Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

coelasquid:

I think almost every time I’ve written a situation where I planned for a character to get killed off, when I thought like “well what if I didn’t do that” the prospect of them just dying seemed like the lazy way out, or something I was just writing because “that’s how stories like this go”.

Like, years ago when I thought I was going to be on an extended hiatus I was planning to do a MGDMT graphic novel that had nothing to do with video games and just focused on the original super soldier characters. Mostly the idea was the same theme, Macho Action Dude Reacting to Movie Tropes Like A Reasonably Normal Guy, so it was gonna have all the motions of those same old conventions, but play out differently. At one point the idea was “the girlfriend character dies and he has to deal with it like an emotionally believable person and not a larger than life action guy”. But when I thought about it, that didn’t sit well with me, because even if it was trying to comment on a trope, it was still “female character gets killed for no reason other than the male lead to have a character arc about it” and that rubbed me the wrong way. So I thought, okay, what if she still gets kinda messed up, so they build her some cool robot parts and she’s like Shit Yeah! This is the best! And she thinks it’s so rad having robot parts it kinda throws off the course her life was going down because suddenly the idea of being Robocop seems a lot more exciting than nesting with her high school sweetheart. And he doesn’t have to go have emotions about a dead girlfriend, he has to learn to come to terms with someone he was very close to having a life experience he can’t exactly empathize with that put her on a road to becoming the person she’s decided she wants to be, but not the person he ever planned on her becoming. So his arc is sort of dealing with the grief of a lost hypothetical person, and learning to respect her autonomy to make decisions that he might consider “a bad idea” but improve her quality of life as she wants to live it. Which, in the end, felt like a lot more of an interesting story than “the girl dies so the main character can have emotions about it. But I only got to that point by recognizing the original idea was stale and racking my brain to do something different.

I guess what I’m saying is, when I see professional TV writers get excited about what a twist it is that they kill a beloved character in something to shake up the snowglobe so to speak, I can’t help but think that they fell into that rut of thinking “this is the convention I have been trained to attach to this story”, and didn’t even stop to think there may have been a more interesting and unique route they could have gone. Intrigue comes from giving the audience something they don’t expect to see. It’s easy to think that killing a character for shock value suits that task, but that’s become such a normal device to throw out there that it doesn’t surprise anyone anymore. It’s always worth at least considering what would happen to the story if you didn’t just go down the first path that came into your mind, because the first will almost certainly be the most well-trodden with the least surprises along the way.

(via skymurdock)

captain–kitten:

captain–kitten:

You know who I’m always really happy for? The little guys who light the Beacons of Minas Tirith in Return of the King. Like their entire lives are sitting next to these pyres, just staring at another pyre, waiting for fire. Trudging up what looks to be Mount Fucking Everest and shit to get to these things, then just sitting and waiting. They can’t not be there, bc GOOD JOB TERRY GONDOR CALLED FOR AID AND YOU DECIDED TO SLEEP IN NOW GONDOR IS DEAD. So they just sit and wait, loyal but bored out of their skulls. Then one day it happens, Gondor calls for aid, and the first beacon is lighted. One by one, they ignite. And Terry is sitting there, fucking doing soduku or some shit, when he sees the flame flicker on the mountain across the way. This is it, this is fUCKING TERRY’S TIME TO SHINE. So he grabs the ignition stick leaning up against the beacon, sticks it into the small fire he has going to cook his breakfast and lunch on, barely containing his excitement as the rag-covered tip ignites. He takes a deep breath and then touches it to the dormant pyre, a mixture of awe and pride swimming through his veins as the flames lick up the wooden tiers, creating a blaze so large he has to step back. It’s beautiful, his orange and gold masterpiece. He whips around to look behind him, eye trained on the next beacon in the line. C'mon, c'mon, c'mon. And then finally, another fire! And Terry can’t contain it, he jumps around the burning beacon with joy, whooping and waving his ignition stick, having completed his sacred duty. His purpose is fulfilled and realized. He is elation personified. He has done it – hefted his share of the burden, played his integral part.

Four for you, Terry. You go, Terry.

I’m watching RotK again and it’s this scene and I still can only ever think of Terry. Lightin’ that beacon, savin’ that Gondor.

(Source: jonathansnowflakes, via cthulhu-with-a-fez)

In Which the Raft Will Fuck You (or Wanda) Up

For @littlestartopaz, Wanda/Vision, C (“Please, don’t leave”) and G (“I almost lost you”) from this, post CA:CW

Time for pain, children. Blame it on the fact that I found this gloriously accurate post full of thoughts about Wanda’s stint in the Raft.  In which Wanda has some trauma from being wrongfully imprisoned by a bunch of dickheads, and doesn’t talk much anymore.

“Wanda,” Steve said quietly, wrapping his hand around hers—he had tried to steer her by an elbow at first, the old habits of the forties coming up under stress, but she had stumbled back so quickly she’d barely missed falling off a curb.  “Come on, let’s go.”  He gave a tug and she drifted after him, silent.  He steered her toward the couch in their newest hideout and she let him push her down until she was sitting down, her hair pulled back into a tidy braid and her hands linked tightly together in her lap.  A blanket settled over her shoulders—Sam—and she slowly pulled her legs up to her chest, binding her arms tightly around her knees.

“We’re just going to be in the next room, kid,” Sam said, resting one hand on her shoulder, and waited, as if to give her a space to reply.  When she said nothing, he squeezed her shoulder and followed Steve out of the room. Wanda waited until they were gone and reached out with her fingers to catch the blanket and tug the corners over her hands.

Keep reading

consider:

magiric-magi:

slumbermancer:

slumbermancer:

Impressive wizard tattoos

This can either be impressive tattoos of impressive wizards, or impressive tattoos given by impressive wizards.

Both are good.

Consider: impressive tattoos ON impressive wizards

All right, but hear me out: impressive tattoos of impressive wizards on impressive wizards given by still other impressive wizards.

(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)

boys:

septemberpoems:

honeybee-x:

allboysarelovely:

if a girl is making you uncomfortable, YOU ARE ALLOWED TO SAY IT.

fucking crush the stereotype that men are always supposed to “want it”

It’s really such a sad idea. I remember once with my ex, I was kissing him when we were in bed, and it started getting more heated, but I could tell it felt different. I stopped and asked if he wanted to carry on, and he said yes, but I knew him well. I had to ask again before he admitted he wasn’t really feeling it at the time. It just made me feel so bad and so upset for him. I think there’s more pressure on men to be sexual. Men love sex, they’d never want to turn it down, if they do it’s unmanly, it’s gay, it’s girly. It’s something ingrained into them from such a young age. It’s terrible and wrong. They think they have no right to not want sex.

Not all men have sky-high sex drives. I doubt any man in the world wants sex 100% of the time. It’s fine to reject it in any situation, whether a planned one night stand or a committed relationship. It’s fine to change your mind before or halfway through.

Men, it is FINE for you to not want sex, and it is FINE to say no if you want to. In fact, please do. It’s not guaranteed the other person will be able to sense your discomfort.

All of this. It’s always okay to say no, or wait, or maybe not right now or whatever it is you’re feeling.

(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)

novellafreak13 asked: in the empress au who does vader care more about, padre or the twines (ie. if she ordered him to do something like kill them, would he?)

suzukiblu:

… ha. ha. ha. hahahahahahahahahaha THAT IS A GOOD QUESTION, FRIEND. 

Look, there is not really a “care more about” there, he literally can’t parse that between those three, but I think we can all agree Vader is not quiiiite hitting on all eight cylinders here. He has LITERALLY dissociated from “Anakin” as thoroughly as he is able to except for when Padmé wants the persona trotted out and oh yeah he’s still convinced Obi-Wan deserved, you know, to be SKEWERED and LEFT FOR DEAD in a FUCKING LAVA PIT. And look, sure, he murdered basically everyone he ever fought beside who isn’t currently under lifetime mind control, but that was for PADME, so it’s fine. Like, obviously. 

But long story short, yeah, Padmé COULD get Vader to kill the twins. She would have to do it in a very specific WAY–one that fit the script, one that was For The Best–but she could do it, yes. And he WOULD do it, yes. 

Alternately, the twins could get him to kill HER, if they came up with a reason that fit the script. It would be REALLY FUCKING HARD to do, though, and the likelier result would be ending up with a broken Sith Lord, and possibly whoever was trying to talk him into killing the other person being the dead one instead. Or, you know, both! ‘CAUSE YOU KNOW, HE DOES HAVE A HISTORY OF THAT KIND OF BEHAVIOR. 

Basically, you do not want to force Vader to choose, because if you do? He’s probably not choosing you.