#so much rambling but much to be said

[poordeadsejanus]

from baby to brutal: coriolanus snow's hair transformation throughout the ballad of songbirds and snakes

something that i find so interesting as a physical marker of coriolanus' change into snow is his hair.

the progression we see him go through, from those nice soft curls, to the buzzcut, to the platinum bleach and tone really remind me -- and walk with me here -- of when babies/little kids get their first haircut and how the new growth changes their hair.

for instance, when a family member of mine was really young, they had super soft, thin, and curly hair; we were all convinced they would just have curly hair forever. but them, they got their first hair cut (cut down really short), and from that moment on, the hair grew in much thicker and noticeably straight. baby hair is always so soft and fine, and it's when they start to grow up that it begins to change, especially when the first cut snips all of the baby hair away. it's a marker of change, of growing up (and, i suppose to be a bit cynical, losing the innocence of youth).

okay so, back to coryo. we first see him with the golden, loose curls.

this is when he's more naive to the realities of the world, when he still has not become the hardened man we know later on. still innocent i suppose you could say -- well, as relatively innocent as coriolanus snow can be. [more below the cut]

even when he's a child, the hair is loose and similar to the way he wears it when he's older. almost as if it's showing us that he's sort of stuck in this perpetual state of paranoia, fear, and the single-minded sort of thinking common in children, but exacerbated a million times in adult coryo.

next we get the buzzcut. and there is much to be said about this.

so, first of all, we're seeing a cutting off of the baby hair, representing him letting go of his old life, his childhood, that last bit of good he had going for him. he takes a turn for the worst. this is when he starts to experience life outside the capitol and everything goes awry.

the idea of a haircut in general is supposed to be a renewal, a starting over, an embrace of change. but obviously that's not really what this is for him because he does not choose to cut his hair. a forced haircut -- and it is; there's a scene in the movie where he's getting sheared and he has this sort of glassy look in his eyes that just screams 'i do not want this so maybe if i tune it out it'll stop happening' -- is essentially the exact opposite of all the things a haircut is supposed to be. it's taking choice entirely out of the hands of the person. no more is it about a new beginning and a change made by the self, it is a forced change inflicted on someone: effectively a 'this is how it is now, deal with it'. really having something as personal and vital to your autonomy as hair being forcefully changed (or removed) is a completely violation of the self, both outer and inner.

plus, in this specific context, it's a military cut. it's meant to symbolize conformity and the putting aside of your own self to become part of something bigger than the individual. (and really, i don't think i need to explain why that is something coryo is not happy about). for someone so set on his great exceptions and bright future as an individual with power and status ("coriolanus snow, future president of panem" tbosas, 11), becoming a faceless grunt doing menial labour is not fulfilling the expectations both he and others have for him. this haircut is about conformity, making coriolanus into someone completely anonymous and without power.

the power loss is both literal, but also more metaphorical in it's ties to the hair loss, because crassus had that same white hair as him, so cutting it off, down to the bare bones of it, takes away that connection and identification that he had with his father and the larger snow reputation in general.

okay, last thing about this buzzcut. obviously, when sejanus shows up on the train -- or in the barracks like in the book -- he too has his hair buzzed, so you could assume that he's experiencing the same sort of identity crisis and helplessness as coriolanus, but i'd actually argue otherwise. of course, we can't actually know because coryo's narration is heavily biased so we couldn't ever hope to actually know sej's true thoughts, but i think for sejanus it actually might function as a sense of freedom. he's joined the peacekeepers, he's out of the capitol, he can make a difference. it's about his freedom to become someone anonymous (not tied to the plinth name), whereas coryo's is the exact opposite; a loss of freedom and the snow name. it's a punishment for coryo to become no one, but a relief for sejanus. and while the haircut is required regardless of personal feelings on peacekeeping, sejanus' haircut would've been much less of a violation because he signed up for it. it's not something he's being held in place and forced to do. he can shear his hair and shed the capitol life, and embracing anonymity, becoming a piece in something bigger than himself, whereas for coryo, this isn't something he chooses. a choice for sejanus and a punishment for coriolanus.

[and isn't that sort of the piece of their contrasting characters? one desperately seeking to distance himself from the capitol and his family name, and one clawing and fighting and killing to get back to that very same thing...]

now, finally on to coryo's final evolution in the movie: salon-fresh bleached and toned haircut.

to get back to the baby hair metaphor: the baby hair has been shorn, and the adult hair has grown back differently (or it is styles purposefully differently). this symbolizes a loss of that innocence and childhood that he was clinging to, represented by the curls. but we are also past the violation of the buzzcut, where he was deeply uncertain and off kilter -- an identity crisis. now, his hair has grown back, and this is pretty much the style we see in all the way up to thg trilogy and donald sutherland's snow.

it is pushed away from the face (very unlike the baby curls we see, which constantly are in/over his face), showing us that he is not clouded by those same childish things that he was before. it is more structures and carefully styled, displaying discipline and order.

i'd be curious to know if he straightens it in these early years post-lucy gray as a staunch refusal to even slightly be similar to how he was before. because president snow as we see him has some of that wave back. this is a super "plate of corn" moment, of course, but it is something i was thinking about.

also, this new hair is obviously meant to be a nod to crassus' hairstyle: emulating the man he wants to be. the hair is more straight, pushed back away from the face, very structured, for both crasus and snow.

the change is very clearly marked and meant to be very obvious, showing us coriolanus' transformation and his descent into villainy. it's done so masterfully, both obvious and subtle at the same time. the movie did such a spectacular job giving us insight into coriolanus' transformation in so many ways, particularly with the costume choices / colours, etc. and obviously none of this would mean anything without suzanne collins' phenomenal writing in the first place.

subtle visual representations of character transformations you are so special to me <3

[egophiliac]

I have SO many thoughts about everything and they are in no kind of order yet, so here's just some quick little bits in the meantime!

I am not normal about any of these characters!

[la-pheacienne]

I'm reading the lord of the rings and I'm once again amazed at how... good most characters are. Like, they are genuinely good people. They are a bunch of kindhearted, gracious, caring people, coming together under adverse circumstances and trying to figure things out and find a solution and support each other through it all. Like Frodo and Sam meet Faramir and Faramir is a bit suspicious at first and kind of implies Frodo may be a spy, and then when he hears his story and he's like Frodo, I pressed you so hard at first. Forgive me! It was unwise in such an hour and place. And this blows.my.mind. He wasn't even particularly mean or threatening to him in the beginning, he's just such a kind, considerate man, recognizing the kindness and honesty of another man. And they're all like that. Even Gollum starts slowly changing (for a short while) when he encounters Frodo because that's the thing about kindness and humility and grace, they are contagious. They transform people, even a creature like Gollum cannot be immune to that. Like, you may consider all this simple and basic and I get it but, hear me out. It is quite rare to see that in modern media and it is also pretty difficult to pull off in a way that is not corny and simplistic. It is mind blowing that you actually don't have to present the entire palette of human cruelty and vice in order to tell a compelling story, contrary to popular belief. Lotr does the exact opposite, and it is just beautiful and it warms my heart. Especially taking into consideration tolkien's pretty grim growing-up experience, him being a double orphan without a home, raised between an orphanage and a priest and having no family apart from his brother and then the war and then he almost dies and then he's poor as hell and then a second war and it all makes sense somehow. He writes to his wife who is also an orphan two days before the marriage "the next few years will bring us joy and content and love and sweetness such as could not be if we hadn't first been two homeless children and had found one another after long waiting" and, yes, yes! The love and sweetness just radiate from his work, the entire lotr series is a little radiant bubble of hope and love and grace that he imagined in his head to deal with a dismal reality and then he just gave that to the world, and isn't that what imagination and art is all about after all?

[juniemunie]

[Abandoned by the Lightners, his heart became cracked with hatred.]

Hitting a lil' too close to home?

[temeyes]

boyish smile

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

how about that uhhhhh Fantasy Julie. she gets her sword <3 no one can take it from her <3

rambles:

SIKE you get an extra, lower quality doodle

SIKE AGAIN here's the rambles

yeah... i caved and gave her a tail... I'm Not Sorry! it's cute! i wanted to stick with her sorta flower motif - it's stronger in her princess look, since I imagine that when she was part of the royals she was very blatantly flower power based. it was her Thing!

but a Julie free of her noble shackles... she deserves her big sword. like yeah, she has flower magic, but who needs it when she has a Giant Blade??? on the royalty vein, and if we're classifying "rainbow monster" as a species, i feel like horn size/curve would be a status symbol of some kind. maybe Julie would have kept her horns filed short. but if she ran away from that life... longer horns! i like to imagine that they'll keep growing until she has a pair of Extra Weapons attached to her head! curved forward like mammoth tusks maybe!

i imagine that like Frank, she goes with minimal armor - range of movement over protection, yk? some scale mail over her front, a thick leather flower over her chest w/ scalloped leather pauldrons, wrist armor and metal knuckles! i'd think that the faux-suspenders include a back sheath for her sword... i wish i'd thought of that Before i finished the little ref! i don't feel like going back and editing!

i imagine that she was forced to cut her hair when it got caught in something (a gelatinous cube, mayhaps). it didn't look good! don't let anime and Mulan fool you! cutting your own hair with a blade will not look nice! but someone - Eddie, probably, he's good with scissors i'd assume - cleaned it up for her. and hey, it didn't look bad! plus, Julie probably liked being able to just tuck up her long strands into her hat when she's feeling a bit more like a Julius than a Julie!

it's been a fun challenge transforming their canon outfits into a similar variation with fantasy flavoring and twists! i want them to suit the setting but still maintain Themselves! Julie's was tough i gotta admit. i was messing around with the princess look and the fighter look side-by-side. it worked better when i sat back and thought "fighter Julie is Julie unrestrained. that version would be more aligned with her canon look"

i wanted her princess form to look Restrained! she has to be a ~delicate flower~, a noble woman, pristine and poised and very much a princess. soft colors, poofy clothing, bright white gloves that are not to be sullied. carefully bundled up hair! jewelry! that dress must be Heavy and hard to move in! her tail must be so cramped under there!

but Julie Unleashed? violent pinks! rose gold accents! short skirt so that she can sprint and Kick! fun boots that she can be active in and delight in watching them get dirty! her hair is free to whip in the wind and get caught in things! fun straps and Deadly Accessories! a sword that she stole from the royal armory on her way out the window! she has forearm wraps both to match Frank and to support her wrists!

[selfrinsert]

imagine referring to your f/o as “my [f/o name]” okay now imagine your f/o referring to you as “my [your name]” now subsequently imagine both of you getting flustered as hell over it

[deltaruminations]

what if gaster in a future chapter calls out the audience for speculating so much about him. the guy canonically has some amount of access to Real Life Social Media. like i started this mostly as a joke but there are definitely some real metanarrative opportunities for a character with recklessly curious impulses, and possibly a fragile sense of self, having nearly limitless access to streams of debate over whether or not he’s a bastard. rude to talk about someone who’s listening etc

[rotomicity]

TGCF art from 2021 which were very experimental and very much something out of my comfort zone but am still so satisfied with

(gonna ramble more under the cut 👉 )

My main inspiration for these were definitely classic storybook illustration styles and the watercolor-like illustrations included inside the tgcf books which depict hualian's daily slice of life routines as seen below

I wanted to capture that feeling of warmth i got from reading but i also went with the storybook look because their relationship (and by extension broad strokes of the entire plot) really did feel like something out of actual myth or legend; i'm chinese indonesian and was raised surrounded by chinese culture + values so tgcf felt VERY familiar to me, it threw me back to my childhood reading or listening to tales about chinese deities, i'd say the storybook image definitely came into my mind pretty quickly bc of this

I find this style somewhat hard to replicate now but if i could or have the time to, i really want to continue the 'companion pieces to chapter titles ' concept i did with the last 2 pieces (which are of the same chapter title but i was just indecisive 😭😭), i even had 3 more planned based on my favorite titles before burning out back then

[queerofthedagger]

One thing that's just been keeping me up for a week straight is that, while we tend to associate Elrond as the one incredibly skilled in healing - rightfully so - there is also that "little" titbit of how "the hands of a King [of Gondor] are the hands of a healer," which, infamously, is the line of Elrond's brother.

Which leaves just enough room to speculate that they may have both had a talent in healing, and in turn begs the question of just which part of their ancestry they got it from.

And the options there are all wild in their own right - on the one hand, there is Elwing's side which would make some sense due to Lúthien/Melian, but then in at least one version of the tale at the end of the Fall of Gondolin, it's said that Elwing and her people believed that the 'power of healing in their camp' came from the Silmaril if I remember correctly. Which implies that it's not a skill their line has been known to have an extraordinary talent in.

The alternative option is, of course, Eärendil. Now that means it comes either from Tuor, or it means Idril, which means through Turgon/the House of Fingolfin. And if I think about that too much I might just go insane because oh man the implications.

But also all the ancestral musings aside, just the idea that the line of Gondor's Kings is carrying forth Elros' own talent in healing as this permanent relic, reminder, and tangible leftover for Elrond, of something they shared and learned together? just. man

[havoc-bloom]

Will Wood was right. It’s awful out here, Socrates.

[luck-of-the-drawings]

so REVENGE, HUH? or justice, if that makes you feel better. it tastes the same when cooked just right. 'I REALLY WANTED A BROTHER.' such a shame to burn a bridge you so desperately wanted to keep, especially when it wasnt even you who started the fire. especially when you hope that not a single fragment of that bridge ever washes ashore.[MAY IT ROT FAR FROM MY SIGHTS] an unfortunate loss! atleast he has his friends.

[buwheal]

Damn, Spam, did the cake taste that bad? - bad joke. Sorry you're havin' a rough day. We're here if you need to talk, or if you just need a distraction.

[foldingfittedsheets]

Todays the day. I need to get a job, even if that jobs not in the gaming industry. So I’m heading to the library to print up a resume and apply at a little local chain of mattress stores.

The guy instantly liked me when I went in to do a secret shop for a competing store and offered to hire me on the spot so I figure if I can chat with him he’ll still like me enough to consider me.

[spn2006]

"However, where Supernatural fails in execution, it succeeds in concept, meaning that it's almost more fun to write about the show than actually watch it."

This is from a review of Supernatural on SMRT-TV from literally 2006. Barely a full season of the show had been out yet and people were already talking about the blackout poetry-like appeal of this show for 90% of fans I'm fucking screaming

[stagefoureddiediaz]

Thing about just clicking with someone and not having to put in the work is finding not making and those relationships - whatever form they take rarely last or manage to develop past a surface level.

Buck is such an all in or nothing kind of person that has had to fight for pretty much everything (when it comes to relationships of any form) he just cant comprehend that other people experience various levels of friendships or relationships more widely.

We see it in his training of Ravi, it comes out in his father son reltionship with Bobby, it’s part of the underlying reason the lawsuit happened and stems from his childhood abandonment issues. We even saw it in the other sneak peek where he’s with Tommy - he’s trying so so hard to make a friend that he comes across as slightly intense and focused. And while the worthwhile people will stay (the fire fam, his sister, Eddie) those who can’t take that level of focus will pretty quickly drop away, Abby and Ali are prime examples of this and even Taylor to a certain extent - she just didn’t care enough to be bothered by it.

It’s one of the reasons he’s oblivious to the fact his relationship with Eddie is different on multiple levels and it’s part of what makes Buck so interesting and why so many of us think he’s neurodivergent.