My own little castle in the clouds

Hi my name is Cathrine and welcome to my blog! I'm a feminist, a Hufflepuff, a Horned Serpent and my patronus is a black swan. I post about my randoms thoughts and fandoms which include Harry Potter, Disney, Throne of Glass, Critical Role and lots more

[unpretty]

thank god for the mythbusters though because it used to be that whenever i knew i had insomnia i’d just kind of accept it and stay up doing whatever until my morning classes and spend the day feeling like shit

but then they did an episode where they established that even just fucking laying there for a half hour, not even sleeping just laying there and not even for an hour, makes a significant difference and you’ll feel way better

it has made a huge difference in my life to know that it’s okay if i can’t fall asleep, it takes a lot of the pressure off and ironically helps me fall asleep better

[inkstainedchocolateeyes]

…i did not know this, thank you

[unpretty]

If anyone wants to look it up, the episode was specifically the Deadliest Catch crossover ep, and the myth was that it’s better/safer when working a 30 hour shift to take a 20 minute nap every six hours rather than try to power through. They did an obstacle course test, one without naps and one with, and even though they couldn’t even sleep half the time the naps resulted in their scores doubling.

So actually I undersold it, even if it’s 7:40 and your alarm goes off at 8 just lie down and shut your eyes and it will still be better than nothing

[sneakyfeets]

This was immensely huge for me as someone with anxiety issues. I used to drive myself delirious trying to ‘calm down before I went to sleep’ by staying up and just working myself into a panic. Having this knowledge and knowing that laying down and closing my eyes is a better option and counts as rest was way more helpful, eased my mind and actually sends you to sleep faster.

[revvethasmythh]

besides how incredible julien's dynamic with maya was last night, i'm also really interested in the fact that julien and alba seem to have a strong sibling bond and love each other a lot. i honestly expected more strife between him and any sibling(s) he had, but there is something far more interesting about julien genuinely loving his sister and being loved in return despite how acidic his personality may be and how complicated the relationships with his parents are. like, he's a jackass but, as shown by his conduct with ingrid, it's not completely universal. he has lines, convictions, people that he really cares about and loves

[spillsnchills]

When a character doesn’t realize they’ve been, like, shot or whatever and they hand brushes against their side and comes away wet with blood, and they’re just staring at it like wtf is this and then their knees just totally give out on them and they sink down, maybe gasping a little as the reality finally hits them. That’s good stuff.

[tiger-in-the-flightdeck]

I see that, and raise you a character who knows they’ve been shot, but waits until the rest of their crew is out of sight to put their hand against the slowly spreading stain of blood on their shirt, then trying to steady their breathing so they can follow without letting on how injured they are.

[caffeinewitchcraft]

Okay but like the character who doesn’t realize they’ve been hurt trying to see if everyone else is okay only to slowly realize that everyone is looking at them with mounting horror. Then they touch their side to find it’s wet and oh no

[kvothbloodless]

all 3 of you are evil but i admire, respect, and fear you

[normalmammal]

I’m so pro abortion I feel insane hearing any other take on it

[normalmammal]

Even lefties I know will eventually concede to some situation where they think it’s right to force someone to carry a child against their will as if that’s not one of the most inhumane and cruel situations to put someone in regardless of any other factors

[embermc]

I’m actually screaming and clawing at my enclosure over how people managed to literally make THE HANDMAID’S TALE centered on their favorite MAN. Or how people managed to make all of their fan content regarding a politically-themed dystopian story about women’s rights center exclusively on the romantic subplot 😭😭

Nick was never supposed to be a good guy!! That was intentional!! He was meant to show how even the ‘nice’ men in patriarchal systems will ultimately still choose the power and security offered to them by the patriarchy over protecting the rights of women. He only ever ‘rebelled’ because he loved June, not because he ever cared about the rights of women in Gilead. Somebody save media literacy because we cannot do the “the hunger games is actually about the Katniss love triangle!!” thing all over again

[stydixa]

XO, KITTY (2023-) 3x01 - Guest List

[nicolasbitch]

and this is why i hate shows being separated into two parts because i need more! s4 part 1 of bridgerton was amazing. the pacing was great, the direction was great, the editing was better, the costuming/make up was better, and (most importantly) the main focus was the main couple. we are watching benedict and sophie fall in love in real(ish) time and there is a reasonable sprinkle of side stories. that is how it should be done! and huge props to yerin, she is phenomenal. she is the perfect sophie. sweet but fragile, strong and intelligent but soft and vulnerable but also a bit of anger simmering deep underneath because of araminta and most of that she is telling us through her eyes. beautiful person, beautiful actor. i'm rambling cuz it's 2 am but feb 29 cannot get here fast enough.

[rylandsgrace]

[violetdaphne]

like. i’m just supposed to be normal about percy bodily blocking annabeth from tantalus. i’m just supposed to be normal about percy putting annabeth behind him when tantalus is aiming a celestial bronze tipped arrow at them. i’m just supposed to be normal about percy instinctually holding out his arm in front of annabeth to protect her even when they’re in the middle of an argument, when he thinks she’s betraying him. i’m just supposed to be normal getting war flashbacks to “nobody touches her”. i’m supposed to go about my day as normal when percy jackson casually puts annabeth’s safety before his own.

[for-the-sake-of-fuck]

I don’t know how to embed a video on here, but this quote so poetically explained a concept I couldn’t put into words.

[no-longer-another-bondi-blonde]

BREAKING: Journalist and college professor Stacey Patton goes viral by penning a stunningly powerful statement about how she was on Charlie Kirk’s “digital hit list” and recounting the horror that he inflicted on her.

We cannot allow this tragic assassination to whitewash Kirk’s legacy…

“I am on Charlie Kirk’s hit list,” Patton wrote to her 215,000 followers on Facebook. “His so-called ‘Professor Watchlist,’ run under the umbrella of Turning Point USA, is nothing more than a digital hit list for academics who dare to speak truth to power. I landed there in 2024 after writing commentary that inflamed the MAGA faithful. And once my name went up, the harassment machine roared to life.”

“For weeks my inbox and voicemail were deluged. Mostly white men spat venom through the phone: ‘bitch,’ ‘c*nt,’ ‘n****r.’ They threatened all manner of violence,” she continued.

“They overwhelmed the university’s PR lines and the president’s office with calls demanding that I be fired,” Patton wrote. “The flood was so relentless that the head of campus security reached out to offer me an escort, because they feared one of these keyboard soldiers might step out of his basement and come do me harm.”

“And I am not unique,” she added.

“Kirk’s Watchlist has terrorized legions of professors across this country. Women, Black faculty, queer scholars, basically anyone who challenged white supremacy, gun culture, or Christian nationalism suddenly found themselves targets of coordinated abuse,” Patton wrote.

“Some received death threats. Some had their jobs threatened. Some left academia entirely. Kirk sent the loud message to us: speak the truth and we will unleash the mob!” she continued.

“That is the culture of violence Charlie Kirk built. He normalized violence. He curated it, monetized it, and sicced it on anyone who dared to puncture his movement’s lies,” she wrote.

“And now, in the wake of his shooting, there’s all this national outpouring of mourning, moments of silence, yellow prayer hands, and tributes painting him as a civil debater,” Patton continued. “But the truth is that Kirk and his foot soldiers spent years terrorizing educators, trying to silence us with harassment and fear!”

“And now the same violence he unleashed on others has come full circle.”

“But what i find especially jarring is the dissonance in public mourning for a smug white man whose life work was actively hostile to certain groups,” she continued. “Kirk spent years demonizing LGBTQ people, mocking gun survivors, spewing racism about Black folks, and pushing policies that literally shorten lives.”

“It is so revolting to watch a bipartisan wave of grief sweep over this hateful racist as if he was a neutral community servant,” she concluded.

This is pure unvarnished truth from Patton. Charlie Kirk did not deserve what happened to him, but nor did his victims deserve the hell that he unleashed on them. If Americans are going to build a more peaceful future for ourselves we must condemn political violence while also condemning the hateful, bigoted rhetoric that made Kirk a multimillionaire.

Please like and share!

[liberalsarecool]

The more you know about Charlie Kirk, the more you know he did not deserve any peace.

[inhkeart]

can’t believe suzanne collins called north america “a land full of Capitols” in tbosas and set the reaping on the fourth of july and people still don’t get that the hunger games is a critique of american capitalism. how much more direct is she gonna be in sunrise on the reaping.

[seaglassdinosaur]

Okay but it’s fucking brilliant that one of the themes of the book was about the distortion of history.

Usually prequels are a dangerous thing to write because unless they’re planned out well in advance, they risk contradicting lore in the main series. Even still, we knew barely anything about Haymitch’s games. They were the perfect stomping ground for new information, with a rough series of events but without a close temporal connection to the main books.

But though she had this freedom and safety net, while she could have just written a story that aligned with what we knew, Collins leaned into the idea of contradicting past lore head on and made it the damn thesis of the book; that yeah, actually, it did play out entirely differently from how the characters saw it, and yes that contradicts what you were told, that’s the point.

We didn’t really know what happened in the 50th games until we read it from Haymitch’s perspective, because what little information we did have was spliced up and edited. The video evidence was processed through the Capital, and twisted to serve their purposes.

Tackling that idea of history being written by those in power with a notoriously inconsistent medium? Goddamn, writer that you are, Suzanne Collins.

[livingfandomly]

SotR is a realisation. A realisation that the rebellion didn’t start with Katniss. That all the people we see supporting her or helping her have all been wanting to fight but they’ve been failing. That there weren’t merely “rumours” of a revolution but there were many active plans playing out and failing.

It’s a reminder that the perfect Hunger Games we saw in the first hg book was an illusion because we had Katniss as our narrator. We didn’t have Haymitch, hell, we didn’t even have someone like Peeta because these people played the games. Katniss didn’t.

Katniss was introduced to us as a mad, simple, naive girl who literally only survived because of others. She didn’t know how much her taking Prim’s place mattered because she didn’t realise what it meant to everyone who came before her. To everyone who had heard rumours of how the last District 12 victor actually fought his games. No, Katniss had just kept her head down, hunting and providing for her family.

See, she grew up way before the Games got to her. She’d already lived through her dad’s death and watched it destroy her once lively mom. Haymitch didn’t have to go through that. Lucy Gray didn’t have to go through that. They were both angry, yes, but at the Capitol. Katniss? She was first and foremost angry at her mom. At her dad. She knew who was to blame but she had too much to do and deal with to think about that. She was already jaded in a way that the Games couldn’t touch.

Peeta? He was Haymitch. He knew what he was getting into and realised he was just on a chess board with no control. So, he adapted. He played the knight, the rook, the king, the pawn. Katniss? She just… did. Changing directions, not playing the piece she was assigned because she didn’t realise that’s what was going on. Remember her surprise at the crown twisting into two after the Games?? She was so oblivious. Until Catching Fire where everything caught up to her. Where everything so many other people had been waiting and working for caught up to her.

SotR is a history book. Rewritten and edited and published as a piece of fact. SotR is a mirror and it’s a reflection of what actually happens vs what ends up being shown. SotR is the playbook of those in control of any and every kind of media that we come in touch with. SotR is a wake up call and I truly don’t know how many will see it as such.

[vol-au-vending-machine]

Effie is actually not fanservice because she is important to the theme of propaganda in SOTR

Effie is 100% brainwashed AND YET she still hasn't lost her humanity. She believes propaganda completely AND YET she doesn't use it as an excuse to abuse people. Throughout the book, the tributes are constantly dehumanised. But Effie doesn't treat Haymitch that way. She helps the team. She's there for him in the launch room- which Drusilla and so many Capitol citizens would never do.

So there really is no excuse for abusing people, not even "I was lied to" or "i thought i was in the right" or "I was fed propaganda"

You still choose how you interact with people around you and how you treat them.

Thanks for coming 2 my TED talk.

[wolfish-chan]

It’s all fun and games laughing about Haymitch over sharing and Katniss under sharing in comparison until you realize Haymitch is trying to remember all the fine details of everyone he will never see again and Katniss is trying to protect her remaining autonomy by keeping those details private

The difference in their trauma responses being shown from the very start of their narratives guts me

[paperlit]

Thinking about how Wyatt Callow is proof that Dr. Gaul’s and Snow’s assertion that humanity’s essential nature is violent (which is part of their argument for the Capitol’s control being necessary) is false. That “What happened in the arena? That’s humanity undressed… A boy with a club who beats another boy to death. That’s mankind in its natural state.” is false.

I’m sure he had it all calculated. He knew exactly what choices would give him the best odds of survival. He knew that the faster he got out of the initial bloodshed the better his chances would be. He knew that letting other kids die would benefit his odds of survival. He knew exactly what he should’ve done to preserve himself.

And yet, he threw all those statistics and odds, all that reason and logic out the window in the name of protecting Lou Lou, a girl that wasn’t even from his district. He threw it all out the window in the name of helping another human being that was in an unfair situation and had worse odds than him. He knew who the real enemy was; he knew it wasn’t the other kids being taken advantage of by the Capitol just like him.

That is humanity.