stickyglitterwombat

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I think every lesbian who says she wouldn't date a bi woman is functionally on the same wavelength as men who say they would only marry a virgin

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Thinking about tbosas from the other perspective is so funny to me because imagine you’re Lucy Gray and the way you make a living is by singing and being a charming, charismatic performer. The people in your district love you, you have a nice family, sure your parents are dead but things aren’t so bad.

Then you get Reaped because your boyfriend cheated on you - so now you have to fight for your life in an arena.

When you get to the Capitol you’re met by a guy around your age who says his job is to take care of you in the arena, so you figure you should probably use some of those charms you live by on him so you have a better chance at survival. So you flirt with him a little, save his life etc. It works! He helps you! Now you’ve won the Hunger Games! You get to go home and see your family! Thank you random Capitol guy for your help, bye bye now.

And then you’re singing on stage, with your family who you literally killed people to see again, thrilled to be alive and this fuckin Capitol guy has followed you home.

Oh and also he’s a peacekeeper now so is legally allowed a gun.

And now he kind of won’t leave you alone - the charm worked too well and he’s obsessed with you. Brilliant. But you’re a survivor. So you let him get closer, just enough to feel safe. And as you get to know him better, maybe you’re thinking, hey this guy isn’t so bad, he’s kind of cute with his buzzcut and he seems to really like you, maybe this could be something. Also it might be useful to have a peacekeeper on side - everything in your district is about survival.

Things are going well, you write a song about him, he cries, your little cousin loves him.

And then he murders someone in front of you and you’re like oh shit he crazy. And THEN you realise that because of the person he murdered, the mayor is now out for your blood and you’re probably gonna die so you have to get out of there ASAP so you say bye to this guy and he INVITES HIMSELF TO YOUR ESCAPE PLAN and you have to be like “oh sure, that’s super news, would absolutely love to have you along with me, I’m so glad you asked.” So now you’re stuck with him again.

And THEN you’re in the middle of escaping and he fuckin tells you he’s murdered an extra person you didn’t know about and when you ask him who, he says his old self and now you’re thinking oh shit he CRAZY crazy. And THEN he finds the gun he used and you realise that if he destroys that evidence then you’re the only loose end and he has a kind of crazy look in his eye so you’re like, okay time to nip this in the bud, I’m outta here gotta go pick some katniss. So you run away from him and THEN he follows you again and fuckin shoots at you so you run FASTER and now you’ve disappeared and no one will ever find out what happened to you which drives him absolutely crazy for 60+ years.

Oh and also they’re going to erase all footage of your Games so no one will remember you and he’s going to become a tyrannical dictator who has personal beef with three different sixteen year olds from your district over the years, all because you hurt his feelings one time.

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"I love you like all-fire"

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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.

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Thinking about Maysilee Donner. A girl who refused to let the Capitol dehumanize her. A girl who wanted to die with dignity, without begging for her life, because that mattered to her. Who set up a place setting with napkins and forks in the middle of the arena because she is a human being. Who loved jewelry and fashion and believed that her appearance sends a message about who she is, and who wanted that message to be respectable, dignified, worth something.

Thinking about Maysilee Donner who was unafraid to slap the woman who pulled her name in the reaping and who threw clever insults towards anyone who provoked her, no matter who they were. Maysilee Donner who believed human dignity is inherent but respect is earned and who refused to give respect to those who did not deserve it.

Maysilee Donner whose father threw money at the reaping stage as if that could save her, and the money floated to the ground just like the confetti, meaningless paper that signified nothing when placed against the power of the Capitol. Whose privilege could not save her. Who recognized that reality and faced it with more fortitude than any person should ever have to display. Maysilee Donner.

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After reading SOTR, it was so refreshing and heartbreaking to read from the point of view of a character who loves so openly. Haymitch bleeds love everywhere he goes; not just for the obvious people like Lenore Dove, or Sid and Ma, but for everyone.

His complete and utter adoration of Lenore Dove? How her flaws, her recklessness and impulsiveness just makes him love her all the more. How he can’t always keep up with her, but he doesn’t resent her for it, just tries his best to and loves her when he can’t understand. The contrast between Snow wanting to control Lucy Gray, even going so far as to say that he wishes she was back in the Arena so he could know where she was, and Haymitch wanting nothing more for Lenore Dove than to be free, even trying to tell Lenore Dove to move on from him when he dies in the Arena.

The way Haymitch expresses such adoration for Hattie, how he admires her hard work and hugs her when she gives him his birthday gift. How he tries to protect her during the Interviews.

Haymitch’s love for his family; how he finds them annoying sometimes, but he loves them. He ruffles Sid’s hair and takes on the role of his father, how he lets Sid drag him out on a clear night to look up at the stars. He hugs his Ma and speaks of her with admiration for her work, even as he’s just as annoyed by her work ethic.

Louella McCoy, who crushed on Haymitch for a week, and it just endeared her to him, made him fiercely protective of her. He never looked down on her for being childish, and he did everything in his power to get justice for her.

Lou Lou, whom he despised at first, only to love her anyways. He didn’t even know her real name, didn’t know anything about her except that she was from Eleven and that she was recording what they were saying, but he loved her anyways because he can’t help it. It spills out of him. He protected her and tried to make her death quick, tried to get justice for what happened to her just as much as he did Louella.

Wyatt, Maysilee, and Effie are my favorite examples of how Haymitch sees the flaws in people, but loves them anyways, embraces them even. Wyatt Callow, who he started by resenting him for his father’s gambling practices, only to grow to love Wyatt for his quick wit, then to mourn him when he was killed on the first day. Maysilee Donner who was spoiled and mean in his eyes, yet he could still see her rebellious and determined nature, her kindness for the other Tributes as she wove their tokens, and he held her hand as she died, cementing her in his mind as his sister. Effie Trinket, who despite her Capitol upbringing, despite her parroting Capitol propaganda lines, Haymitch can’t help but notice her empathy and kindness, and she becomes the only one who can seem to care for him after his Games.

Every single Tribute that he adopted as his own, his flock of doves. He never once thought about winning over any of them, choosing instead to do everything in his power to protect them. He kept the fire running and made nightlights for the young Tributes who feared the dark. He tried to play it cool when meeting with Amphert, but when Amphert hugs him, he just drops the act and hugs him right back. He stayed with Wellie and helped to feed her the best he could, reassuring her the whole time and strategizing how he was going to make her the Victor. He blamed himself for every one of their deaths.

Fuck, even the rabbits in the Arena he becomes fond of. He viewed them as allies and felt guilty when he had to use them to determine what was poisoned.

Haymitch Abernathy loves hard and fast. And that’s what Snow took; his ability to love. He trapped Haymitch into the rascal persona he had put on for the Games. The message he sent with Lenore Dove and Ma and Sid and every single Tribute who Haymitch couldn’t save, was that he would kill anyone Haymitch loved. So he drove people away from him. Forced distance between him and the District Twelve tributes. I think that didn’t even stop him from loving them too, only to watch them killed in the Arena. A yearly reminder of that message.

I hope after the revolution, Haymitch felt free to love without fear again.

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a thing that i particularly love about the hunger games prequels is how it shows that people have been fighting against the games since their inception

when i was younger and read the original trilogy for the first time i was so bothered how it was 74 years of games, i remember thinking how could it have gone on so long without anyone doing anything

these prequels highlight that people have been fighting from the get-go: lucy gray's defiance, reaper ripping down panem's flags to cover the fallen tributes, haymitch's games and how many others shared his ideologies - the capitol just drowns them out, they rewrite their stories so their efforts are forgotten

liberation takes time and it's built upon the actions of those in the past

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from katniss' perspective, the 75th hunger games & the 3rd quarter quell are all about her disobedience (and peeta's to some extent, but most of all that was her doing.) being that this was the only perspective we've had for years and years and years, that's the only assumption the rest of us could've made too. and sotr, against all odds, continues to ruthlessly add context to so many aspects of the series, whether we like it or not. the inclusion of so many known names and faces is something i've seen criticized and accused of being fanservice/nostalgia fuel, which... spectacularly misses the point.

beetee has, up until then, been a victor with known rebel tendencies. he's already being punished for that in sotr, let alone after. we don't know the details of mags' and wiress' involvement with the rebellion attempt in sotr, but we last see them tired, hurt, and visibly post-torture. johanna mason won her games by doing nothing offensive at all (...for all we know...) and yet her whole family has been wiped out—why? what did she do in the games, after the games? before the games? annie, who was herself reaped for the quarter quell, won when a huge wave drowned all the remaining tributes—think about it: is that what the capitol likes? so many "boring" deaths in one fell swoop, is that entertaining tv? of course not. what happened in that arena that caused this potential error in the system that ended up being played off as annie's great strategy?

point being, there are so many things we don't know but can possibly infer about the pre-quell lives of these specific tributes & how they may have rebelled, incited rebellion, or attempted to undermine snow/the capitol. yes, this quell was rigged. yes, snow did this largely to punish katniss in that moment in time specifically. no, the selection of her fellow tributes was not happenstance. (neither was, for that matter, the selection of the careers random: gloss and cashmere, siblings, beloved of the capitol and certainly the pre-determined winners.)

snow's fatal mistake here was not being able to let the sleeping dogs lie; he saw the chance to punish everyone who pissed him off, took it, and paid very dearly for the arrogant stupidity it takes to put panem's smartest and deadliest and angriest and rebelliest eggs in one tiny horrible basket.

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It's the smallest thing maybe but it's funny to me Sunrise on the Reaping has given me another reason to dislike Gale.

Thinking of Madge on reaping day, wearing her nice dress and Gale giving her shit for it. Like she has a choice. Like she has say. Like it's her fault who she was born to. It's such an interesting example of class vs culture wars. This idea that the people up the road who have a nice house are the enemy and not the faceless people thousands of miles away who profit on their poverty.

Thinking of Maysilee who was very conscious of the way she dressed. Who liked looking nice and dressing up. Who is Madge's aunt that she never met. Who Madge heard stories of growing up about her moms twin sister who always loved fashion and knew the importance of masking and the power of how you present to people. Don't let them treat us like animals.

And when Madge lifts her head and says "I want to look my best if I go to the Capitol" and Gale has the audacity to scoff at her.

It also speaks to how quickly history is lost. He probably doesn't even know her aunt died in the games. Doesn't care. You never ever ever know what hurt people are carrying. What their history is. What their familial struggle has been. Don't punch down. Don't punch sideways. Don't even punch up. Break the chain and destroy the person holding the reins.

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sunrise on the reaping is just this onion headline over and over again:

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Season 3 gave Maxine so much more depth, like, she is so adhd coded? Idk I felt with her. Saw myself in her. The way she desperately wants to fit in, wants everyone to think your good, wants to be a part, wants-no needs people to be clear about what they mean, what they do and why, about their intentions because getting people is hard. Yet, more often than not you do feel like you're not really belonging, no matter where. So you need constant reassurance.

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I am spoiling the live action Lilo & Stitch. And I am doing it up front and plainly.

Do not fucking see this movie. Do not waste your money on this. Period.

They made Nani give Lilo up to the American government. They made Nani LEAVE Hawaii and pursue being a marine biologist. They made a native Hawaiian character give up her sibling to pursue a dream that she originally did not have. This is imperialist propaganda at its FINEST.

The original fucking movie is about family staying together. It's about indigenous people being able to stay with each other and stay in their home and be together! That's the whole fucking point! Nani is Lilo's last living relative on her homeland—it is jarring, it is disgusting and disturbing that Nani would not only leave her last blood relative alone, give her up to the very government that is harming native Hawaiians TODAY, but also travel to the "mainland" for her dream!

Not to mention, Nani's actress isn't fucking Hawaiian. She's much paler in photos and real life. They fucking darkened her for this movie.

Don't even get me started on the transgender subtext of Pleakley's "human" disguise from the original movie being completely erased in favor of him being played by a regular ass white man. Jumba doesn't have his accent, they made him more villainous, and his "human" disguise is a non-fat white man—which part of his original joke, I know, is that he was bigger and was more clumsy in the movie because of his size, but to have the main shape of his character completely removed is also fucking weird.

This live action movie is a desecration to the original. I encourage you to not see it, please. Don't give Disney any of your money on this one. Just watch the original. Please just watch the original.

The new message in the live action movie is disturbing and gross.

This is one of the most disrespectful live actions I've seen and heard of. I implore you to not watch it.

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this post is not gonna be well put together but i am having feelings

mean girls is trending right now because the musical movie just came out and i feel insane. idk why i do, it was stupid of me to think that most people Got It, no one ever gets it, it was always about the memes and the aesthetic.

the first mean girls movie was based on a nonfiction book called queen bees and wannabes. it interviewed and discussed the social hierarchy system in teen girl friendships. how they hold each other to these insane standards of heternormative femininity out of sheer terror that they won't meet those standards themselves. the way they leverage their relationships for some small degree of power in a world designed to strip them of it, even if it drags other girls down.

the "you can only wear your hair in a ponytail once a week and on wednesdays we wear pink" speech was not an original creation for the script. it's a QUOTE from a real teenage girl. those were REAL RULES.

then the musical came, and it was one step removed from the intended messaging of the film. OG mean girls was not perfect (and was extremely racist), but it said what needed said. the musical leaned on the comedy more, but still left a heartfelt undertone, and still critiqued the systems in place. of course no piece of media is going to be perfect, but it was about the conversation.

then this new movie comes out and it is washed over in the veneer of white hollywood feminism so thick you can't see anymore. the problematic aspects of the original movie are taken out to avoid "offending" when the offense was the point. it becomes toothless, it becomes some other thing entirely. they changed karen's line "i expect to run the world in shoes i cannot walk in" to "watch me as i run the world in shoes i cannot walk in." because choice feminism is in vogue, suddenly this character whose entire point is that she doesn't think deeply about WHY she does anything is suddenly hip to the fact that the world is against her.

i think of sokka losing his misogyny arc in the new atla. i think of the Heathers remake casting the bitchy, identical heathers as queer and hollywood-fat outcasts. as if the story, the meaning, the allegory is hidden in the sets and the jokes and the music. it's a whole new thing now, and it's a thing that means nothing in particular.

the plastics should not wear jeans. they should not have curves. their queerness should be suppressed, painful. their sexuality is not a slay, it's the only thing they think they have of value. the santa dance isn't sexy, it's shocking, it's mortifying - they are children.

they're not mean because "we are all mean." they are mean because they are girls in a world that brutalizes them and crushes them into a standardized shape. they are mean because the world is mean to them. they are mean because it gives them some power back. they are mean because it's the only weapon they have.

the landscape of femininity today has shifted to camera-ready makeup at the age of 10, stringent performative hygiene standards, and avoiding being caught on film while having a genuine emotion. the consumerism, the fatphobia, the racism, the classism, the homophobia remain. We could have had a conversation about that.

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every year or so tik tok starts debating who the “real mean girl” was in mean girls and i’m just so baffled by the lack of media comprehension. the point is that they are ALL MEAN GIRLS. Yes! Janis was a mean girl. But so was Regina. All of the girls were mean girls!!! That’s what the gym scene is about, every girl gong up on stage and admitting something horrible they’ve done to another person.

It’s why Cady’s character had to be home schooled and not just transferring from a different school. It had to show you that everyone is capable of being a “mean girl” because high school is kill or be killed. It’s so easy to hurt others in the name of protecting yourself. Even girls who were kind and wanted to be kind succumbed to being a “mean girl” in order to make it through the day.

Mean Girls isn’t about right vs wrong. It’s about hierarchies in high school, it’s about the performance of femininity, it’s about toxic femininity, it’s about expectations and the desire to be accepted.

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To celebrate Ginny and Georgia getting renewed for seasons 3 and 4 here's some more hot takes I have on the series!

• There's nothing cute or shippable about Abby and Press, he is verbally abusive towards her under the guise of a joke and she only hooks up with him because she likes the male attention and is very insecure.

•Abby and Ginny should not have taken Max or Norah back, but if they HAD TOO forgiving Max and Norah should've taken several episodes

•Georgia is a narcissist, it is damn near impossible for her to see things outside of what is good for GEORGIA. (I will further elaborate on this in a post of its own)

•Ginny is only so disliked because she's black

•Ginny and Marcus breaking up needed to happen

•Abby needs her storyline more fleshed out

•The show already suffers from "too many main characters syndrome" adding Silver and Samantha is too much and frankly I couldn't care less about either

•Samantha is a very realistic albeit very useless character, everyone knows of a "floater friend" in a friend group or a member of the friend groups girlfriend who's trying to hard to be apart of it.

•NONE of the Mang girls are racist, they are insensitive and ignorant because unless you are actively black, or POC, you do not know how to navigate that, that being said, Abby and Samantha have been microaggresive at some points throughout the series. (Mainly in S1)

•Norah needs a storyline. She's literally just there to be an extra character and to serve looks.

•There should have been a scene during the episode where Georgia sits in on Ginnys therapy session where a real conversation is had about being biracial with a white mother.

•Austin is clearly being set up to have a very dangerous storyline and to maybe too closely follow in his mother's footsteps

•Cynthia and Joe was very unnecessary.

•Hunter and Samantha being in the friend group still is also unnecessary.

• Ginny and Hunter do not need to be friends, she treated him horribly throughout the relationship and while he was a cringefest he did not deserve what she put him through

• The aesthetic of 1st season is a lot better than the 2nd one however both are done very well from a storytelling perspective and the grungy aesthetic of s2 goes with the unraveling of the shiny pretty life (and aesthetic) of s1

•You cannot dislike Ginny without disliking Georgia as they are a mirror of each other

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Kudos to fanfiction writers for writing about all the trauma and emotional and mental turmoil that the original content creators dont acknowledge when putting characters through hell