Trying to pick a decent RealityMix Reciever.

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The Monster Manual but it's blatantly written by the monsters

Katniss is like Lucy Gray this, Katniss is like Sejanus that, and yes fine that's all good and true and lovely but Katniss Everdeen is also a direct parallel to Coriolanus Snow and people NEED to start talking about this because it's driving me crazy.

Think about it: they both grew up poor and deeply vulnerable, losing parents at a very young age, with a matriarchal adult (Katniss' mother and Coriolanus' Grandma'am) who fails to provide for them emotionally and physically. They intimately understand the threat of starvation, even developing with stunted growth because of it, and their narrations in the books share a fixation on food. Throughout their childhoods, both experienced constant fear and suffered a fundamental lack of control over their circumstances. Because of this, they're inherently suspicious of the people around them. They resent feeling indebted to others, especially those who have saved their lives. They're motivated almost entirely by family and deeply connected to their communities. Both are used and manipulated by the Capitol, both are forced to perform to survive and despise every inch of it, both are thrown into the Arena and made to kill. Both have a self-sacrificial, genuinely sweet sister figure acting as their conscience. Peeta and Lucy Gray - performers and love interests with a fundamental kindness and sense of hope about them - fulfill markedly similar roles in their narrative. Both contribute to the development of the future Hunger Games, Snow throughout tbosas and Katniss towards the end of Mockingjay.

It's easy to ignore these similarities because, as mirrors of each other, they are exact opposites. Katniss is from District 12, viewed and treated as less than human; Snow is the cream of the Capitol crop, given the privilege of a name with social weight, an ancestral home, and the opportunity of the Academy despite having no more money than a miner from 12. Katniss has no agency over her life, and responds by being kind whenever she's able, while Snow justifies horrendous evils in order to continue his quest for complete control. Katniss does everything she can to protect her family; Snow does everything he can to protect his family's image as an extension of his own ego. Katniss loves her District and connects with its inhabitants on a meaningful level, but Snow is indifferent at best to his peers - the apparent "superior people" - and only engages with his community for personal gain. Katniss emerges from the Arena horrified at herself and the system, but Snow takes his trauma and turns it into an excuse to perpetuate the violence with himself at the top. Katniss cares for Prim until her death and then snaps at the loss of her little sister, while Snow survives on Tigris' blood, sweat, and tears and then torments and abandons her, presumably because she calls him out on his insanity. Snow actively adds to and popularizes the Hunger Games because of his vendetta against the Districts following his childhood wartime trauma - Katniss briefly agrees to a new Hunger Games in the pursuit of vengeance, but later stops them from happening by killing Coin and choosing a life of peace and privacy. Snow is obsessed with revenge, but Katniss empathizes with the Capitolites and does what she can to keep them from suffering. He exists in a cruel system and selfishly upholds it; she exists in a cruel system and works to dismantle it for the good of her family and community, at great personal cost. And Peeta and Lucy Gray are incredibly similar, but Katniss and Peeta forge a relationship of genuine love and understanding that shines in comparison to Coriolanus' obsessive projection onto Lucy Gray.

So, yeah, Katniss is Lucy Gray haunting Coriolanus. But I bet you anything that eighty-something year old President Snow looks at her, the girl on fire, bright and young and brilliant, emerging from a childhood of starvation with a relentless hunger for success, a talented and charming performer helping her win the Games, and he sees the ghost of his own past. And that's why he's so afraid of her! Because if he sees himself in her, then he's up against his own cunning, his own talent for manipulation, his own charisma, his own genius. He's up against the version of himself that he once wished to be, with the nightmare army of his childhood at her back and her star-crossed lover at her side, spewing Sejanus' truths in his own voice. This isn't to say that Katniss ever achieved the level of power and agency that Coriolanus did during her time with the rebellion, but it is to say that Snow was taken down by what truly terrified him - his own morality, come to finish the job.

suzanne collins is such a genius... the cultural phenomenon of her series leading to the hanging tree house remixes, mockingjay being milked for two (bad) movies, the capitol-inspired makeup palettes, the halloween costumes, the explosion of the market for dystopia, the butchering of her characters and removal of disabilities, disfiguration, and racial tension + representation to sell more tickets, the extra gale scenes to fuel discourse, and the audience showing up to cinemas to watch what was pretty honestly marketed to them (the jacob vs edwardification of the symbolic love story and also to watch children fight to the death) it's just so ridiculously ironic i would say you can't write this shit, but she did write about it... in The Hunger Games published 2008

i think something that elevates the hunger games franchise is not just the quality of writing but the integrity of it. tbosas isn’t just a cash-grab by suzanne collins in the age of sequels and reboots (though i won’t pretend that didn’t play a part), it’s a character study of the main antagonist with a different structure than the main trilogy. and importantly, it doesn’t just re-hash the same old themes and beats the main trilogy had, it expands on not just the world of the hunger games but the themes as well, it actually has something new to say about the trilogy’s themes about class, capitalism, power, and control, in a way that couldn’t be explored with the main story because the protagonist of that story simply did not have access to the world that’s being explored in tbosas.

i understand the people who call for books/movies to be made about haymitch, finnick, johanna, different years of the games — we love those characters and want to see more of them! i’d kill for a novella on finnick’s days mentoring tributes, or katniss’s parents falling in love. but at the end of the day we probably wouldn’t be very satisfied with those stories being fleshed out if they had absolutely nothing new to say about the world, they’d be enjoyable, but not as interesting and engaging as tbosas has been.

Lena losing her patience and furiously berating Gwen for potentially endangering the staff members of the OAIR is quite literally the opposite of how Elias ran the Archives.

Elias used the Archival staff—as well as his Archivist—as pawns that can be readily replaced as needed. His patron offered them minimal protections at best (the Archivist’s privileges notwithstanding), and even then, he would never actually intervene to save any of them if they were in danger, much less take precautions to protect them at their headquarters. They are used as bait, as sacrifices, as currency, as objects. The listener knows, eventually, how easily he could discard them if his plans called for it.

But Lena. This episode showed us that Lena keeps her entire organization running through keeping her subordinates hidden, safe, and unnoticed by the Externals. It’s quite clear through her conversation with Gwen that such a safety risk has never happened before.

As far as we know, Lena has successfully kept all of her employees alive, watched them come and go, bemoaned the turnover rate, and then got them to look the other way while they documented and dutifully filed the horrors.

But most impressive of all, she’s kept her real work hidden from her subordinates, and her subordinates hidden from her real work—a feat Elias had no interest or desire to accomplish.

"Who needed wealth and success and power when they had love? Didn't it conquer all?" -Coriolanus Snow

Yup. That's it. That's the end of their story. No need to turn the other pages that's the end of the book. Coriolanus Snow finally learned all the right lessons. They lived happily ever after. (in denial)

After watching this franchise and reading the books- I just love that Katniss and Peeta at the last scene of the series are in the meadow living their lives peacefully, the very SAME meadow where Snow once considered "Didn't Love conquer all?".

It did.

Emo dad & ray of sunshine

Something a lot of people don't realise is that Katniss likes Peeta as a person.

That plays a far bigger part in her wanting to spend her life with him than his undying love for her. It's not like how Gale imagined it or some readers interpret it to be, that Katniss loves Peeta because of how much he loves her and is devoted to her.

For a long time, Peeta's undying love for her only made her feel guilty because she thought she couldn't give him what he wanted, which we know is completely false, but she got it in her head.

She assumed Peeta wanted children and never bothered to ask. She assumed Peeta wanted her undying love as well and thought she didn't harbor that feeling for him. Both were wrong, but the point is that Peeta "simping" for her did nothing for him to win her over.

She wants to be with Peeta because they always get along from the moment they're put together. They enjoy each other's company and have intellectual and deep conversations. They didn't even realize how soul-searching it was when they talked about wanting to die as their true selves on the roof before the first game. But they've been like that from day one.

Katniss had been spending a lot more time with Gale by that point, but they had never talked about something that deep. That's part of the reason their relationship starts falling apart the moment they need to align their morals. They never talked about it, period.

Katniss and Peeta are compatible in morals, ideals, and even humor. They can laugh together in a deadly game. They can tease each other in any circumstances. That's what makes their relationship enjoyable. That's why they'd still end up together even if the games never happened. I stand by that.

based solely on chaos’ design floating around on the internet, i have a theory.

that’s maegara’s body. chaos is literally possessing maegara’s body. (that is maegara’s one bat wing.)

that is chaos’ old design being held in maegara’s hand. it’d be one thing if it looked more like, i don’t know, a snakeskin? like something chaos had naturally shed and sloughed off? but instead it looks like someone (probably chronos) ripped out chaos’ head and spinal cord in battle. and i think that makes sense, that the two of them would have squared off. chaos is not like the fates. they loved nyx, they would have left their realm and fought for nyx directly.

the living fetus trailing out of the head’s mouth tells me this kind of injury is something chaos can naturally, eventually, regenerate from. but in the meanwhile, recovery on their own means being vulnerable. a primordial entity in the shape of a fetus is still a fetus. in the meantime, chaos would need a new body, a temporary vessel they’d be capable of defending themself with.

the only question is if maegara volunteered for this.

but i think she might have.

if this still sounds bonkers, consider it doylistically. chaos’ original design was unique and striking. do you honestly think supergiant would just throw away an excellent character design like that for nothing? for no story related reasons at all?

so my prediction is this: one of melinoe’s quests will involve helping restore (or speed up the restoration of) chaos’ body (which will then free maegara).

Over the course of the game, roll a d20 every so often.

This measures the progress of a different, unmentioned party of adventurers who are on their own quest to stop an unrelated threat to the entire mortal world.

If you get a one they fuck up and die so the world abruptly ends with no warning.

Fucking FASCINATED by Astarion’s Test of Love with the nymph at the circus.

When she asks

1. When he’s happiest

2. What he wants most

3. What his biggest fear is

You gain approval for responding with the very surface level things that are a little true but not really the real answer.

1. Elbow deep in gore

2. Revenge

3. Breaking a nail

But getting the answers right and truly passing the test means gaining disapproval, because he is both upset that you are saying the quiet parts about himself out loud, and that you are revealing the deepest truest parts of himself to a stranger (the nymph testing you.)

1. Astarion has never been truly happy

2. Freedom

3. Being enslaved

There are so many ways to interpret this, so many ways to play the test out based on your character and your relationship dynamic, and it’s brilliant writing on Larian’s part in that way.

Personally, the way I interpret it is as a parlell to the mirror scene in Act 1.

Astarion is thrilled at what he admits is “shallow praise” because the shallowest parts of his appearance make him feel beautiful.

But, if, when “being reflected through someone else’s eyes” he is instead met with objectively true and more unique qualities of his, like laugh lines and the way his hair curls around his ears, he becomes distressed and begs to just be told he’s beautiful.

Astarion puts a LOT of work into performing his outer persona just as he wants it, he puts a lot of work into controlling how he is perceived.

When in the mirror scene and the Test of Love someone sees past that immediately, seemingly with little effort, he doesn’t know how to handle it.

The way that Dariax is the only one to end up alone at the end of this.

Opal has Fy'ra; they have their deities. Morrighan has Cyrus's soul for a moment and a Matron for a lifetime. Dorian has the Bells Hells once more. But Dariax... for a while, at least, Dariax will have no one.

And it's in the way that Dariax won't realize at first that he's been abandoned.

Maybe he'll think he lost track of time. He'll go traipsing through town, asking about a handsome blue bard, trying to figure out what inn they must've agreed to meet back at for the night. Because they must have, right?

The night grows dark, and still no sign. He'll get sick with worry. He knows he's thick, but surely he would've noticed if something happened, right? He would've known if Dorian was in danger?

And then... I don't know what's worse from there.

What story does he tell himself, in the end?

That Dorian blames him for not being able to save his brother? No, no, Dorian was taken—because he would never have abandoned him, not when they were all the two of them had left?

Dariax has always known he was a lot to handle. He's been told how exhausting he can be. He knows he has never been worth sticking around for.

But he thought—

—he thought that maybe he'd done it right this time. That maybe someone would stay.

Eventually, Dariax stops looking. He greets isolation like an old friend.

He plays his new lute to fill the lonely silence, and it does not help.