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

BOOK REC

words-writ-in-starlight:

SWEET TRINITY.

IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT THERE IS A (VERY SMALL BUT APPARENTLY EXTANT) FAN BASE ON TUMBLR FOR THE KENCYRATH CHRONICLES.

Beloved followers and non-followers alike, let me tell you a thing.  The Kencyrath Chronicles are up there as my favorite books ever.  Not the way I talk about loving Harry Potter–Hogwarts is my home, to coin a phase–or even the way I love everything Robin McKinley has ever touched–and I love her stuff like I love BREATHING, it’s not always at the forefront of my mind but when I go too long without it I ache, go read all of it immediately.  No, no, no.  This, my love for the Kencyrath Chronicles, is a WHOLE OTHER CREATURE.  Just talking about these books makes my hands shake and my bones feel heavy and my blood become a tangible fizzy thing in my veins.  Like, if being in love doesn’t feel this good, I’m honestly not interested.  

These books are about grand sweeping battles between good and evil and how those grand ideals become petty and ugly and messy as soon as you look closely enough, and how people fight them anyway because it’s their purpose or because it’s their choice or because it’s their people they’re protecting.  Magic is rampant, from the great and hated Three-Faced God of the Kencyr people and its ‘blessed’ chosen ones, the Shanir, who are hated and cherished by their own people and by themselves for how close they are to their meddling deity, to the wandering bands of rathorn (ARMORED FLESH-EATING UNICORNS, PEOPLE, HOW MUCH MORE OF A PITCH DO YOU NEED) and the migratory trees (yes, you read that correctly).  The main character is wild and casually vicious and desperate to be gentle, and she is loved by people everywhere she goes but she’s never really one of them, and the running joke in-universe is that you can track her progress across the world by falling buildings and burning cities (”…the Riverlands in ruins and you in the middle of it, looking apologetic” is a personal favorite quote).  The writing style fucking breathes with power and imagination and magic.  I am not a tough sell on books, really I’m not, but these books.  Trinity.  The fact that these books are not the most popular things since Lord of the Rings fucking breaks my heart, it really does.

So like.  Go read them.  Immediately.  The first two books, God Stalk and Dark of the Moon, are sold as an omnibus called Dark of the Gods, and please forgive their God-awful covers (why is the canonically very flat-chested lead a D-cup?  Don’t know, just kind of relieved I read the older edition with the less awful cover).  If you’ve read them and you liked them, please please PLEASE COME INTO MY ASK BOX AND NEVER EVER LEAVE.

(On a somewhat related note, I’ve read more books than I could care to count in my life, so if anyone ever wants a fantasy/sci-fi rec, I got you, hit me up.)

littleboxoflaughter:

warriortomaiden:

jewishdragon:

Ms. Frizzle *in a star fleet uniform* “battle stations everyone”

We never violated the Prime Directive at my old school…

“Hey guys, after that last attack our nacelles are looking a little… warped.”

“CARLOS!”

(via yea-lets-do-this-shit)

diabolical-mastermind:

maskedlinguist:

rale:

it’s kinda cool how our generation has created actual tone in the way we write online. like whether we: write properly with perfect grammar, shrthnd everythin, use capitals to emphasise The Point, use extra letters or characters for emotion!!!!!, and much more - it means we can have casual conversations, effectively make jokes using things like sarcasm that’s usually hard to understand without context and much more. this “incorrect English” has really opened avenues of online conversation that isn’t accessible with “correct English” which is pretty interesting

#this is why attempts by the media to portray online communication by “’‘millenials”“ really frustrate me #because there are Rules okay #like see that’s different to saying ’'there are rules” (tags via @soaringsparrows)

My class and I literally taught some of the nuances of this to our english teacher, things such as the difference between “yes” and “yes.” or “..” and “…”. It makes perfect sense linguistically that we would create this complexity to ease communication in a medium without body language and tone, but what my teacher was really floored about was that none of this had ever “learned” it, we’re “native speakers” of a whole new type of english.

(Source: mcdyke, via yea-lets-do-this-shit)

Ya know what? Reblog this if you agree that online friends ARE real friends.

(Source: hforhinata, via johanirae)

pomegranateandivy:

rootbeergoddess:

ospreyarcher:

lucifuge5:

jennaambervisions:

devildork:

fidelioscabinet:

mathildia:

valeria2067:

tygermama:

imorca:

gothamtailor:

teashoesandhair:

roachpatrol:

followthebluebell:

rebelarian:

kehinki:

I want an inverse spy flick. The spy is a woman. Her whole team is made up of diverse women. All the villains are women. There is only one man in the entire movie and he is a Strong Male Character who is like 25 and decently ripped and has a scene where he slowly steps out of a pool wearing speedos because he is Confident and In Control of His Sexuality. We see his ass when he has to tug down his pants to get at the knife strapped to his thigh. His nipples are always erect for no fucking reason.

They are undercover in a nightclub. In order to keep their cover from being blown, he has to kiss another man. 

He knits to relieve stress and to keep his mind sharp. It is never discussed by any of the characters. 

Someone asks him how he knows how to do Traditionally Feminine Thing. “I have four sisters,” he answers.

This is also how he knows how to fight while armed with nothing but a purse, a high heel shoe, and a can of hair spray.  During this fight, he is, for no apparent reason, shirtless.

The lead spy is Helen Mirren. She nails the Action Boy in the shower. There’s a lot of lingering closeups on the way the shower spray runs across his breathlessly ecstatic face. We also hear every breathless whimper of his climax, while out in the hallway Lucy Liu is smoking impatiently, a duffel bag full of rocket launchers slung over her shoulder. The President isn’t going to kidnap herself, here, christ. 

Action Boy emerges in a small towel, sheepish yet radiant. Helen Mirren emerges in a tuxedo, also smoking, also with a duffel bag of rocket launchers. 

In one scene, the lead villain captures the Strong Male Character. He is, once more, inexplicably shirtless as she ties him to the chair. He makes some quips about his sexual independence before he is rescued by a sweat-drenched Helen Mirren, who kicks down the door and nukes everyone in the room. Strong Male Character’s hair remains perfect throughout the ordeal. 

Strong Male Character is heartlessly slain in front of Helen Mirren’s eyes despite all of his skills and combat prowess. His body slumps to the ground, lifeless but supple. Helen Mirren makes a witty quip at Strong Male Character’s killers before quickly and dramatically slaying them all.

She steals one last glance at Strong Male Character. His beautiful eyes stare back from a handsome face with perfectly tussled hair, lips positioned a if in a gentle sigh. There’s no bringing him back now. Helen Mirren walks away, stronger than before. Strong Male Character’s death has hardened her, but given her the strength and resolve to complete her task. 

Roll credits. 

An after credits preview clip comes on as a teaser. Helen Mirren with a huge explosion tearing things up behind her walks toward the camera with a new Strong Male Character wearing the tiny, tattered remnants of a burned shirt about his flexing pecs and deltoids, and he is carrying the bag of rocket launchers as he steps in behind her. 

So Matt Bomer?

I’m seeing Matt Bomer

and then fandom burns itself to the ground trying to find some guy to slash him with

Nah, Matt Bomer is almost 40. Despite his good looks and great bod, he’s way too old to play the shaggable romantic supporting character to 70-year-old Helen Mirren.

Matt Bomer plays Helen Mirren’s sadder-but-wiser ex, computer-savvy, gorgeous but still single, fiercely independent (but it’s all an act).

Helen Mirren shows up on his doorstep to ask him for one last hacker job, for old time’s sake. Matt hauls off to slap Helen in the face, but Helen catches his wrist, pulls him close, and kisses him long and hard. Matt struggles at first but finally melts into her embrace.

Lucy Liu strolls past them into Matt’s chic apartment, slapping Matt on the ass as she mutters “Some things never change, do they?”

Late the next night, as Matt and Helen hack into the CIA database, Helen tucks a stray lock of Matt’s hair behind his ear and asks him why there’s no husband or kids in the picture after all this time.

Matt turns his sad, beautiful eyes toward her and confesses that there has only ever been Helen for him, but he couldn’t stand never knowing if she would come back alive when she left on a mission. Helen and Matt nearly have a moment, but the computer beeps with the results of their search.

The next morning, Helen goes into the kitchen to find Matt’s 20-year-old nephew has come to stay for the weekend. Helen and the camera slowly pan up and down his gorgeous, toned, oiled-up and glistening body as he stands, nearly-naked but for his tight, black satin booty-short underwear, and starts making a gourmet vegetarian omelet.

He turns around and smiles at Helen. “You must be a friend of Uncle Matt. I’m Caden. You hungry?”

Helen’s eyes drift down to Caden’s bulging crotch. “Oh, I could eat,” she quips.

Helen Mirren and the actor who plays the 20 year old nephew get together in real life. Everyone is delighted by this. 

I don’t think financing this would be a problem; distribution probably would. We could hack into the network feed for the Super Bowl, perhaps.

I would watch this a million times

I love this so much I’m gonna illustrate it.

Here is @kehinki‘s part 1

OK, seriously, why isn’t this movie already real?

Somewhere a male studio exec has woken up screaming in agony, and he doesn’t know why. 

Someone start on a script. I might do it

Every time I see this it gets better.

(via slyrider)

I think this is really important:

mygayisshowing:

You don’t owe anyone sex. No one. 

Not even your boyfriend. 

“But he’s a guy…you know, they need it-” No. If you’re not in the mood, don’t do it. If you don’t feel like doing it, don’t be afraid to say no. 

And this is maybe even more important: if he’s being a bitch about it, run. 

(via yea-lets-do-this-shit)

miazaz:

zooophagous:

autobotsaboteur:

tamingtarot:

glumshoe:

therealcaitie:

glumshoe:

You know you grew up on Steve Irwin when you see a photo of a crocodile and think, “Wow. Just beautiful.”

And you see Stingrays as the devil themselves

nah man Steve would have forgiven that stingray and absolved it of its sins

He would have apologized for getting into the stingray’s space and making it afraid. 

He actually did! Some of Steve Irwin’s last words were, “it wasn’t his fault. I startled him.”

He actually did forgive the stingray. He knew that he had scared it, and that it was only acting to protect itself.

If you put your ear up to a seashell you can hear the sound of mY HEART BREAKING INTO A THOUSAND LITTLE PIECES

This is why I get so mad whenever my folks have Animal Planet on lately and it’s all about WHAT ANIMALS ARE GOING TO MURDER YOU IN YOUR FACE?

EXOTIC PETS RIP OWNER TO SHREDS!

SNAKES! WILL THEY EAT YOU? (YES)

Steve Irwin (and at the time at least his contemporary follow-behind Jeff Corwin) ushered in such a pure unbridled LOVE of exotic, ferocious, terrifying animals. He respected the animals so much, he loved them.

Yes, crocs would charge and snakes would lunge, but he would respect when the animal deemed its boundaries well crossed and let it go back on its merry reptilian way.

This was the Tone for my childhood. My education of wild animals was Steve Irwin talking about how beautiful this deadly crocodile was, how majestic and chill and peaceful coexistence could be.

It was Jeff Corwin screaming and yelling at people at the discovery of a snake carcass, killed because of ignorant fear of it. It was harmless, and lost, and scared, and decapitated and he was livid. Why? Why would you do that? It was non-venomous, it didn’t want to be where it was any more than you wanted it to be where it was – why didn’t you call someone to release it?

And now it’s just… “Everything is murderous and animals will eat your face and everything is Ruthless Killing Machines”

and just.

I feel like I’m watching my own father’s work be tainted whenever AP is on. It’s so upsetting.

Yes.  Thank you.  This is exactly why I can’t stand some of the stuff they air now.  Because yes, that shark or snake or crocodile could kill you, but so could a reasonably determined domestic cat, so could another human being, you’re so much more likely to die at the hands of a human being, and if that animal is coming after you it’s because you’re in its home or you’re hurting it or something and God I could just cry.

(via yea-lets-do-this-shit)

Every once in a while I remember that, during the last round of workshopping people’s writing in my fiction class, I got into a fight with my teacher and the rest of the class about whether or not motive mattered in writing.  This one story was about this guy who was a serial killer and his girlfriend who…evidently knew he was a serial killer for months if not years and did nothing and the last scene was her murdering him with poison in his food.  (There were a lot of really heavy rape-y abusive overtones and I was kind of like…sweetheart, have you considered therapy rather than exorcising your issues onto all of us.)  And I made what I thought was the totally valid remark of “Well, it’s not clear what makes her snap and murder him; like, she’s known for a while, generally people don’t just suddenly DECIDE to kill their significant other who they’ve shown no violent inclinations toward in the past without some sort of prompting, and like you don’t need to get into the motive much in the story but maybe hint at it?  Because murder?”

And the whole class basically sat around talking about how motive doesn’t matter and it’s fine that she just kills him for no apparent reason and how in writing it’s fine if there’s no motive because the characters do what they need to for the writer’s plot to work and I was just like “Wow, that’s right, this is why I fight with most of you about writing so much, it’s because in order for a plot to function, motives need to…like…exist.”

Like, if your character goes to get a smoothie, it matters if they’re getting it because they’ve had a bad day and smoothies are a fave, or because they’re on a health kick and they’d rather have a milkshake, or because they’re meeting someone there, or whatever.  It changes the character’s backstory and behavior.  Am I crazy?