forestofsongbirds - Tumblr blog

[forestofsongbirds]

“There’s nothing like a mother’s love”

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mommies in this community!

[forestofsongbirds]

Every tall, handsome, well-dressed man looks better in a babywrap 👀

I’m hosting my first DTIYS on Instagram. You’re welcome to join there because it’s harder to keep track of everyone’s entry on Tumblr. Rules are listed on my Instagram post. Have fun 💛

[forestofsongbirds]

Last night together?...❤️‍🩹

art commission. do not use

[forestofsongbirds]

His gray eyes🩶

[forestofsongbirds]

Draco with kids >>>>

art commission

✨ Арт к фф «Секреты счастливого брака» от Enderin ✨

Она не заметила, как нервно сглотнула от голода, но печенье тут было ни при чём. Волновал её лишь один конкретный мужчина.

Драко поймал её растерянный взгляд, но даже если и заподозрил что-то неладное в её свежем румянце, то виду не подал. 

— Мама пришла, — объявил Малфой, указывая в сторону камина.

[forestofsongbirds]

Instagram slaughtered this loop, not sure how tumblr feels about my export skills or lack thereof :/

[forestofsongbirds]

[forestofsongbirds]

like gale's character is such a fascinating lens to view the entire revolution through. the capitol hates you. the capitol wants you dead. you put your name in for reaping fifty times so your siblings only have to put their name in once for the extra ratios. you sneak out with your best friend to hunt.

you hate the capitol, but life is fine enough. you put your name in another twenty times so your best friend's family can eat. you take care of her little sister. you think you love her. you don't know that for sure. is it just convenience? who knows. but you care for her little sister and she cares for your siblings. between the two of you, you're both up for slaughter thousands of times of over.

you're so lucky. you're so so lucky. you're turning eighteen. your best friend turns eighteen next year. you're almost free. her little sister gets reaped. a one in a million chance - she was only in there ONCE. it's a no brainer your best friend volunteers to save her sister. you understand - you would too if you could volunteer in her place. you hate the capitol and wish to see it fall in your life time. your friend is gone and you have one task: keep her sister safe.

she comes back alive. so does the person she left with. they have a bond you cannot hope to understand - and you accept that. you swallow your pride, put your cards on the table, and leave it. you know you have no chance. you take care of her family anyway. you think it's fine now, it can't get worse. then the capitol sends you bug infested food. then they prevent you from hunting. the leash is tightened, and you hate the capitol. you can't even offer yourself up for reaping anymore, and your siblings are in danger. the water is rushing in, and you're drowning, and you're angry.

the capitol has earmarked you for destruction, all because your best friend lived and was clever enough to bring the other tribute home. when the quarter quell comes, they take your best friend for the second time. the bombs come. and you have one task: keep her sister safe. the only way to guarantee that is to fight back. so you take up arms, and you fight.

she comes back. he does not. you do not celebrate, because she is in pain. but at least you can show her that her sister is safe. you're twisted up in guilt because there's nothing you can do for her. all you can do is fight, and hope it'll save everyone.

then the one person you were tasked to keep safe dies. and you don't know what happened. all you know is that the sum of the war meant no one was safe. so you do the only thing you can do for her sanity after the war: you leave. you leave, because you don't like who you've become anymore than she does. war and revolution has ruined you, changed you, warped you.

and worst part is: it didn't keep anyone safe, least of all you.

[forestofsongbirds]

haymitch and Katniss are so hilarious and so is the entire comment section 😂😭

[forestofsongbirds]

Only in the Hunger Games fandom will someone take a victim of the Capitol — and yes, Gale is a victim — and drag them through the mud, calling him self-serving, selfish, the devil himself AND compare him to Snow, a literal dictator who killed thousands of children…

Just to turn back around and be like #TeamSnow 💀

[forestofsongbirds]

[forestofsongbirds]

I think it’s kind of funny how coin (who obviously wanted peeta rescued from the arena instead of katniss) doesn’t see what an absolute nightmare he would be for her to deal with if she left katniss in that arena

Like she thinks katniss was hard to deal with/manipulate/control after she left peeta behind? Peeta would’ve had her whole district eating out to the palm of his hand before she even realized who she was dealing with. She thought katniss was too single minded/stubborn about her focus on saving peeta over the revolution itself? He would have been her absolute nightmare (and I adore him for it)

[forestofsongbirds]

What I think is kind of interesting is that if Dean Casca Highbottom, seeing exactly how good of a student Young Coriolanus Snow was, had taken the boy under his wing instead of despising him and trying to get revenge on a boy that never knew his father (and who only had of his father the words of others about the great man that he was), he might have had a good helping hand in stopping the games he so deeply despised.

It would have been, at the same time, quite a revenge on Crassus Snow to use his son to dismantle the Games the man helped implement. Not only that, but it would have offered young Coryo a person to depend on during his most formative years where he had to grow up under the immense pressure of keeping up appearances, taking care of an ailing grandmother and fighting everyday to keep himself and his family fed.

What Casca failed to realise during the 10th Games was that there weren't 24 tributes, but 25. Snow was fighting for survival just as much as the rest; of course, with the caveat that Snow was never in danger of losing his life. But, for a boy who had for all his life to survive instead of to live, those two might have been the same thing. In saving himself, Coryo would also save Tigris and his grandmother, while all the other tributes were saving mosty themselves since they would be going home with nothing to show for winning the games other than their lives and some (crippling in some cases) trauma.

Maybe things would have played out differently, maybe not, but we have seen time and time again through all four of the Hunger Games books, the power of a kind gesture: Peeta with the bread, Rue healing Katniss, Katniss singing to Rue, Mags sacrificing herself, Boggs treating Katniss like a young traumatised girl when no one else did. Who knows if Snow (and, in turn, the rest of Panem) wouldn't have benefited from it?

[forestofsongbirds]

can't catch me now is the perfect end credits song because this is lucy gray's parting message to him.

she's the songbird always perched on his shoulder, the snake with his heart in a vise, the ghost girl who will forever haunt him. he will never be free of her or her mockingjays.

[forestofsongbirds]

i genuinely think that snow looked at peeta in the first hunger games and saw another boy with golden curls who was enchanted with a songbird that had a skill for survival. and i am sure that he was convinced that once peeta realized katniss was only using him for her survival that he would turn on her. he was so confident that peeta would realize that he could only trust himself... because that was the only narrative that worked in snow's life.

but that didn't happen, and peeta continually put katniss above himself over and over and over again. even when he was being tortured in the capitol, he was still enchanted by katniss's voice and it could bring him back. it almost seemed like peeta's nature was to love katniss. and that did not work with snow's narrative of love.

so, snow decided to warp peeta until he could barely recognize himself. and then snow thought that peeta's capitol-induced hatred for katniss could prove snow's belief about love correct: that love can only end in tragedy, that it is a weakness.

but the love that grew between peeta and katniss proved snow wrong. proved that there was not one single solution to snow's ending. that snow's ending was not inevitable. that snow was the one who made the choice to kill his love. snow couldn't handle the truth of his actions that he had previously chalked up to inevitability.

because peeta and katniss proved snow's narrative wrong. that love really could be unconditional and selfless and pure. that love didn't have to end in tragedy. that it could grow from circumstances of survival and still be genuine. and i think that haunted snow to his grave.

[forestofsongbirds]

“The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is a story about a power-hungry orphan who is given opportunities again and again to have empathy for those in similar positions, and each time he only thinks about himself. I love that Suzanne Collins has written this horrible, hurt, young man who refuses any chance to heal and searches for only what he can control

[forestofsongbirds]

Javis reads The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

Comments, and spoilers, under the cut.

Aks, replies and discussion are always welcome!

For previous chapters, click HERE.

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