aspiring compost

It's so interesting that, from the very beginning, Gale is established as someone who has a disregard for human life, and who does not truly view those different from him as "people." We see this here, where he dehumanises the children Katniss will have to fight in the Games. We see this in Gale's vocal resentment of Madge Undersee, in how he despises her for the privilege she was born with and grew up with.

This "us vs. them" infighting and mentality that Gale falls for (a mentality that the Capitol propagates, and that the Games act as a metaphor for) is one that eventually leads him to kill innocent children.

This thinking is also something Katniss must learn to break out of -- when she grapples with killing her opponents in the Games, who are truly just children, or when she realises "who the real enemy is" at the end of Catching Fire.

But Gale is unable to grow past this. He's willing to kill children (!) who are innocents, who haven't committed any crime other than being born in the wrong place at the wrong time -- just like Madge, who Gale despised in Book 1.

And Gale obviously DOES feel bad about "killing" Prim. But what's worse is the thought that, if it wasn't Prim who died, if it was just some random faceless people, would Gale still care?

I think Gale is a really interesting character whose development is so tragic yet still makes so much sense. It's a shame to see people write him off so quickly without seeing the analytical, thematic, and political value that we can gain by exploring his story and ideology.

I find it so funny when ppl say that Katniss has no personality, she's so cute and funny! Like do you not remember when she...

1. Thought Finnick was making out with Peetas corpse and was like "damn didn't know he was fruity like that"

2. When Gale confessed his love for her and she was STRIAGHT up like "yeah I know" 💀

3. Saw Peeta had been crying after the first reaping and immediately thinks "damn he's good, playing the weak sympathy card". Like girl he thinks he's gonna die! He's gonna die!

4. Katniss and Finnick wearing the green face cream in CF and scaring the fuck outta Peeta on the beach

5. Just her and Haymitch, especially the first book

6. "I decided to go ahead and like Boggs" - thanks for letting us know queen 👑

7. In MJ when they're trying to film the propos, and she's just horrible at it

8. In the first book when she's trying to drain the pus out of Peetas leg and she just so goddmaned grossed out

9. Saw the cupcakes at the Capitol party and immediately thought that Peeta would love the frosting details

10. In MJ when Gale and Peeta are talking about Katniss choosing one of them, she's just like "gonna leave you two bums here, don't need this shit"

11. Everytime she was unaware of people flirting with her or just being nice. She always think there's some hidden motive... like girl they're your family and friends, they just like you as a person

12. "Nobody needs me" "I do, I need you". Katniss finally admitting her love for Peeta and realises that she can't live without him!! It's such an important part of her growth towards Peeta and no one talks about it!! The girl how has survived everything finally needs not just something, but SOMEONE. And it's HIM (I'm so normal about this I swear)

13. Sassying buttercup at every turn

14. She has the same vibe as goop from Meet The Robinsons (especially with Madge). "Hey Katniss, wanna eat lunch together?" "Hey Katniss, wanna go for a walk into town later"

She's there like:

the way victors always tried to protect each other because they are the only ones who know what they went through. the way haymitch fought to make sure they didn’t alter katniss’s body. how haymitch fought against finnick sharing his stories to protect him from the memories. how katniss was ready to mercy kill beetee when she thought they were taken by the capitol. how katniss made it a stipulation for the victors taken captive be given pardon no matter what. even enobaria. how peeta comforted the victor from 6 as she was dying. they all protected each other whatever way they could. because they were the only ones there for each other really

Part a movie adaptation was never gonna do justice was how unhinged/out there Katniss' inner monologue was at times.

i find katniss’s distrust towards peeta in the first book a little funny. like oh yeah the boy who purposefully burnt bread and risked a beating for you certainly wants you dead now

I’m sure someone has talked about this before but one thing I absolutely love about tbosas is how Snow’s descent into villainy is never once presented as something that was inevitable

So many villain origin stories portray this idea of a person who tries incredibly hard to be a good person, who takes every opportunity to be kind and to better themselves, but are ultimately doomed to fail by the narrative. Their environment and their circumstances make it impossible for them to be a good person, and while this is effective from a storytelling point of view it’s not exactly accurate to real life

In real life there is always a point where a bad person makes the decision to do something bad, they make the decision to prioritise themselves, their own power, money or desires over someone else. That’s how real life dictators are made, they are presented with every opportunity to be good, and they purposefully choose to not take it

This makes Snow’s storyline so effective because he is given so many opportunities to do the right thing and yet, at every single turn, he chooses to serve himself instead, exactly like how real dictators are made

Snow, unlike most people we see in the capitol, is in a unique position where he could genuinely have the chance to understand and relate to the people from the districts. He, unlike his classmates, is poor and spends most nights going hungry, he witnessed firsthand the cruelty of the capitol when Clemensia was bitten by the snakes for nothing more than lying about doing her homework, when his sister was forced to sell herself on the streets in order to feed the both of them

Throughout his book, the three people he is closest to are Tigris (who dislikes the hunger games, is a rebel, and a victim of the capitol forced to turn to prostitution), Sejanus (who is originally from district 2, dislikes the capitol and knows he will never be accepted there, and also a rebel) and Lucy Gray (who is a victim of the hunger games, from district 12, and is also treated horribly by the capitol). These are all people who gave him an opportunity to realise the cruelty of the system he was in, a chance to directly confront his prejudices and see that people from the districts are just the same as him, and yet he still refuses to take the chance to change

He is given every opportunity, he’s sent away from the capitol to be a peacekeeper in the districts, he forms personal connections with people from the districts, he helps Sejanus perform funeral rites, and yet at every moral crossroads he comes to he makes the wrong decision. He didn’t have to become a villain, and yet he made the choice to do so anyway, despite every chance he was given

I think it’s a really effective portrayal of Snow as a character, and it’s a very effective villain origin story for the type of villain that Snow is. It never once excuses him from his actions because it highlights just how accountable he was for his actions

you are coming down with me. hand in unlovable hand.

Hate it when the Stardew Valley NPCs get mad at me for digging in their garbage. Like bitch I carry this town on my back. "Ew! Thats awful!" You know what else would be awful? The decaying shambles this town will be left in when I leave because you were all mean to me. Without me Pelican Town is nothing do not fucking test me

the point of ‘the ballad of songbirds and snakes’ is that the coriolanus snow we meet in the prequel is the same exact person we meet in the trilogy. the only difference is that in the prequel, he is a powerless teenager and an underdog who is good at hiding his true nature with charm and wit. the essence of him is the exact same - a despotic, manipulative, power hungry tyrant. he has some redeeming qualities and a chance to change into something better through lucy gray and probably even more through sejanus, but he actively chooses to let the worst side of him to surface on top once he gets the power he always wanted. 🫶

“One of my favourite Steve Jobs stories was the time the engineers working on the iPod brought their finished prototype to him in his office. He said it was too big, they needed to make it smaller. They said it was as small as they could make it, it couldn’t be made any smaller. So he took the prototype over to his aquarium and dropped it in. The iPod sank to the bottom, and as it did, tiny little bubbles came out. ‘See those bubbles,’ he asked. ‘They’re air inside the iPod. Make it smaller.’

“Another story about Steve Jobs was when they brought the prototype for the iPad 2 to his office. The engineers told him it was faster than the first iPad. He took it over to his aquarium and dropped it in. ‘Look how slowly it sank,’ he told them. ‘Make it faster.’

“One time a newly hired intern had been sent out to get Steve a sandwich. When she brought it to him, he looked at it. ‘I thought I ordered the beef on rye,’ he asked. She told him it was indeed beef on rye. He took it over to his fish tank and dropped it in. ‘Does that look like beef on rye?’

“He was always dropping things in that fish tank. We couldn’t stop him. We told him he had to stop, he wouldn’t listen. It was full of stuff that shouldn’t be in an aquarium.

“The fish had all died years ago. One had been crushed under an early generation iMac. The others were all poisoned. He didn’t care.

“It got to the point where there was no room for anything in the fish tank. When we emptied it after he died, we found a body in there. We never found out who it was.”

Whale Fall.

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Anastasia (1997) Ocean’s Eight (2018) Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (2005) The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) The Witches (1990)