elysiiandie

[elysiiandie]

Paolo Sebastian spring 2018 couture

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lit meme: [1/6] books or series → the mortal instruments

“Heroes aren’t always the ones who win,“ she said. “They’re the ones who lose, sometimes. But they keep fighting, they keep coming back. They don’t give up. That’s what makes them heroes.”

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Dacre Montgomery in Power Rangers

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#the saturday night for introverts starter pack

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Phoebe Tonkin photographed by Darren McDonald for Elle Australia (2017)

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Thinking about Steve Harrington and why I really love his redemption arc, and I think one of the big things is that, like… he doesn’t really get anything out of it? He gets his ass kicked in every season. His girlfriend dumps him (after cheating on him, depending on how you interpret everything that went down with Nancy and Jonathan). He went from the being the most popular guy in the school to a loser, a joke. His social circle consists of middle school students. The next girl he falls for turns out to be a lesbian. He couldn’t get into college and is working a shitty minimum wage job in an embarrassing uniform. In his words, he makes three bucks an hour and he has no future.

Like, he’s never rewarded by the narrative for becoming a good person, and he’s never given any Freudian excuses for how much of a dick he was through most of S1. He just realized that he was being shitty and decided to do better. I appreciate that.

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i love bread and i dont care what happens to me because of it

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↳ Billie Lourd as Mallory in American Horror Story: Apocalypse • ( Requested by anon )

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when theres drama on tumblr but have no idea whats going on

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Ben Barnes photographed by John Russo for Gio Journal, 2019.

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Crackships by Dale Cooper.   Alvaro Rico & Kristine Froseth . follow me :)

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i hate everyone else in the world (but you); — a rue + jules playlist.

now that i found you – carly rae jepsen // colors – halsey // it’s not living (if it’s not with you) – the 1975 // dancing on my own – robyn // boyfriend – tegan and sara // dope – lady gaga // new americana – halsey // sober – demi lovato // love on the brain – rihanna // sleepover – hayley kiyoko // pills – st. vincent // wasted youth – fletcher // screwed – janelle monae ft. zoe kravitz // adore you – miley cyrus // a world alone – lorde // fast slow disco – st. vincent // wake me – bleachers // i’m in love with my best friend – sälen // hymn – kesha // scars to your beautiful – alessia cara // new in town – little boots // can’t feel my face – kina grannis // not alone – otto knows // so happy i could die – lady gaga // she sets the city on fire – gavin degraw // something more – aly & aj // i know a place (acoustic) – muna // recovery – broods // your type – carly rae jepsen // like you like that – l devine // i think i’m in love – kat dahlia // carry you home – james blunt // give me life – lewis watson // anyone else but you – the moldy peaches // no drug like me – carly rae jepsen // use somebody – kings of leon // reckless love – bleachers & elle king // can’t stand it – never shout never // little of your love – haim // your love is my drug – kesha // bright – echosmith.

 [listen here]

[elysiiandie]

But imagine Hades, the God of the underworld, the mighty and powerful seated on a throne of skulls handing out punishment to sinners cowering in front of his dark and fearsome aura and suddenly Persephone skips in the room, humming a bright tune, twirling in her pretty colourful dress and she skips to Hades and places a flower crown on his head and Hades is like ‘Honey, I’m trying to do my job here.’ or ‘I have an image to maintain, I’m the God of Underworld!’ and Persephone just smiled cutely at him and pecks his cheek and Hades just kinda sighs because he’s so whipped by his little sunshine but it’s just so hard.

[elysiiandie]

I think the Hunger Games series sits in a similar literary position to The Lord of the Rings, as a piece of literature (by a Catholic author) that sparked a whole new subgenre and then gets blamed for flaws that exist in the copycat books and aren’t actually part of the original.

Like, despite what parodies might say, Katniss is nowhere near the stereotypical “unqualified teenager chosen to lead a rebellion for no good reason”.  The entire point is that she’s not leading the rebellion. She’s a traumatized teenager who has emotional reactions to the horrors in her society, and is constantly being reined in by more experienced adults who have to tell her, “No, this is not how you fight the government, you are going to get people killed.” She’s not the upstart teenager showing the brainless adults what to do–she’s a teenager being manipulated by smarter and more experienced adults. She has no power in the rebellion except as a useful piece of propaganda, and the entire trilogy is her straining against that role. It’s much more realistic and far more nuanced than anyone who dismisses it as “stereotypical YA dystopian” gives it credit for.

And the misconceptions don’t end there. The Hunger Games has no “stereotypical YA love triangle”–yes, there are two potential love interests, but the romance is so not the point. There’s a war going on! Katniss has more important things to worry about than boys! The romance was never about her choosing between two hot boys–it’s about choosing between two diametrically opposed worldviews. Will she choose anger and war, or compassion and peace? Of course a trilogy filled with the horrors of war ends with her marriage to the peace-loving Peeta. Unlike some of the YA dystopian copycats, the romance here is part of the message, not just something to pacify readers who expect “hot love triangles” in their YA. 

The worldbuilding in the Hunger Games trilogy is simplistic and not realistic, but unlike some of her imitators, Collins does this because she has something to say, not because she’s cobbling together a grim and gritty dystopia that’s “similar to the Hunger Games”. The worldbuilding has an allegorical function, kept simple so we can see beyond it to what Collins is really saying–and it’s nothing so comforting as “we need to fight the evil people who are ruining society”. The Capitol’s not just the powerful, greedy bad guys–the Capitol is us, First World America, living in luxury while we ignore the problems of the rest of the world, and thinking of other nations largely in terms of what resources we can get from them. This simplistic world is a sparsely set stage that lets us explore the larger themes about exploitation and war and the horrors people will commit for the sake of their bread and circuses, meant to make us think deeper about what separates a hero from a villain.

There’s a reason these books became a literary phenomenon. There’s a reason that dozens upon dozens of authors attempted to imitate them. But these imitators can’t capture that same genius, largely because they’re trying to imitate the trappings of another book, and failing to capture the larger and more meaningful message underneath. Make a copy of a copy of a copy, and you’ll wind up with something far removed from the original masterpiece. But we shouldn’t make the mistake of blaming those flaws on the original work.

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She’s like warm days, sunshine, honey and love.

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Driving through rural New England after midnight in a snowstorm

November 2018