kaybaeisgay

[kaybaeisgay]

holy shit. i just realized i unintentionally did the background the same color as all those shitty ai pictures ☹️ just for that, here’s my obligatory oath that (on my honor, on my momma, and on my pride as a fucking amateur artist) no part of this utilized ai!!!!!! bc fuck ai!!!!!!!!!!

my take on what zelda would look like if at least some parts of the dragon tear transformation were permanent… (expand pic to get better quality)

[kaybaeisgay]

my take on what zelda would look like if at least some parts of the dragon tear transformation were permanent… (expand pic to get better quality)

[kaybaeisgay]

Strawhat summer ☀️

[kaybaeisgay]

……which one of you bitches told me to watch “yona of the dawn” since i liked “apothecary diaries” while conveniently leaving out the small—TINY—detail that it never got a season 2.

[kaybaeisgay]

would you believe me if i said i spent over eight hours on this gag gift for my brother?

[kaybaeisgay]

shut my eyes and count to ten

[kaybaeisgay]

biblically accurate revenant doodle

[kaybaeisgay]

knowledge long forgotten

got really into reading item descriptions on this playthrough. anyway did you know the silent princess is one of the only raw materials with a cooking effect to not explicitly list that effect in its description

[kaybaeisgay]

“haymitch said katniss reminded him of louella, so it makes sense they would cast a girl who looks like her for the role!”

okay, disclaimer that no one should be hating on a little kid for getting the dream role of their life, and obviously i trust that they cast her based off of her acting chops….

but also, please free us from the idea that people can only resemble each other physically and literally lol. like i sometimes am struck by how much characters or irl people resemble those in my life based purely off their similar personalities/mannerisms/vibes/etc… doesn’t always have to mean they literally look like each other 💀

[kaybaeisgay]

[kaybaeisgay]

yes, i agree with all of this.

the sheer number of tributes combined with the not-quite polished system of the Games definitely contributed to why the tributes of haymitch’s games were more willing to ally up. and as some pointed out in the comments of my original post, yes, katniss was not a reliable narrator at all lol, so her paranoia definitely skewed how we viewed the competition of her games.

with all of those factors, i almost find it more moving that there was such companionship and solidarity in these games. i think what gets me is that people have argued for centuries over whether human nature is inherently selfish—whether the general populace is more willing to serve ourselves rather than others when put in extreme situations. and here, suzanne collins just seemed to be pushing back against that idea of “survival of the fittest at any means necessary” by subverting the very idea of the Hunger Games both as a function in her narrative and as a literary device for her series.

back when i was a youngin first reading the original trilogy, i was hooked by the idea of such a cutthroat, dystopian world. in a time where post apocalyptic stories were at the forefront of media, and many fictional universes were centered on that same notion of brutality in the name of survival, i was intrigued and even excited by the thought of a bunch of kids like me duking it out to the death in hopes of “winning.” and now, as an adult who has had over a decade to sit with that premise—who has seen what surviving costs humanity in real life—who has read the follow up novels that collins’ has published as a direct result of real life circumstances…

i just really appreciate how this novel went in on the idea that rebellions are founded on compassion and empathy. in this book, the core theme to me is less so about the survival of any individual or group of people, but about the survival of human nature itself. it is about the fight to preserve the goodness of people and fight against selfishness and pure self-preservation. it would have been easy for any of those kids to come to terms with their inevitable deaths and skew to the side of “fuck it, i’ll do anything to survive.” instead, most of them actually landed firmly on the side of, “i am doomed and you are doomed; yet, i care about you.”

the longer i sit with it, the more i think that the saddest (not without some tough fucking competition, obviously) realization about sotr to me is that almost all the tributes really, truly, did not treat the games like they had a chance.

in the original trilogy—and even in The Ballad—the tributes felt like they were genuinely scheming and training and vying to win. with every other games, it seemed like the kids held onto this hope that they would be The One to make it, the one to become victor, even if they didn’t always say it aloud. despite the odds, they clawed as close as they could to victory, even if it meant playing into the capitol’s game and sacrificing their honor or morality.

but in this one? they come into the training rooms expecting to die. even the careers, though they swagger about and act like hot shit, feel younger than the careers have ever felt to me before. they collectively seem more resigned and bitter than in past/future tributes. their motives were all so unified against the capitol in a way that was reminiscent of the 75th games—where half the tributes were already a part of an organized rebellion to begin with.

while the theme of ‘i want to choose how i die, i don’t want the capitol to use me’ is prevalent in every book, this quell felt especially grim and determined. i kept expecting suzanne collins to undermine the camaraderie she gave the Newcomers. i kept expecting someone to decide ‘fuck it, i’m going for it on my own and i’ll backstab whoever i need to to do it.’ i kept expecting betrayal and desperation and a true competition.

but no—like wyatt, knowing his odds and choosing to protect the weaker—like ampert, knowing he’s charming and smart enough to make a decent bid for victor, yet rebelling anyways—like maysilee, knowing she’s near powerless, but spitting in the capitol’s face anytime she can—like all the newcomers, knowing they hardly have a shot, but absolutely refusing to betray one another—

they remained steadfast in their hope to die dignified and honorable, to die fighting against the true enemy, and that makes it so much more heartbreaking.

[kaybaeisgay]

do you think wyatt’s death was actually allowed to be broadcast? do you think everyone home in district 12–who may have believed him to be Booker Boy scum—were allowed to see him use his last moments to protect the youngest and weakest of them?

[kaybaeisgay]

is this a good time for me to say that i thought The Ballad movie was actually a really great adaptation of the book, but that it’s best watched in tandem with reading the book?

a lot of people (esp w Sunrise expanding on snow’s dedication to being a pos) have been saying they don’t think the movie represented how evil young snow is accurately since so many people ended up romanticizing and victimizing him by the end. but personally? i walked out of that premiere thinking that they did a wonderful job showing how good snow was at manipulating his image and presenting himself as a stand-up guy.

it was always going to be difficult to adapt The Ballad into a movie due to the sheer difference in media forms. we get such an intimate look into the corruption of snow’s mind in the book due to the nature of the written narratives, and short of having tom blyth literally speak every thought he has out loud in the movie, his sliminess was never going to be perfectly portrayed from book-to-screen.

in fact, i thought that even without him verbally projecting his internal monologues, his actions in the movie were still suspicious at best and straight up selfish at worst. there’s no going around his consistent dedication to self-preservation and narcissism, even when put in the best of light.

if anything, i think that for so many to have fallen for snow’s outward charm and innocent facade when portrayed without his internal dialogue really shows exactly why he was able to get away with such profound evil from The Ballad all the way up till The Hunger Games.

no wonder he became president and maintained power for so long—he’s the perfect politician.

[kaybaeisgay]

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.

[kaybaeisgay]

thinking about the cruel irony of all the attention paid to Wyatt’s snoring and how to get around it in the arena only for him to not even make it to nightfall on the first day

[kaybaeisgay]

thinking about how young haymitch must’ve had the softest soul of all time bared for everyone to see (except for maybe himself) bc every time he was like “i won’t hurt you” people were always like “yeah, duh”

[kaybaeisgay]

SOTR SPOILERS

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The way Buttercup always hissed at Katniss until she gave him entrails. But she tolerated him because Prim loved him. Then in the end of Mockingjay he helped her healing.

Then the Geese always hissed at Haymitch until he gave them cracked corn. But he tolerated them because Lenore loved them. Then in the end of Mockingjay they helped his healing.

The parallels will never end :(