thinking about how young!coriolanus snow would be totally obsessed with you in every single aspect. he’d be watching you from the other side of the room if you can’t be together at that very moment. he’d be feeling jealous whenever you‘d talk to someone he sees as a challenge. no matter if it’s your friends or not, he‘ll feel jealous. you laughed with someone he doesn’t like? oh, baby. you can be sure you‘ll be covered in hickeys later that night, maybe it’s hard to walk the next day as well? everything is possible with coriolanus as your boyfriend. just be sure he‘d absolutely have a fucking grin on his face whenever he leaves his marks on you. visible for everyone else to see them. the indication that you are his and only his, everyone would know and be reminded again. you belong to him. he‘s the one who makes you feel things you‘ve never felt before. coriolanus would probably manipulate you into thinking no one else knows you as much as he does, probably not even yourself. that he‘d the one who was made for you and that no one else will ever be as good for you. only he is. and every time he thinks it‘s needed, he‘ll make sure to remind you of those things.

let‘s talk about young!coriolanus (or anything else) <3 | my 'the hunger games' masterlist

ultimately tbosas is an inversion of thg, and our main three characters in each are inversions of the main three counterparts. snow is an inverted katniss; lucy gray is an inverted peeta; sejanus is an inverted gale.

snow and katniss are both constantly aware of their self as it relates to how they are being perceived. they’re both hyper aware of the unspoken rules of society that dictate how they must live their lives. but while snow uses his knowledge to manipulate others for personal political gain within the rules of that society, katniss uses her knowledge to highlight the injustice of the rules themselves. snow would see a friend killed before he would allow himself to be implicated in a crime; katniss would rather kill herself than lose the boy she’s grown to care for in the arena. snow would kill the girl he loves to avoid the potential for political backlash; katniss cannot even perform the most simple of her political duties until she is reunited the boy she loves. they are mirrors — they show us that we all have the potential for greatness in us, the decision we make is whether we use our awareness of the roles we play in society for self-serving gain or for selfless love and compassion.

lucy gray is the inverted peeta. first, they’re both artists who use their art as a strategy: lucy grays songs and peetas camouflage. but more importantly, they both use their ability to perform and manipulate a crowd in order to help another person succeed — to help another person survive the games. peeta confesses his love for katniss in order to draw the audiences attention as a way to help her win; lucy gray performs her songs to the crowd as a way to help snow win. for both of them, it’s a fairly selfless act — they do it because they believe in the inherent goodness in humanity, because they love another person. only where lucy gray believes snow is compassionate and good, he lets her down. peeta believes the same about katniss, and she proves him right.

and sejanus is an inverted gale. they both believe in the injustice of the regime, and neither one of them can mask their disgust for the society that forces them to live this way. sejanus cannot mask his feelings about the capitol students; gale cannot hide his frustration with madge. but where sejanus cannot let himself lose sight of the human cost of it all, and that is ultimately what leads to his undoing, it is the exact opposite that undoes gale. the minute gale loses sight of the fact that he is capable of perpetuating the same horrors he claims to speak out against, he loses himself. and thus he ends the trilogy where sejanus begins: in district 2.

all six characters prove the series’ argument. tbosas shows us the other side of everything we’re shown in thg and comes to the exact same conclusion: we all have our own histories, our own baggage, our own traumas, and they all inform how we engage with our society and how we identify and interact with the injustices that are built into our systems. but we all have a choice: and that choice comes down to whether or not we use the skills we learn from our unique histories for self interest, for violence and revenge and war, or whether we use them for compassion, for love, for understanding.

it’s all the same argument; it’s all the same story.

capitol family lore: mottos?

after creating a motto for the Ravinstill family (Vive sine ulla paenitentia -> Live without any regrets.), I got talking on AO3 with @felixravinstills about the upper class families in the Capitol having family mottos and maybe even coat of arms.

I was originally gonna make this an ask, @/felixravinstills, but I might have started to ramble (oops 😅) and I didn't want to spam your messages

Latin makes sense for the older families, and I see the vision with what you brought up, for newer families to use Neo-latin/Romance languages to come up with their own mottos.

Who knows, maybe there's some unwritten societal rules on who can use them?

Also, does anyone know if the Cardew family is part of the old guard in Canon? I don't know why I always imagined their house as extremely rich, but not one of the 'old' houses. Some older houses might sometimes be like: oh your house is new (even if they've established for quite some decades)

like maybe old enough for a latin motto, but not old enough in the eyes of the 'original' houses.

Ideas

...Plinth motto probably has something to do with loyalty or hardwork to suck up to the Capitol. Snows would have "Snow Lands on Top" as kind of an unofficial motto that they've started using more recently and they probably have a fancy Latin one that's maybe a little boring lol.

Plinth motto: Inspired heavily by HP, something like - Toujours fidèle (translation: always loyal). Maybe they originally had it in English and it was a thing for them to say like "Snow lands on top" and it was adapted into French once they moved from District 2?

I mean it could work with them sucking up to the Capitol and Sejanus' loyalty to Coriolanus and to his beliefs??

Snow motto: okay a fancy latin one that's boring - this is so funny to think about.

possible ideas...

mandamus (we command)

servabo fidem (keeper of the faith)

temet nosce - know thyself

veritas vincit (truth conquers) -> a little ironic but hehe

tbh a nice runner up, even if it makes them sound a little impressive -> Non ducor, duco (I am not led, I lead.)

I'm open to suggestions and comments!

I need this man biblically.

thinking about the fact that they made a point to tell us that there are no cameras in the vents. like- lucy gray is a performer, she is always performing, it is her calling and her survival mechanism and when we meet her she literally cannot stop performing because she is always on camera or being perceived- by coriolanus, by the capital, by her fellow tributes and the folks back at 12. but for that one, awful moment, in the vents, watching dill drink the poisoned water she laid as a trap- for that one moment in the whole entire movie, lucy gray isn’t being observed. that is the only moment in the entire movie she isn’t performing for someone else, and she uses it to grieve

Watching the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is realizing that despite the obvious implication that Lucy Gray is the songbird and Snow is the Snake…it’s likely the opposite.

Lucy gray controlled the snakes and used them as her weapon of choice, the snake biting him was Lucy’s kiss goodbye. She is the snake.

Snow sold Sejanus out through the jabberjay’s, they were his tool to fly back home and back into power. He is the songbird.

But at the same time…as in her Ballad, Lucy Gray flys away with the mockingjays after she sings the Hanging Tree one final time while fleeing Snow. She is physically a songbird. And Snow chose to work with Dr. Gaul, who created and controlled those snakes. He was the snake who betrayed his friend.

Who is the songbird and who is the snake? It’s unclear, but isn’t that the mystery?

when snow says "it's the things we love most that destroy us" we always assume it's about lucy gray but are we sure he's talking about lucy gray and not about his love for power and control that destroyed his relationship with lucy and with sejanus and later destroyed him as a human being

All Sejanus Plinth did was be hot, sad, and sensitive with daddy issues and he got fucked over by a mediocre white man and honestly who hasn’t been there

i wake up thanking god every day that a tweet calling peeta motherrr went viral🧎‍♀️

YOU CANT EXPECT ME TO ACT SANE AFTER THIS.

mags flanagan was the victor of the 11th hunger games. she is probably one of the last people we know of canonically in the games who directly, vividly, remembers lucy gray baird.

she remembers the girl from district 12, who dropped a snake down someone's dress, who sang a song the day of her reaping as a fuck you to the capitol. the girl who charmed an entire country and won the games using sheer ingenuity.

she probably remembers reports of the capitol boy who served as her mentor, remembers the blond boy who broke the rules and stayed in that zoo enclosure with her. probably remembers the reports of him doing everything he can to save this girl. coriolanus snow. she remembers that name, tucks it away, connecting it with decency and integrity.

she probably, as a young girl, thought that maybe there was some good left in this world. if a capitol boy would put his neck and life on the line for a lowly girl from district 12, who would defy every social rule for her, then maybe there was some hope.

she probably remembers the rumours that floated around after those games, remembers how they said that blond boy ran away to be with her. remembers how no one heard from or about lucy gray baird ever again, and then next year she goes on to compete and win the games.

and then when the victors are made to be mentors, she looks for that girl, lucy gray baird, wonders if she could ask her questions about her games, about her life now, about coriolanus snow, the blond boy who changed the games themselves for her. but she is nowhere to be found. lucy gray baird is now a legend, passed down in hushed tones amongst the ones who still remember her. the girl who charmed an entire arena of snakes, the girl with the guitar, the girl who said nothing they could take from her was worth keeping.

and then she returns year after year, and a decade or so passes until she hears a familiar name. a name she expected died away in district 12 in obscurity, because there is no way the capitol would let his impunity pass unpunished, would they?

but here he is, president coriolanus snow.

she wonders how he's still here, and how he betrayed her memory, betrayed what lucy gray baird stood for, what he once stood for. but there he stands, impassive, cursorily shaking her hand before she stops herself from asking about the girl with the rainbow skirt.

then comes another victor from district 12, and she turns the games on their head, much like her predecessor. mags watches her, wonders if president coriolanus snow is thinking the same thing she is. when the quarter quell rolls around and finnick tells her about the burgeoning spark of a rebellion and how the girl on fire might be the one who fully set it ablaze, she agrees wholeheartedly to return to that arena.

she thinks about telling him about lucy gray baird and her story, but doesn't think he would believe her if she did. when she sees snow again, knowing certain death lies ahead, she finally asks him the question that's rested on her lips for half a century.

she asks him about the girl in the rainbow skirt.

THE HUNGER GAMES MASTERLIST.

last updated: 06th, march 2024 | back to masterlist overview.

❀ - request | * - smut

if you can‘t find a certain character on this list here — it means that i don’t write for this character! :)

› CORIOLANUS SNOW ‹

He‘s obsessed with you. | thoughts, slightly leaning into 16+?, gn!reader | [01th, january 2024]

* He‘s teasing you. | smut thoughts, no specified reader | [18th, january 2024]

Twisted Jealousy. | angst, implied smut at the end, no specified reader | [27th, january 2024]

↳ summary: You and Coriolanus were rivals, always teasing each other and making a challenge out of everything. There were non talked feelings between you and someone finally needed to take some action before it would be too late.

arranged fiancè!coriolanus rarely showed any sign of feelings. | thoughts, gn!reader | [06th, march 2024]

› SEJANUS PLINTH ‹

coming soon

› FINNICK ODAIR ‹

coming soon

both snow and katniss understand the way poverty forces an individual to “perform” in one way or another (albeit for different ends). see: snow engaging in the performance of wealth at school and pretending his family is not struggling in order to maintain his class status in the aftermath of the war. and katniss performing that her family’s level of poverty is not as bad as it truly is in order to avoid prim being sent away to the community home.

this makes it interesting that snow says at the end of mj that they have both been “played for fools” by coin. and perhaps it’s because neither of them understood her. because coin was never performing — her cards were always on the table. (she’s the one who casually suggests that they present gale as katniss’ new lover — she doesn’t ask katniss to perform for her, she just states the game outright.) but at the same time, this is coin’s ultimate weakness — because she doesn’t understand this axis of performance, of “playing the games” so to speak, she can’t anticipate that katniss would lie about wanting the final hunger games to win her favor. she assumes the game is over — but katniss knows that there is always a level of performance that must be involved in self-expression. whether that be in how one presents their sister to the world in order to mask their true poverty, or how one presents themselves on a screen to win an audiences favor, or even how one speaks to the president in order to manipulate the highest levels of government. the game never ends — it only evolves.

so in that way, snow and katniss are the same: they are both adept at playing the game of their society. but while snow abuses that knowledge to reinforce these unspoken social rules and raise himself and his status higher, katniss uses it to undermine, disrupt, and subsequently dismantle it all.

„you have to stop rescuing me“

Star-crossed lovers meeting their fate. A revenge story turned in on itself.

not a coryo girl but damn.