ladylilithprime

[ladylilithprime]

Happy April 25th Everyone. Remember your light jacket.

[ladylilithprime]

[ladylilithprime]

🟢 You are still a writer even when you haven't written in a while.

🟢 You are still a writer even when you feel like you aren't writing enough.

🟢 You are still a writer when you feel like your work isn't good.

🟢 You are still a writer when other people don't like your work.

🟢 You are still a writer when you aren't published.

🟢 You are still a writer when you only have works in progress.

🟢 You are still a writer if all you write is fanfiction.

[ladylilithprime]

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.

[ladylilithprime]

One day a priest prayed for a prophet and was answered by God. “I have sent thousands of prophets. They are among the writers, philosophers, activists, and scientists. Yet you have condemned them as heretics and silenced them in one form or another. Why should I send more to be ignored?”

[ladylilithprime]

Fucked up how humanity discovered electricity and radiation and made machines and learned to make airplanes and cured diseases and our takeaway isnt that "Some Magic Is Real And Here's Why", but that magic is fake this is big boy science and it's totally not magical

[ladylilithprime]

By LabradoriteKing on Pinterest

[ladylilithprime]

abstract and modern art haters are sooo snobby like klein literally Created an entirely new pigment and then painted a canvas in a way where the brush strokes wouldn't be visible. the insinuation that people with no skill could reproduce that is so annoying because unless you are skilled at color mixing and painting you definitely couldn’t lmao

[ladylilithprime]

#princess mononoke

[ladylilithprime]

(What we have in mind for now are black dragons, with low density silver glitter, silver enamel, so that the pride flag pops)

[ladylilithprime]

Caves are weirder and more varied than you think

[ladylilithprime]

I've found if you're making a complicated recipe it helps a lot to identify which steps can be done ahead of time so here are some tips I use

pre-cut any vegetables: get your vegetables together and do any chopping or mincing that needs to be done

place the cutting board with your vegetables in the unplugged countertop toaster oven. vital step to minimize the number of cat paws that get in your vegetables. do not skip this step.

pre-mix sauces: identify any sauces that can be made ahead of time and mix those ingredients

put the sauce bowl in the microwave for safe keeping. we're not heating it. it just lives there. this is very important to minimize amount of cat paw in sauce. do not skip this step.

assemble any dry mixes you might need

place the dry mix in the not-turned-on oven. this helps protect the flavor by minimizing the chance of the dry mix finding new life as crime-scene toebean footprints walking away from the kitchen. do not skip this step.

#cooking with cats

[ladylilithprime]

bring back tumblr ask culture let me. bother you with questions and statements

#please?

[ladylilithprime]

#hilariously the area of maryland where i live is absolutely the right vibe #but the closest they came were baltimore and ilchester #almost two hours away and much more populated

[ladylilithprime]

#it me #tigers #i swear i get tagged on this one every time a mutual finds it and i love it

[ladylilithprime]

a message for you

[ladylilithprime]

probably i just said it but i want to say it again:

- don’t apologise if you don’t know english.

- yes, english is the most common language on the internet but you are not forced to know it perfectly.

- your own language is beautiful.

- non-english people make a huge effort to write in English everyday on this website.

- support non-english people and don’t make them feel bad if they do not know English. 

- actually support all the languages.

- spread more language diversity on Tumblr.

thank you.