therealoliviahawkins - Tumblr blog

[therealoliviahawkins]

i love you purple i love you lavender i love you lilac i love you wisteria i love you violet i love you mauve i love you periwinkle i love you amethyst i love you

[therealoliviahawkins]

aww i’m so glad!! and thank you, purple is my favorite color right now :)

not an ask i guess but i just wanted to say that your blog is very pleasing to look at :) the colors and aesthetic of it are very nice and calming to me and i felt like you should know

Hi! This is so very sweet of you, thank you so much <3 I actually do worry about these things so this is a big relief! I'll always be a pink supremacist, I find it calming as well. I love the lilac you've used on your blog!

[therealoliviahawkins]

i am but a small dog, shifting with the sun to chase the warmth of its rays through the window within the confines of my freezing office

[therealoliviahawkins]

Helpful Links:

Character Analyses/Essays  Film Analyses/Essays  Literature Analyses/Essays  Song/Lyric Analyses/Essays

Voices by House of Heroes

Writing Thoughts 

[therealoliviahawkins]

voices by house of heroes 

an analysis

(i’m sure these things have been noticed before but i was thinking hard about this song in the car earlier and wanted to rant about it so here, have a rant) 

thinking about the lyrics to this song and specifically the second verse, the lines that go 

“in a graceless world i was graceless / i’m just a murderer cuz murder was my only chance / though I’m wretched i am not faithless / the ears of God hear everything / and He hears them still / every cry (every breath), every lamb that i’ve slain / just to save myself / how can God show mercy? I was merciless to them” 

and how it starts off as a confession: “in a graceless world I was graceless” 

he was unwilling to forgive, unwilling to budge on the rules and ideas that drove him to commit the atrocities that haunt him 

“I’m just a murderer cuz murder was my only chance”

he had to learn that it was kill or be killed, and he decided that he wanted to live. he wanted to survive, even though to do so meant to kill innocents in the name of the game. 

“though i’m wretched I am not faithless”

and this line, oh, this line -- it’s hopeful, even for just an instant. he believes, he hopes, he desperately throws his faith out towards a God that maybe, maybe could forgive him -- 

“the ears of God hear everything” 

but he knows that God has heard. God has heard every kill, every sin he has committed, and how could God forget the things he has done? 

“and he hears them still / every cry (every breath), every lamb that i’ve slain” 

the idea of a lamb connotes innocence, purity -- he has killed those who did not deserve it, those who had done nothing, and he knows it. he knew it when he slew them, and yet. 

he also knows that God is a God of outcasts. a protector of the innocent. an advocate for the downcast, downtrodden, the afraid. and he knows that a perfect God, an eternal God, would be able to continue to recall in perfect detail the things he’s done to others, to those innocents, the ones that he should have been fighting to protect. 

“just to save myself” 

he knows that the things he did were done out of purely selfish motives; he understands that a selfless, moral God cannot abide with such reasoning, but still he longs, he hopes for that forgiveness, for that idea that his faith is not misplaced despite his sins, the thought that God is a God of forgiveness and grace in a world that refuses to show any to anyone. 

also!! the parallel here!! between the “lambs” slain by the narrator as a means of survival and the perfect Lamb that was slain for the sins of the world. the juxtoposition drawn by the idea of his lambs being slain out of a selfish desire for self-preservation, a raw, human urge, and the idea of the Lamb of God giving Himself up willingly for the sins of others, for sins He hadn’t ever even committed, is just ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, it’s Good Stuff. 

the idea of the lambs being slain also calls to mind the Old Testament idea of animal sacrifices as a means of absolving the sins of the people who were doing the sacrificing -- which, of course, was a setup for the New Testament idea of Jesus’ sacrifice -- and the imagery of the narrator’s desperate, desperate attempt to absolve himself of his sins by sacrificing “lambs” on the altar of his own disobedience. he’s realizing how futile this is now, how much he needs the forgiveness of his God, since he cannot create it for himself. 

“how can God show mercy? i was merciless to them” 

as he realizes that his own shoddy, half-formed forgiveness is a lost cause, he also starts to realize just how far he has fallen in his attempts to absolve himself. he knows that even a forgiving God has to punish sin, that the things he has done should and have pulled him far away from the faith he claimed to hold. 

but then, then we get the part at the end. the part where he starts speaking, where he’s preaching to us as the listeners but also to himself, as the narrator desperately searching to find the forgiveness he’s already been granted: 

“your greatest sin is not the abortion that you’ve asked forgiveness for, or the adultery or whatever it is that you did in your life, in a past that you’re ashamed of, that keeps haunting you. 

your greatest sin is not believing God’s word when God says you’re forgiven.

your greatest sin is unbelief. 

you wanna repend of something, friend? 

stop repenting of sins that you’ve already repented of, and repent of your unbelief!” 

[therealoliviahawkins]

Getting Started

So . . . getting started. 

People always say that starting a new project is the hardest part, and the thing about that is, they're right. 

Getting started is tough. I've written novels, published stories, and read and edited enough introductory paragraphs to know how true this is. 

The idea will be sitting in your brain, chomping at the bit for you to get it down on the page, and then the instant you try to start typing, the words betray you and you find yourself staring at an empty screen. 

If you've ever had to write anything, you know what I mean. 

Starting something new is daunting. It's scary. Doubts and questions swirl around in your mind as you second guess everything, as you wonder if you're even cut out for this writing gig. You stare at that cursor, blinking incessantly like a child trying to get its mother's attention, and the pressure to start, to put something on the page just builds and builds. 

But then you take a breath, close your eyes, swallow, and just start. 

And all of a sudden it's like a floodgate has been opened. 

Or maybe it isn't. It goes both ways, and there's no way of telling which result you'll get until you try.

[therealoliviahawkins]

On purpose!! love people on purpose!!! find someone wonderful and love them and tell them it wasn’t an accident, you had a choice, you saw who they were and realized how lovely it would be to love them, and it is!! i made a good decision! i love you on purpose!!

[therealoliviahawkins]

what up homies we gonna be revamping this blog over the next few days to make it better than before

so

I'm not sure exactly what that means yet but buckle your seatbelts because here we go

[therealoliviahawkins]

He’s in the soup! 💕

[therealoliviahawkins]

[therealoliviahawkins]

“she loves you, you know. she’s just afraid to show it.”

[therealoliviahawkins]

but darling, you’ve got stars in your eyes