nicsnovellife

[nicsnovellife]

The most productive reading month I’ve had since starting a new job back last August. Also my Muna phase continues.

🪩 June Favorites 🪩

📚: The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich

🎶: Crying on the Bathroom Floor by Muna

🍿: Spider-man: Across the Spider-verse

📺: The Bear

#nicsnovellife #june wrap up #spiderman #spider punk #carmen maria machado #the bear #derry girls #muna

[nicsnovellife]

May favorites 🛼

📚: Yellowface by RF Kuang

🍿: The Little Mermaid

📺: Queen Charlotte

🎶: Francesca by Hozier

#nicsnovellife #may wrap up #aapihm #rf kuang #muna #hozier

[nicsnovellife]

The ending of Francesca mirroring the feeling of a storm to play on the motif of punishment for the lustful being an endless hurricane that sweeps them off their feet only for the vocals to defiantly assert that he would not change a thing and that heaven could not fit such a love anyway, is exactly the kind of deconstructive intertextual brilliance I’m expecting from this album and this is exactly why I want to marry Mr. Hozier for his brain not his body

[nicsnovellife]

hozier was so insane for writing francesca. he announces the song and you’re like okay maybe he’s in love with someone named francesca and then really it’s about a pair of lovers from dante’s inferno, who fell deeply for each other outside of marriage and consequently were sent to hell for their “uncontrollable lust”. telling each other “put me back in it”, i would do it all again, i would condemn myself to hell to be with you both in life and after. god could give me the option over and over again and i would not change a single thing. our love has never been wrong, heaven is too small to fit a love like ours. why would he write that

[nicsnovellife]

where is that renaissance painting with those two fellers and a giant fucking random skull on the floor that looks like it was accidentally stretched out in photoshop

[nicsnovellife]

unironically people need to learn to say “they haven’t done anything wrong i just find them annoying”

[nicsnovellife]

Reading Queer the Map entries in small mountain towns and crying inconsolably

[nicsnovellife]

sorry but it’s actually so horrific how little of a sense of community people have, how little regard they extend towards the other humans around them. killing people for being loud on the subway or turning around in your driveway. loading your gun and waiting at the door because a child ran your doorbell unexpectedly. ring cameras, neighborhoodapp, community watch group Facebook pages. you’ve assigned yourself the role of the one true peacekeeper and casted everyone else around you as a threat to be controlled. there’s no connection or love or compassion. just a deep distrust and hatred.

and the people who face the most significant consequences from this are the ones who are already deemed as outsiders. people of color, especially Black people, disabled people, people with mental illnesses, homeless people.

[nicsnovellife]

☔️ April Favorites ☔️

📚: Mamo (Half a Soul was a close second)

🍿: Catching Fire

📺: Jury Duty

🎶: Stayaway by Muna (can you tell I saw Muna in concert this month?)

#nicsnovellife #april wrap up #Muna #the hunger games #anime

[nicsnovellife]

i have a face blindness but only specifically to my own face so every few months i challenge myself to draw a self-portrait. and because i have yet to get my likeness across i thought i would make up for it by adding little icons that get my personality across. context clues if you will.

#nicsnovellife #self portrait #digital art

[nicsnovellife]

I’ve been keeping track of all the media I consume each month for a while now so here’s my March wrap up. The Hunger Games Renaissance really got to me.

☘️ Favorites ☘️

📚: The Hunger Games

🍿: Catching Fire

📺: The Last of Us

🎶: Not Strong Enough by boygenius

#nicsnovellife #march wrap up #the hunger games #the last of us #boygenius #ethel cain #favorite

[nicsnovellife]

i would love to write a sapphic version of this movie. like this was screaming enemies to lovers to me.

LOLA STEPPE & CARLA SANTINI ↳ CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE DRAMA QUEEN ( 2004 ) dir. sara sugarman

#nicsnovellife #confessions of a teenage drama queen #lesbian #sapphic #queer books #my writing

[nicsnovellife]

[nicsnovellife]

strangers, ethel cain / bones and all (2022) dir. luca guadagnino

[nicsnovellife]

No rebellion was ever started because someone was an INFJ.

The reason why The Hunger Games trilogy holds up so well is because Suzanne Collins understood the genre she was writing in. Dystopian fiction is not just a fantasy apocalypse, it is a critique of the society the author is living in. The best dystopian fiction often gets the same praise of “wow it’s like they predicted the future” but that is usually because the author takes what is happening in reality and follows that through line to a very real future possibility. Climate change, lack of resources, authoritarian governments, extreme wealth gaps, media’s use of violence as a form of entertainment — those are just a few things depicted in the world of Panem that were real in 2008 America and are real to this day. This grounding in reality is, in my opinion, what makes The Hunger Games series so chilling, and so good.

The Hunger Games is such an interesting series but I'm always floored by how genuinely good and smart it is. I think it's easy to look back at the absolute nothingness that the YA dystopia genre became and curse out all of its leaders, but The Hunger Games was always a smart and interesting series that even in the first few pages of its first book gripped the reader with possibility.

And I think that's why it continues to be successful and loved in a way that even its popular contemporaries are not. Because there's nothing about the world it takes place that seems strange or impossible, yes even with the child murder games. Katniss tells us that Panem has formed from the ruins of North America, the countries of which ultimately fell due to conflict caused by climate change and lack of resources. Not only is this situation not impossible- it is literally probable, and seems more likely each year we go by the with our leaders pretending the climate crisis is not real. Like North America didn't fall under an evil "foreign power" who took away American (specifically the United States') values. This world wasn't formed over night. It emerged out of the brutality and greed of the world we currently live in.

And even with The Hunger Games as an event, the world still seems so immersed in this reality. It helps that events similar to this have taken place throughout history. The comparison between Rome and the Capitol is not exactly subtle, but it helps ground the Capitol's brutality in a very real history. Using this sort of barbarism as punishment AND entertainment (even to the ones being punished) has happened throughout history, and happens now in ways that are more concealed. Also, the Hunger Games being used as a reminder of the Capitol's control over the districts and a tactic to dissuade rebellion (with the idea that they will be crushed if they try to revolt) MAKES SENSE.

And making sense is why it is so successful. You know what doesn't make sense? Dividing the US into 5 character traits and making people who have more than one *dangerous,* or any of the other strange and contrived plots that came after it in the wake of its success. It works because its possible, and in a sick way, rational. It reminds us that humans can be brutal, and greedy, and evil. But they're not stupid. It's not improbable or even ineffective (for the rich at least) to create this world. class difference MEANS THINGS, and drives the conflict. It's the USA if we keep going down this path and ignore our impending doom.

#nicsnovellife #the hunger games #thg books #not to shade divergent but #dystopian fiction #book blog

[nicsnovellife]

those new boygenius songs, but make them lesbian pulp novels!

[nicsnovellife]

not strong enough, boygenius