Bibliophiliac-bisexual-disaster - Emo? Nerd? Emo Nerd.

people often use snow’s experiences with lucy gray as an explanation for how he engages with katniss, but i think that the true story of his downfall lies not in how lucy gray and katniss are similar, but rather in how they are different.

snow knew that it was never him that made the games what they are. it was lucy gray, with her scrappy, passionate artistry, that put on the show that kept people watching. more importantly, it was lucy gray that put on the show that kept HIM watching. all he ever did was give her the stage.

ergo, snow recognizes that the person with the power to usurp him is his natural counterpart, someone like lucy gray, who possessed both the charisma and humanity that he sorely lacks. however, in his mind, those traits are not real; they’re performed in order to obtain power. how could he know better, when he’s never experienced them himself, and the only person he ever truly believed possessed them betrayed him?

so snow keeps his eye out for performers, people with gravitas who could capture the heart of the nation, and squashes their spark as soon as he can. people like haymitch. people like finnick.

and that’s where snow goes wrong. he doesn’t see katniss’ similarities to lucy gray from the start, because while they both demonstrate astonishing, intriguing bravery at their reapings, their actions and motivations are completely different. lucy gray is motivated to perform by anger for herself, and katniss is motivated to sacrifice herself by fear for her sister.

but then katniss starts to put on a show for the audience, kissing peeta and being willing to die with the berries at the end of the 74th games. snow starts to see an entirely different side of katniss that resembles lucy gray to a concerning degree. he sees how, with peeta at her side, she could beguile the nation the same way lucy gray had. and, even worse, she was using the poor, helpless boy who had the misfortune of falling in love with her to survive. the moment katniss started performing, he finally sees lucy gray within her. but it’s already too late.

by catching fire, katniss is the spark fanning the flames of the resistance, but snow fails to understand why. as far as he’s concerned, katniss’ star power comes from her connection to peeta. he tries to weaponize their “love” for his own gain, but it doesn’t work, not because people don’t believe that she loves peeta, but because, for the first time, a victor offers her winnings to the family of a fallen tribute.

snow is caught in a catch 22 of seneca crane’s making—if he kills katniss, she becomes a martyr. but if he lets her live, she’ll be a revolutionary icon. either way, she’s the spark. so he has no choice but to allow the spark to flicker, just for a little while. enter the 75th games. snow knows he needs katniss to die a tragic death in the games. more specifically, he needs it to be a brutal death at the hands of a tribute, not the gamemakers, because he understands that as long as the districts see the capital as the one who ended the life of katniss everdeen, she’ll still be a martyr.

but snow still doesn’t get it. in the quarter quell, the prey does not become predator. katniss’ allies protect her, ensuring she survives until district 13 rescues her. why would they protect this girl, assuming such a steep personal risk? why would they put everything on the line for a revolution they personally stand to benefit little from? he doesn’t know. but he does know that lucy gray katniss is at the center of it all, so he tries to eliminate what makes her look best: peeta.

and that is snow’s fatal mistake. what he, coin, and everyone but haymitch fail to understand is that it was never peeta that made katniss look good—it was katniss, who befriended and put faith in rue. katniss, who recruited mags, wiress, and beetee as allies. she is the source of revolutionary inspiration. it isn’t her charisma or even her compassion, and it certainly isn’t how well she performed those virtues.

katniss becomes the mockingjay because of her solidarity.

lucy gray was charismatic, like peeta, and compassionate, like both peeta and katniss, but she did not demonstrate solidarity. she was never truly “district” in the way katniss is. she showed kindness to jessup, not because he was from 12, but because he showed kindness to her. lucy gray left behind everything and everyone she loved when she left coriolanus, because she was first and foremost a survivor.

katniss was a survivor her whole life, but she survives exclusively to ensure the people she loves are protected. she always does what she can for people more vulnerable than herself. lucy gray couldn’t have sparked a revolution on her own because she lacked the solidarity that makes a hope for a better future authentic to others. katniss is the human manifestation of solidarity, and to a people divided by a common enemy, that’s the most inspiring thing a person can be.

only in the end, when katniss shoots coin, does snow realize none of it was a performance. choking on the blood of his countless adversaries, snow’s final moments are consumed by what he got wrong. what made lucy gray and katniss different ends his reign, but ironically, the final nail in his coffin is an act that both lucy gray and katniss share in their last moments with snow. they both prove, unequivocally, that he is not the center of their worlds like they are his. lucy gray put her own survival before her love for him, and katniss puts the future of her nation before her hate for him. in the end, he simply doesn’t matter. and that’s greater justice than could have ever been achieved if katniss had fired her arrow into his heart.

the greatest enemy to coriolanus snow could only be the person who reignited the embers of a dying revolutionary fire, who demonstrated to a broken people that while one spark alone might not be enough, thousands of sparks uniting in solidarity is an unbeatable force.

and really, he should have known better. after all, fire melts snow.

The first real conversation Katniss has with Peeta is when he tells her that he wants to die as himself, that he doesn't want the games to change him into something he's not, and that he wants to keep his identity and prove he's more than just a piece in their games because that's the only thing he has left to care about.

The first time we see Lucy Gray she sings a song that basically says that nothing they could take from her was worth keeping. "Can't take my past. Can't take my history... You can't take my charm. You can't take my health."

The capitol has taken everything from them both, but at the same time, they could never take away who they are.

They are both likeable charismatic and funny, with the kindest hearts, and incredibly loyal to the people they care about.

At the same time, everything they do before the games, and during is calculated. Lucy Gray singing a love song and winning the hearts of the capitol. Peeta confesses he's in love with his district partner, therefore cementing her identity as desirable. Both of them know how to sway people with words, how to charm people, and how to manipulate crowds. Neither of them has any problem doing so to keep themselves, and the people they love safe.

Lucy Gray's song The Old Therebefore, about learning how to love and live her life to the fullest before death, a final and calculated stroke in a last-ditch effort to save herself from the arena. This evokes enough emotion in the watchers to get them to rise to their feet and plead for her life alongside Snow.

Snow, watching the 74th and preparing for the 75th Hunger Games sees Lucy Gray in Katniss. A young girl, from the 12th district. Unafraid at the reaping. Selling a false love story, manipulating a boy who loves her in order to get out and supporting the revolution with the mockingjay as her symbol.

He threatens her family to get her to sell that she and Peeta are in love, to prevent the revolution, because obviously, she's pretending. He's had experience with a girl just like her before. He has no doubt that she has the acting ability to sell this story because clearly, she manipulated the first Hunger Games in her favor, the same way Lucy Gray manipulated him.

Watching the interviews for the 75th Hunger Games he realizes-

Katniss is just an impulsive girl, in a Mockingjay dress she didn't know about, made by someone who supports the revolution.

Peeta is a boy who has the ability to move people with just his words. He made Katniss desirable, he was the one who sold the love story, and he was the one to make their romance seem real. Katniss only started the revolution because she would rather risk dying with him than live without him. A concept President Snow was completely unfamiliar with. And it is with all these realizations crashing around him Peeta drops the baby bomb. He knows the baby's not real, and so does Snow. But it evokes enough emotion in the watchers to get them to rise to their feet and plead for the lives of the tributes.

Is it Lucy Gray or Peeta?

By the time Snow realizes he's made a mistake, it's too late.

Peeta is still charming and manipulating the capitol. Katniss is in love.

He goes up against a kindhearted boy expecting to beat Sejanus again, only to find out that it's Lucy Gray he's fighting; knowing he will never be able to escape their ghosts.

-from a conversation i had with @grandtyphoonpoetry breaking down every character in the hunger games.

You know how I know that AI will never be able to create like a human? Whether that be painting or writing or film-making?

Because no computer, no algorithm, no matter how good, can tell a story like a human can.

Shakespeare wrote his most famous tragedies from the mire of grief from losing his son to the plague. Oscar Wilde's "A Picture of Dorian Gray" had such overtly homosexual themes that the book was literally used against him when he was on trial. The shock and horror of 9/11 inspired My Chemical Romance to come together and capture the sense of disillusionment of young people at the time. Hozier today writes his songs expressing what it means to be an increasingly fascist world while still holding an enduring love of humanity. Arthur Miller wrote "The Crucible" using the witch hunts as a thinly veiled allegory to criticize McCarthyism in the 50s, a play that did, in fact have him persecuted for "contempt of congress". An entire period of Picasso's art was noticeably influenced by the suicide of his friend, but he also had other works that were inspired by his various love affairs.

If you still think AI could eventually create like that, you're missing the point. You think it's about skill, you think it's just about craft. We're aware that AI can learn any skill, excel at craft. But a story isn't the words you use, or the events that happened; a story is the person that tells it and the beauty they felt that they share with you when you experience the art. Because art itself isnt about the perfection of its presentation, its the messiness of the human experience. Your AI has no life, it has no story, it can make as many esthetically pleasing works as you want, but it cannot make art.

@lgbtqcreators creator challenge | book covers

TEEN MOVIES INSPIRED BY CLASSIC LITERATURE

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the hidden inventory

Epic: the musical poster~

GAHHH i cant stop listening to circe's songs ngl, this poster was a birthday gift for my gf and it turned out so good :)

Katniss and Peeta, so totally not spying on Gale and his wife from their house on purpose while they argue about who’s ruining family dinner at Haymitch’s:

“Would it kill you to just let us have one nice dinner?”

“He started it!”

“He’s old!”

Katniss or Peeta, take your pick:

“Oh wow, she’s laying into him!”

“Shut UP! They’ll hear us!”

Gale and his wife again:

“‘Have some respect, boy’ who does he think he is? My father? Please.”

“This is his house! And your mother is happy, can we please just enjoy our dinner? It isn’t our place to say anything on her choice in men.”

“Men? A man should be able to walk down the street without getting winded! He can’t even do that!”

Katniss and Peeta again:

“I mean, he does have a point”

“Shh!”

(Hehe, I posted it @vasilissadragomir ! It was just too funny!)

I know the story of Icarus is supposed to be a cautionary tale about the dangers of getting ahead of yourself...

But has anyone thought about whether Icarus intended to fall? What if when he flew high above, out of the awful labyrinth that had entrapped him and his father all this time, he finally felt free in the endless sky with the ocean under him? What if he looked beyond and saw a city on the horizon and while his father flying beside him shouts that it is safe haven, that they have found a place to land, all Icarus could see was another maze, with its walls and paths and crossroads. Only this one seemed to have more people caught in it. What if he looked at it all and refused to be one of them, refused to live the rest of his life in another labyrinth after just escaping one. What if the sun wasn't his doom but the bright burning possibility of freedom.

You must understand, I'm not saying he definitely wanted to fall. But maybe he never wanted to stop flying. Maybe he never wanted to be parted from the sky and sea. Maybe he just wanted to be free.

"It's a story about devouring and love just happens to look similar"

now I just rolled into this establishment but it seems to me that jujutsu kaisen is in fact entirely about cannibalism. eating fingers, eating curses, eating your twin inside of the womb, eating your twin outside of the womb. archaic power structures that needlessly burn out their own young. ancient spirits assimilating little girls. prison realms full of bones that slorp you up. the envelopment of a domain, like being in something’s stomach sloshing around inside it. this is not a story about love! it’s a story about devouring and love just happens to look similar.