance and celiac disease, my god all the autoimmune disorders out there, humans who struggle to function because their own bodies fight them. Humans who bruise easily and take too long to heal. Humans who sustained one too many concussions and now struggle to talk and read and write. Humans who've had strokes. Humans who were born unable to talk or hear or speak, and humans who through some accident lost that ability later.

Aliens visit Earth, and do you know what they find? Humanity, in all its wholeness.

NO ONE TALK TO ME RN. OHMYGODFDMMEEUIEHA

i LOVE THEM SO MUCH I CANT CONTAIN MYSELFFF. IM RIGHT NEXT TO MY PARENTS RN ICANT RUNNING AROUND JUMPING WHILE SCREAMING. IM GOING CRAZYYY

has anyone done this yet?

I haven't seen anyone who's done this

Doodled them silly lil schmookums

*rings bell* calling all studio investigrave and racheldrawsthis fans please be my friend here are my offerings

STUDIO INVESTIGRAVE

protagonist & deuteragonist

once i was in a creative writing class in college, and in a bit of humor i wrote the line:

"Um," I said, eloquently.

And my teacher was so adamant that I had to remove it because "um is not an eloquent word, so it makes no sense" and i was like my brother in christ it's called Irony

Sig games multiverse.... Of chaos?