Next Stop: Everywhere

it's not "am I good enough to do it?", it's "do I like it enough to be bad at it?"

Keeping this quote to my grave

When Everything Everywhere All at Once said “The only thing I do know is that we have to be kind. Please, be kind, especially when we don’t know what’s going on" 

When the Good Place said "Why choose to be good every day when there is no guaranteed reward now or in the afterlife… I argue that we choose to be good because of our bonds with other people and our innate desire to treat them with dignity. Simply put, we are not in this alone.” 

When Jean-Paul Sartre said ”‘Hell is other people’ is only one side of the coin. The other side, which no one seems to mention, is also 'Heaven is each other’. Hell is separateness, uncommunicability, self-centeredness, lust for power, for riches, for fame. Heaven on the other hand is very simple, and very hard: caring about your fellow beings.“

it always bothers me a little when people try to paint katniss as if she is completely understandable and can do no wrong.

because i feel like katniss's flaws are a huge part of her character. when she gets so angry at peeta that she gives him the silent treatment in catching fire. or when she claws haymitch's face when he reveals what he sacrificed to get her out. or even when she desperately tries to run from peeta when he is made be a stranger to her.

all these things reflect "flaws," but her flaws do not make her any less lovable. they make her who she is. and i feel like it is a disservice to erase them by painting her as some perfect person who can do no wrong.

Weakness: when a group of unrelated characters, of varying backgrounds, consider each other a family

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.

Here’s the thing for me: the prequel does not make Katniss “the chosen one” (and believe me, I had such hatred for this book when it came out for thinking it did make her this fated hero). Snow himself may perceive her as “the chosen one” because he’s self-absorbed, and that is something the prequel shines light on: why Snow is so myopic about hurting Katniss specifically, instead of being effective in crushing the rebellion. He sees the narrative as revolving around him exclusively.

In reality, however, Katniss is still just a good and brave oppressed young woman who said “enough” — what is “fated” comes from the folkloric, interconnected nature of Appalachian culture, a culture rich with music, story, and supernatural goings on, a place that stands as the antithesis of elite society. Once Lucy Gray’s music and memory were in the wind and water, they weren’t going away, no matter who picked them up.

Also, I think we sometimes forget that these books have a lot of very subtly supernatural elements: off the top of my head, we have the birds stopping singing to listen to little Katniss, the fact that OF ALL PEOPLE the boy who loves her is reaped alongside her (I mean, that’s the plot, but still, and it kind of proves my point), all the eerily prescient connections to The Hanging Tree (“midnight”), Katniss inhabiting Finnick’s mind in his last moments, kissing Peeta to break the “spell” Snow has on him, Prim’s spirit seemingly trying to stop Katniss dying after the parachute bombs go off, not to mention the parade of “ghosts” Katniss sees in her rehab. That’s not all realism. No, the reaping wasn’t rigged. No, no one planned for Katniss to lead the rebellion because she maybe possibly was related to the Covey. It’s just one of those strange things that did happen here.

A ghost girl left some songs echoing in the coal-dusted streets, and one day a little girl sang one in a Kindergarten classroom, and a little boy heard her, and Snow’s days were numbered from that moment on. That, to me, is the most fated moment of the whole series: Katniss and Peeta, and the Valley Song: a real song, an American folk song, once sung by Lucy Gray. From that point on, the chips fall where they will.

you’ve got to love how Suzanne Collins gave Katniss and Peeta the character goals of “keep Prim safe” and “stay myself” and then just flatly denied them both

and this only underscores how beautiful their relationship is, because, right at the end of the series, we have Peeta keeping Prim’s memory preserved by planting a garden of wild primroses for her and by drawing her in the memory book, and we have Katniss helping Peeta find his identity again by reminding him what’s real and what’s not real, reminding him who he is: a painter and a baker whose favorite color is orange, and who, most importantly, is the man she loves (real)

the hunger games is having a resurgence and i’m back on my bullshit so i thought i would post what i always imagined the rest of effie’s life looked like

she stays in the capitol to begin with. katniss was shocked when she saw them kiss, but was hastily shut up by haymitch when she teased him and they never really spoke about effie much after that. effie called haymitch once a week, filling him in on the rebuilding efforts, her rapidly blooming social life, new fashion trends, inter-district moving and the latest in geese rearing tips(i’m a goose apologist here he keeps geese ok). he can tell something is off but he doesn’t realise how much of it is outright lies

THE HUNGER GAMES Lucy Gray Baird & Katniss Everdeen (inspired by x)

“The Hunger Games” prequel “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” has received an interim agreement from SAG-AFTRA – meaning stars Rachel Zegler, Viola Davis and Peter Dinklage are clear to promote the film before it premieres in theaters Nov. 17.

Feminism isn't "Women vs Men"

Feminism is "Us vs The Patriarchy"

And "Us" includes everyone.

the patriarchy is the men btw.

No, it's not. The patriarchy is a system. Women can also enforce the patriarchy. Women can be and often are misogynistic and sexist.

Understanding the difference between a hierarchical system and individual human beings should be feminism 101.

👆🏼👆🏼👆🏼👆🏼👆🏼

Halle Bailey as Ariel (The Little Mermaid 2023)