Crystals, books and tea

Reading, fangirling and sipping tea like nobody's business. This also slowly morfed into my personal diary. Multifandom

[crunchbuttsteak]

[sailor-hobbiton]

Still annoyed there was never any justice for Graham. Regina stole his heart and used it to control him, to force him to do her bidding (and have sex with her), she gaslit him when his memories started coming back, and then when he broke up with her…

She killed him.

A good man who refused to murder an innocent woman. Who talked about how animals had more honor than people. Who was one of the few people to stand up to the Mayor’s corruption even before he got his memories back. Who was raised by wolves and considered them his real family.

He deserved so much better than being killed, forgotten, and his murderer becoming a “hero” without ever apologizing for what she did.

[lady-of-the-spirit]

Roughly once every year I have a phase where I remember Graham from Once Upon a Time and get so upset and angry about how his storyline went. I'm going through that phase right now.

[dailyquests]

Subject your Followers to your favorite Stupid Bullshit.

[mariacallous]

[ur-daily-inspiration]

[jackedjacket]

I saw someone post about how they hope the writers got rid of Sokkas “stupid humor” for the live action show and like damn I don’t think someone had fundamentally misunderstood a character more.

Sokkas humor is a huge part of his character and shows a major aspect of his growth. At the beginning of the show Sokka is NOT the funny guy. In fact, he’s the most serious dude in his village. In the pilot, Aang and Katara are off playing with penguins while Sokka is literally putting on war paint and preparing to defend the rest of the village from a Fire Nation war ship. He has been the only man in his village for like four years. And he’s only fourteen. Sokka doesn’t make jokes at first, and when he does they’re usually sexist because his whole thing is about how much of a man he is. Sokka developing humor signifies his growth is a thousand ways. How he learns to respect others. How he starts to make friends. And more importantly, how he turns from a man back into a boy.

[timelesslords]

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.

[lucy-gray-baird]

bringing my thread here in honor of the ballad of songbirds and snakes trailer today because the "lucy gray parallels katniss" people are out there and they are wrong, lucy gray baird is peeta mellark and sejanus plinth is katniss everdeen and i will die on this hunger games hill

[rylandsgrace]

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023) + tweets

[aqukana]

the part where they cut off the games to broadcast the president's son died with "an important life was taken today" SECONDS AFTER watching a pile of dead district children was chilling

[safirefire]

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was an excellent movie adaptation plot wise. It also solidified to me 2 reasons why Snow knew Katniss was such a threat beyond the basics and they were that

He recognized Haymitch as a mentor rewarding romantic behavior within the arena with sponsored gifts because a) it was his idea and b) before the drone system was perfected he saw how mentors themselves could technically follow rules while influencing the games and

He noticed how much sympathy and connection the Capitol citizens could form with the Tributes from all the nurses crying at Lucy Gray’s “last performance” to his entire class chanting to get her out of the arena which forced someone as influential as Dr. Gaul to listen

Snow’s not an idiot he knows Katniss herself held very little power at least at the beginning. But he instantly recognized how her story could be marketed and used to turn both District and Capitol citizens against him especially by people like Haymitch or Coin who knew what they were doing

[jakeperalta]

"The show's not over until the mockingjay sings," she said. "The mockingjay?" He laughed. "Really, I think you're just making these things up." "Not that one. A mockingjay's a bonafide bird," she assured him. "And it sings in your show?" he asked. "Not my show, sweetheart. Yours. The Capitol's, anyway."

[agoddamnrayofsunshine]

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

[agentmilayawithshield]

The moment Tigris tells Snow he looks like his father, my heart broke.

That's her Prim.

That's the child she took care of while being a child herself, stuck with an adult who couldn't care for them all that well. She tried so hard and sacrificed so much for the boy that despite all her love still turns into a monster.

Katniss's Prim dies, but Tigris' Prim destroys every part of the boy she raised, to the point she wants him dead and has nothing in her heart for him except absolute loathing.

[brinabegins]

what makes Snow such a formidable villain within THG universe is that nothing he does was set in stone. there was no sense of inevitability about his actions and his brutality. Snow had enough perspective of poverty, capital cruelty, district hunger and not to mention his own arena experience’ and yet he actively chose at every moment to stray from natural goodness. its even more terrifying in the sense that he had the ability to care. Snow is not a mindless sociopath, he displays feelings to others such as sejanus, lucy grey and tigris but ultimately he will always choose himself. his ability to betray those he cared about in order yo advance himself makes him so much more than the stereotypical villain who is forced into his actions.

[safirefire]

The ending of the Hunger Games movie with Snow reluctantly crowing Katniss a winner and brushing aside her hair only to see a mockingjay pin is so fucking funny after reading tbosas and knowing exactly who and what is haunting him at this moment and Katniss explains “it’s from my District” yeah lmao he knows babe he’s been

They were the first things he could never control and they’ve absolutely haunted him to think about ever since

[bloodiedflint]

this has been said before in a myriad of ways but i have to say it again. i am obsessed with how his traitor’s ass thought he won, how he genuinely believed he’d wiped their memory from the face of the earth as if they’d never existed. only to watch a fierce, unlikeable misfit of a girl sprinkle flowers like precious breadcrumbs over a fallen tribute’s body in compassion, to honor their life in the midst of bloodshed. only for her to inspire rebellion with the very song he thought he’d silenced forever. only for her lover, a kind boy with a perchance for performing for & winning over the crowds, to possess a goodness so true that nothing could poison & weaponize him, not for long, not for good. retribution did come for coriolanus snow. sejanus & lucy gray & the districts were avenged tenfold & i fucking love that his doom & destruction was wrought by two children unknowingly carrying their ghosts.