#but after watching the ballad of songbirds and snakes

[darklingduck]

Also I never see it talked about but her running for the stag actually strategically gave him no choice (in his very over reactive mind) but to collar her. She was his biggest threat and in her confusion on what to do next and who to trust the power of the stag could be very unstable.

[spacy-snail]

Parts of the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes movie that did the book dirty

Spoilers!!

…

• Snow is the one to suggest feeding the tributes, not stumbling across Sejanus already doing it

• The downgrade of the whole rat problem/rat poison thing

• Grandma’am is nice now???

• The almost total removal of Clemensia’s character, her being a weird suck up instead of her making a normal teen lie, and the fallout showing the absolute apathy Dr Gaul has (and also making Snow realize he can’t even trust the Capitol)

• Dr Gaul literally spelling out what the snakes do and Clemensia still sticking her hand in that stupid snake tank

• Not having Snow calling Lucy Gray “mine” in a creepy way even once to show how he feels he has ownership of her from the very beginning

• The EXTREME downgrade of Snow and Sejanus’ relationship, and the weird bond he has with the Plinths in general

• Ma Plinth erasure

• Tigris erasure

• Getting rid of Arachne’s funeral

• Snow not going out of his way to get Lucy Gray a guitar

• Having a blink and you’ll miss it throwaway line of the tributes and Academy students that died in the explosion

• Not showing the other tributes that did the interview

• Not showing Mama Snow’s compact until Coriolanus deciding to give it to Lucy Gray

• Lucy Gray and Snow didn’t kiss before she went into the games??? I feel like that added and extra layer of her wanting to survive but idk

• The erasure of the iconic “it’s not over until the mockingjay sings” line

• The drones never being fixed was a super weird choice and I’m not sure if I liked it or not

• Snow being super suspicious and running out to put something with Lucy Gray’s scent in the snake tank instead of just getting lucky and putting it in there on the off chance instead of it being predetermined

• The Games ending with the snake scene instead of Lucy Gray having to be clever to outwit her opponents, like I get it’s dramatic but that scene with Dr Gaul was just so weird to me

• Highbottom TELLING Snow to sign up for the Peacekeepers instead of just implying it and also telling him to keep his identity anonymous instead of Snow doing it out of pride

• Sejanus not telling Snow about the diploma he literally bargained for for him

• Sejanus showing up on the train instead of after Snow gets to District 12 and has to wallow in what his life is now before having finally having someone that actually knows him

• Snow not having IMMEDIATE beef with the mockingjays

• Snow not calling Sejanus his brother until the moment he betrayed him

• Them playing the Jabberjay audio at the hanging instead of Snow having to sit with his guilt and finding out via the commander was so so SO cringy omg

• Snow finding out he was going to District 2 BEFORE finding out about the hunt for the guns and who killed the mayor’s daughter was so so weird like why did they choose to do it in that order I feel like it took away all suspense of wondering when the other shoe was going to drop

• Lucy Gray looking that man in the eye and calling herself a loose end while he has a gun in his hand and not getting shot then and there was the most unrealistic part of the movie istg

• Not showing the Plinths in the apartment with them at all and just kinda having a throwaway line about where the money’s coming from

• Dr Gaul never says that she destroyed all evidence of the 10th game because of everything that happened with Snow, Lucy Gray, Sejanus, and the other dead Capitol children

• Snow not throwing away the morphine and Highbottom digging to get it, and instead just leaving it on the desk, idk it takes away the agency of the murder to me, less like an accident and less thought out (and on top of that, not showing how meticulous he was with poisoning the morphine so it couldn’t be traced back to him)

[ohfallingdisco]

movie: the ballad of songbirds and snakes (2023)

song: the sharpest lives // my chemical romance

[sunsetschloe]

Coriolanus is literally so in love with Lucy Gray though, like when he accidentally lets slip that he killed three people, and she confronts him about it, the only thing he was able to make up was that he killed his old self to set out on a new life with her?? He definitely isn’t bad at lying, since he’s able to manipulate so many people to do his bidding. He could’ve said that he indirectly killed Arachne or Dill, or even make up a random person from his childhood he indirectly killed, but was unable to, because it was Lucy Gray, who made him feel this myriad of emotions he was unfamiliar with, who made him question everything he ever stood for. 

And yes, it can be argued that him doubting his decision to leave his original life behind was a sign that he didn't truly love her, but it's more mistrust than anything. I honestly think that he just didn't want to choose between leaving the Capitol and leaving her, because both meant a lot to him, the former being his dream since he was young, the latter being his hope for a life with his true love. In the ending of TBOSAS, he shoots like crazy in the woods when he gets bitten by the snake under her scarf, but that can be attributed to how he was nurtured growing up. Capitol life affected him in many ways, the most prominent one being how paranoid he is of others backstabbing him. The years of growing in this type of society would not have disappeared simply because of love, unlike what many novels depict (which i think is amazing of Suzanne Collins for not having him change completely because of "pure love"), so this clash between his love for Lucy Gray and his beliefs from Capitol life ending with the latter taking over is completely valid, even if he loves her. Years later, when Katniss comes around, the effects of Lucy Gray's "betrayal" is shown in how haunted he was when he saw the mockingjay pin Katniss wears, and the songs she sings. He completely believes that Katniss and Peeta didn't really love each other because of this trauma of Lucy Gray abandoning him, and I don't think he would've been this affected by her betrayal if he didn't truly love her.

[just-call-mefr1es]

tbosas movie was good but it forgot to add in the 9 hour long makeout scene with Sejanus and Marcus 🫤

[todd-queen]

completely Not Normal™ about Rachel Zegler's performance of The Old Therebefore

[sejanusarchive]

In honor of one year since the tbosas movie came out, it’s time people finally admit it’s a terrible adaptation. Yes, you’re still allowed to enjoy it, ‘cause at the end of the day it’s a good movie, but saying it’s remotely close to being a good adaptation is a huge lie, when it completely fucked up the plot, all the characters, the symbolism, the themes, removed fundamental aspects and events of the story, and changed others as if it was nothing, completely missing the whole point and messing with it

[redishsunflowers]

"who was he? sejanus?"

yeah i wish you were sejanus buster boy

[himbocampus]

The real plinth prize

You kiss my ma

Live in her house

Eat all her food and wipe your mouth

On a bloodstained handkerchief no doubt

But One of these days I will come back around

But I will not prop you up from the ground

Watch yourself ‘cause

I will come back around

[gwenheda]

hear me out

favorite crime by olivia rodrigo

for snowbaird

help me make a playlist yall

[dandyleyen]

Men will get their heart broken and literally will spend a lifetime killing people and making everyone’s life a living hell rather than get therapy

[felixravinstills]

I would pay good money to be a Capitol citizen in this weird au, should the two (both wife and spouse) coexist. Showing up to every public event with bated breath to witness Panem's most dysfunctional polycule. The possible x reader is actually pretty interesting! Usually when we read your writing we're feeling the horror through an outsiders perspective, but getting inserted into these situations might actually make things worse! (I'm saying this very excitedly). It's almost horror-game-like.

Also, Volumnias Spouse, 100%. Dying uneventfully, possibly poisoned over breakfast because she wanted to test something out and warning her spouse in advance could give them a placebo that'd make her research useless, or something, lol.

the world's most dysfunctional polycule... yeah, if I was a Capitol Citizen, I wouldn't care about the Games. Whatever is going down between the President, the First Lady, the President's Pet Scientist, and the Scientist's Just Some GuyTM (gnc) Spouse is what I'd be living for. Me and my friends would be taking bets on who's dying first. Who is killing who? There's highly heated discourse around whether or not Volumnia's managed to sleep with the First Lady or not.

Volumnia's Spouse! reader-insert might be the most inspired idea I've had in a long time! It's a true horror. It's making use of the second person narration and the kind of blank slate character perfectly...

Oh, I know the moment Volumnia Spouse is dead, the First Lady better watch out (or start matchmaking? OR big twist here divorce Max and immediately marry Volumnia). Like the momentary power imbalance of Volumnia no longer having a spouse would spell danger for the First Lady.

[dont-let-me-eat-pears]

did i hear wrong, or did lucy gray sing, “a necklace of hope”—plutarch’s edit in mockingjay—instead of “rope”?

[anxietyfrappuccino]

the ballad of songbirds and snakes

[lightsinthemist]

So the Barbie film was really THAT GOOD

I kept grinning the whole time I think I need to see it again!!

[klara-rosa]

watching The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes and...my God....what have they done

IT IS AWFUL

I can still remember so vividly going to the cinema for each new Hunger Games movie and I felt they were all pretty good, they had emotion in them and they carried meaning and the pace was good and the acting was good

But this??? How fast-paced, meaningless, full of stupid dialogue and unfeeling can you make one single movie? There is NO PACING in this film. None. No feel. No artistic value.

One of THE WORST movies I have ever seen.