#finally read the hunger games

[stargazingdustbunny]

As someone who is currently reading a book for the first time that I have seen discussed in many "How to write videos", and has consumed other media that I knew a lot about before reading, my take is that unless you personally know that I am actively consuming or about to consume that piece of media, I don't care if you spoil it. Let me hear what you are excited about, the parts that interested you or made you cry. I may or may not eventually read/watch/etc whatever you are talking about, but if it's good enough the spoiler won't ruin it.

[millennium-queen]

What if we’re nothing more than pieces of the Game?

Originally I made this piece to sell in a local art fair - I wanted to do something inspired by mockingjay with Katniss and Peeta on opposite sides of the game board

[starrynightsxo]

ANNOUNCEMENT: I WILL BE BACK

hey guys so I'm gonna be on and off tumblr for the moment as I just wanna limit my social media time lol but nevertheless, I will be here to spew my nonesense!

LOVE ALL MY FOLLOWERS AND MUTUALS SO SO MUCH and I just know you all understand and I appreciate you guys so much! So don't go anywhere cos I'll be here often enough, ready to yap and giggle with you all <3

LOVE YOU ALL 💕

- alims ❤️

my side blog: @bookgirlfanatic <3

cr: Caraval by Stephanie Garber

cr: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

cr: This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

Books I've read this year 2024 (so far, in order):

Powerless by Lauren Roberts

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas

Letters to the Lost by Brigid Kemmerer

Anatomy of a Misfit by Andrea Portes (reread)

Truth or Dare by Sophie McKenzie

Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J Maas

A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J Maas

How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories by Holly Black (reread)

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Destroy Me by Tahereh Mafi

Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi

Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi

Fracture Me by Tahereh Mafi

Restore Me by Tahereh Mafi

Shadow Me by Tahereh Mafi

Defy Me by Tahereh Mafi

Reveal Me by Tahereh Mafi

Imagine Me by Tahereh Mafi

Believe Me by Tahereh Mafi

The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

The Final Gambit by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Icebreaker by Hannah Grace

Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross

Dead Poets Society by Nancy H Kleinbaum

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The Brothers Hawthorne by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

The Hunger Games Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Reckless by Lauren Roberts

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Normal People by Sally Rooney

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

I have reviews to most of these if you check my tags somehow lol.

38/30 books this year. YAY! Happy Reading everyone!

A picrew of me <3

[inke-ri]

So I couldn't help but browse the THG tag bc those books own my whole heart. I actually check it now and again, and it's been interesting see how opinions have changed over the years, especially in regards to Gale and Peeta. Going through the evolution of them as just potential love interests to being far more complex than I could have expected has been a wild ride. Crazy how this reads different than from when I was a preteen.

That said, I wanted to give my unsolicited two cents on my boys, because though I have been enjoying the discussion on Peeta and Gale and what they mean to the story, I also feel like reducing them to Peeta = peace and Gale = war is far too simplistic... and oftentimes unfair to one or both of them.

See, I don't think Peeta and Gale are peace and war/destruction. They're compassion and indignation.

Peeta worries about the other tributes, or their families, or how to repay people like Rue and Thresh for what they did.

Gale is indignation at how the Capitol treats its citizens, it's anger at the injustice of inequality and brutality.

Both are needed in a story like THG. You can't have people like even Peeta not say something like "maybe we're wrong about keeping things quiet in the districts", you can't have him not drop the baby bomb, you can't start a revolution without Gale's indignation at the status quo. At deserving a better life but being denied it, at having your kids be mercilessly killed for literal sport.

However, if you start a rebellion and loose sight of your compassion, you end up no better than the people you're fighting against. Gale wasn't a bad person, imo. His heart was in the right place. He was flawed, yes, but so is everyone in this series. Gale, most importantly, lost sight of the line between fighting for the people he cared about and fighting against the people who hurt him.

Reducing Gale's indignation to just revenge and hatred ignores so much of what he stands for. Who hasn't seen laws passed that dehumanize people, who hasn't been angry and furious when someone is elected who fundamentally hates everything you are, who doesn't think some people need to pay for the atrocities they committed? There's a little bit of Gale in every single one of us - and it's important that it's there, because that's what gives us strength to challenge the status quo and make life better for the future generations.

But. You can't let it take over. You can't loose sight of your compassion or your empathy.

That's where Peeta comes in. Peeta is the voice in your head that worries about how many good lives will be lost when they give themselves up for this cause. Peeta is the worry about the people caught in the crossfire. Peeta is rebuilding when it's over and believing that the next generation will have a better life than your own. Peeta is being kind, even to people who may not deserve it.

And Gale... Gale looses sight of his compassion, and he doesn't realize it until it smacks him in the face when the bombs go off and Prim is gone and he's too far gone. Meanwhile, Peeta advocates for the end of the war even though it means the status quo remains - and regardless of what he believes himself, I don't think Suzanne chose him to say those lines by chance. It means both mindsets have their flaws: too kind and things that shouldn't remain will never be challenged and changed, too angry and you may loose sight of what you're fighting for.

And that's just how Suzanne uses her characters, both of them, all of them. Just look at who is with Katniss depending on the situation:

- Katniss chooses to "rebel" after Gale is brutally whipped. She kisses him.

- Katniss realizes that in order for D12 to rebel, everyone would need to be in on it, and she realizes most of them are not like her, that they're scared and she understands, emphasises with them. Peeta walks by her side.

- Katniss finally does it though, shoots the arrow at the force field, and Peeta is taken from her, it's now Gale by her side.

(You can't start a rebellion without indignation, and sometimes you HAVE to do it or things will never change, regardless of the inevitable pain that will come along.)

- Katniss is righteously angry at the Capitol bombing a hospital full of innocents to make a point. Gale remains there.

- Coin twists people's compassion into an army to fight for her own personal gain. Peeta is hijacked and looses his sense of self.

- Katniss and Gale go to District 2 and even though she tries to be like Peeta, she's still shot- reinforcing Gale's views, the person who was with her during that sequence.

- Katniss is angry at Snow, Katniss goes to the Capitol to kill him. Gale is there.

- Katniss gets in way over her head and realizes she is responsible for the death of most of her squad. She shares the lamb stew with Peeta, and later cleans his wounds.

- Finnick dies and she's at her lowest up until that point and all she wants to do is give up and give in to the anger. She kisses Peeta and begs him to stay with her.

... Claiming that Gale is destruction ignores the fact that he's with Katniss through her own moments of strength. Her desire to change things, to fight back, is as important as her compassion. Mockingjay just brutally shows you what war does to your indignation, to your compassion. How easy it is to cross a line between righteous anger and revenge, or how your sense of empathy and compassion can be manipulated into something monstrous by others, or by all the terrible, brutal, painful things you see.

How easy it is to loose yourself- and that goes for both of them.

Peeta and Gale aren't static characters, they go from representations of sentiments regarding an injust government to what happens to those feelings when an extreme situation such as war breaks out. All of that, by the way, while dealing with this duality themselves, because they are still characters who think and feel and struggle and have flaws of their own- and while I love what they stand for, I've seen too many comments that pin everything into what they mean, that they forget that Peeta and Gale are still people, they aren't perfect metaphors. They're human.

Ultimately, Katniss doesn't really choose peace. She wants peace, yes. But what she chooses is compassion. empathy. hope. There's a time and place for anger at injustice. There's a time when fighting back is the right thing to do. There are even times when you wanna give in to your despair and lash out. But if you want peace, then you have to choose Peeta, because Peeta represents what you need to focus on to achieve that peace. You have to let go of the anger or you won't ever rest. So Gale leaves, and does not come back... And yet, Katniss still has her moments of indignation, of making a stand, even as he goes - she still casts her vote at that meeting, she still shoots Coin. Katniss does not abandon that part of who she is. It's just not her main drive anymore.

So then she goes on to make the choice, every single day, to be compassionate to others. To have hope. To rebuild. Of course she chooses Peeta.

... Idk, man. These boys are so much more than what I see them so often reduced to. They're in all of us. There will be times to stand and fight, and times to show mercy and be kind. We just need to find that balance, as Katniss eventually did.

[diddlesnap]

The Hunger Games but make it an early 2000s shoujo manga

[hauntedrose555]

[solar-halos]

wait i’m sorry i don’t mean for this to come off as capitol but in the anchor cast below ellizablue brings up how the dress annie wore to a funeral was mags’ old Victory Tour dress bc it was a more somber occasion back then and like. man. i lowkey can’t stop thinking about that. like, the evolution of the fashion in early panem. what were tributes wearing in the early days of the Tribute Parades? were they even Tribute Parades at first, or more of a meet and greet sort of vibe? (ok they obviously weren’t meet and greets cos they had the tribute interviews but u get my point). like i know they’d eventually want to shift gears and not make the Tour somber at all and more about honor/sacrifice for the country, but even though they switched gears hella fast in the span of just 75 years i still don’t think this is a change they made overnight, so im just sitting here wondering about how the drip of the victors reflected the times

[penguinsomadagascar]

I made this. Happy labor day!

[little-de-vil]

Saying Your Stones

The concept of religion is nonexistent in Panem, so much so that when Katniss sees cherubs in the frescoed walls of District 11, she calls them “fat children with wings.” Religious Christian imagery that Katniss notices is seen as only decoration because religion of any sort is so against the norm. Only cultural, district related traditions.

"Designs of fruit and flowers are carved into the molding and small, fat children with wings look down at us from every angle." (CF, 64) 

The concept of prayer is reduced to hope or telepathic wishes of safety, like Finnick when Annie is in The Capitol. No gods of any kind, but not pure hopelessness. There is community without religion in Panem; with the struggle of survival and the knowledge of the district trade. The need to live for others betterment rather than individualistic whims.��

Enter an old tradition of the Cutters. As old as their district, and just as tangible as their older traditions. It’s not a prayer in the actual sense of asking some higher power to intervene in for the betterment of one or another’s life, but a symbolic journey of growth tied to their birthstones.

Each stone has some sort of symbolic significance tied to that persons birth month, and is believed to be how they act or who they will become. Say someone’s birthstone is travertine, a stone that signifies confidence, stability and durability. If that person is generally shy and unsure in their way of life, others around them will say that they will slowly become like their stone. 

Birthstones are defined as markers of character for the community, but not stereotypes because they know that stones have the propensity for change depending on the force given to it. Too little and nothing changes, much and they crumble to dust. But there’s always an opportunity for change, to become one’s true self.

The tradition itself is — in our eyes — like a late night prayer. Each night, the birthstone is taken in their hands and the symbolic meaning of the stone is murmured in continuum for however long the person wishes, with a certain meaning repeated more than the others as a wish for what they hope to become. 

This tradition has shifted from being done in private at one’s own time to a family evening ritual where the whole family gathers and says their words over and over, regardless of the other people and their “conflicting” stones. This change was made shortly after the war in an effort to not only continue the traditions, but to make it a ritual within the family and tie it to their community.

Every night, the oldest Sophro child takes his travertine stone that lives on his nightstand and murmurs “confidence” until his voice nearly gives out. The middle Sophro child has only recently returned to the tradition after her Games, realizing how much she has become like her own stone, carnelian. The youngest Sophro child has a faint idea of the tradition, but has very rarely done it herself since her family hasn’t openly practiced it in years. Nonetheless, she still takes her stone, a shinning topaz like her Home Name and wishes not for who she will become, but for what she would like to impart onto her family. 

Hawk Sophro has not practiced Saying his Stone since his daughter won her Games. He still keeps his marble stone on his nightstand, spinning it in his palm and asking for the strength of his stone. 

I also wanted to continue this idea of the culture becoming weaker with each new generation becoming more and more assimilated to Capitol Culture. Madon has continually been doing that tradition, Harlow has recently returned to it after a traumatic event like The Games (in a sort of “She found religion” kind of thing) & Topaz has had very little interaction with it, so much so that when she goes back to it, she misunderstands the purpose and asks for the best for others, not herself.

[vibrantvenus]

I know ppl talk about the parallels between Katniss and Lucy/Sejanus/Coriolanus but can I talk about the parallel between her and Reaper for a moment. Tributes from the poorest districts, arguably the ones who you would assume would look out only for themselves, taking the time to grieve openly, to honor the dead. Their defiance of the Capitol, even if it may kill them. That there is a kindness in them that can't be smothered.

I don't think it's an accident that they both take a younger female tribute under their wing, and it's her death that ignites that spark in them.

Reaper Ash, the flame that died out and Katniss Everdeen the girl on fire.

[flashbacksechoes]

THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES (2023)

[libertyreads]

I just finished this one and I want to say, sincerely and from the bottom of my heart, What the fuck was that???

[hermywolf]

top 5 books?

im so sorry i hit my post limit literally two minutes before i got this ask skjsk

oh god thats a tough one. can't do all time so i'm gonna go for like my current faves. Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer, Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith, Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo, Sula by Toni Morrison, Howl by Allen Ginsberg, but thats just rn though

[tls123]

top first watches of 2023 — tagged by @sensazioneultra (thank you nico ily baci baci 🧡🎥)

i only watched forty-two movies last year and ten-ish of those were re-watches, so there's not a lot to pick from for my top watches. that being said these are what i enjoyed the most, for one reason or another

i'm definitely going to try and get back into movies this year because i miss them and my watchlist keeps getting bigger and bigger <3

in no particular order:

call me chihiro / bottoms / polite society

they cloned tyrone / ballerina / mockingjay part 2

not tagging anyone, but if you'd like to do this and haven't been tagged yet then i'm tagging you

[lordsardine]

.

[hazellevessque]

BIG DAY FOR NERDS